2023年、豊田市美術館で開催された展覧会『ねこのほそ道』の展覧会図録。飼いならされることなく、野生を保ちながら、言葉の秩序から逃れる不可思議な生きものとして存在する「ねこ」。6人の美術作家と1人の建築家が参加した本展では、「ねこ」を描いた絵画や写真作品、その自立した気まぐれな態度を連想させるインスタレーションなど、各作家が自由な発想で「ねこ」に着想を得た作品を紹介。本書では、インスタレーションビューを中心に、時にはねこの視点の展示風景も織り交ぜながら作品が収録されています。また、各作家のテキストのほか、飴屋法水、清水知子、能勢陽子のエッセイや論考も掲載。本そのものもやわらかく、ねこが爪で引っ掻いたような加工が施された小口など、ねこの要素が随所に綴じられたユニークな造本設計もお楽しみください。ブックデザインは加納大輔によるもの。

出品作家：泉太郎、大田黒衣美、落合多武、岸本清子、佐々木健、五月女哲平、中山英之＋砂山太一

The exhibition “Cat’s Narrow Road” at Toyota Municipal Art Museum introduces contemporary artworks that evoke the freedom, wildness, humor, and nonsensical behavior of cats – unfettered creatures flowing back and forth between hollows –inside and outside– as they please, with the ability to deviate from linguistic order. In this show with six artists and one architect duo, the love for what we feel is familiar and the existences overlooked in society emerge not only in the simple representation of cats but also in the questioning of the ubiquitous. These artists’ and architects’ works appear in the exhibition spaces but further go out to decorate the ceilings, hallways, and even the tea rooms; through such stretches and inversions of space, they guide us to step out of our consolidated concepts of values.

Alongside works like Ken Sasaki’s “Neko” (2017), the painting of a cat used as the key visuals for this exhibition, installations such as that of Tam Ochiai’s “Ookii Teeburu (Oka)” (2023) with drawings, sculptures, objects, and articles of daily use displayed on a large table, recreate an organically connected hill with each piece in its own right and thus portray the capricious cats unconfined to a space. Emi Otaguro’s large-scale photographic work “sun bath” (2023) captured the human-shaped chewing-gum sculpture on top of a stray cat that visited the atelier and fell asleep unwary. In this view of a resting person made with gum chewed for relaxation in a field of cat fur, there are multiple layers of comfort.  

In addition, a range of artworks by Taro Izumi, Sayako Kishimoto, Teppei Sotome, Hideyuki Nakayama + Taichi Sunayama uniquely and freely inspired by cats are exhibited together.

This exhibition catalog is composed of installation views intertwined with a few scenes of the exhibition seen from the perspective of cats. Essays and studies by Norimizu Ameya, Tomoko Shimizu, and Yoko Nose accompany the texts written by each artist. Like the type of paper that softens the whole book and the rough fore-edge mimicking the cat scratch, hints that physically remind us of cats are also incorporated in this book design by Daisuke Kano.

Artists: Taro Izumi, Sayako Kishimoto, Hideyuki Nakayama + Taichi Sunayama, Tam Ochiai, Emi Otaguro, Ken Sasaki, Teppei Sotome

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Pages: 210
Size: 210x150 mm
Softcover
Japanese, English

Published by torch press, 2023