Yoko Inoue
Mandala Flea Market Mutants:
Pop Protocol and the Seven Transformations of Good-luck National Defense Cats, 2012
Smack Mellon, NY
My role: Curator / Produced multimedia exhibition and managed installation and deinstallation.
Yoko Inoue’s multimedia installation Mandala Flea Market Mutants: Pop Protocol and the Seven Transformations of Good-luck National Defense Cats transforms the gallery into a maze of vending booths derived from traditional Japanese temple fairs. Inoue’s subversive marketplace installation links aspects of Japanese sub, pop and political culture through a fantastic assortment of hybridized objects, many hand cast from mass produced items found in multicultural urban markets. Inoue will be on site for the duration of the exhibition, transforming the marketplace even further into a “thinking place” not limited to commerce.
Inoue is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the commoditization of cultural values and assimilation and identity issues in the form of installation and public intervention performance art. Originally from Kyoto, Japan, Inoue earned an MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been shown at Brooklyn Museum, Sculpture Center, Rubin Museum, Momenta Art and Art in General in New York and at other international and national venues. She has received Guggenheim Fellowship, The Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture and Cross Disciplinary/Performative Work, Tides Foundation Lambent Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, Franklin Furnace Fund, GAPS 9-11 Fund from LMCC and other grants. Most recently she received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award. Residencies include Skowhegan, LMCC Workspace, Smack Mellon, .ekwc in The Netherlands, Civitella Ranieri in Italy and Sacatar Foundation in Brazil. Inoue was awarded the LMCC Paris Residency at Cité Internationale des Arts.
More info about the exhibition on Smack Mellon website.
Image courtesy of the artist and Smack Mellon. Photo by Etienne Frossard.