MAP	OF MEANINGS
Exhibition venues PLATTFORM - Raum für Kunst A-1010 Wien, Fleischmarkt 11 Griechenbeisl-Haus, 2. Stock www.plattform-kunst.com Opening hours: daily 4 pm to 7 pm Cuisine Digitale/MQ quartier 21 MuseumsQuartier A-1070 Wien, Museumsplatz http://quartier21.mqw.at Opening hours: daily 10 am to 8 pm Minako SAITOH Born 1962, lives and works in Japan. Selected exhibitions: 2004   Locus for one Businessman’s art collection, Fukui Art Museum, Fukui, Japan Gazing the Society, Oita Art Museum, Oita, Japan 2003 Brunswiker Raum, Germany Memory, Fujikawa Gallery/Next, Osaka, Japan 2002 Oita Art Museum, Oita, Japan The First Fuchu Biennial, Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan 2001 Viewing Room Yotsuya, Tokyo, Japan 1998 Self Portrait, Gallery Nikko, Tokyo, Japan 1997 Behind the Moon, Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan anti-cool (Tomoko TAKAHASHI) Born 1976, lives and works in Japan. Selected performances 2004 Spark Contemporary Art Space, New York Wunder der Prärie, International Festival, Mannheim You are Here Festival 2004, Nottingham, UK 2003 Echigostumari Art Triennale, Nigata, Japan 4th International Performance Festival, Odense, Denmark Dresden Performance Festival, Dresden, Germany Anti-cool Performance Art Series and Talk Shows, Yokohama National University, Japan 2002 Performance Festival, High Calibre, Berlin Asiatopia 2002, International Performance Art Festival, Bangkok, Thailand 2001 International Festival for Unusual Live Performance, Helsinki Duration 5 July to 14 July, 2005 Opening/press conference PLATTFORM - Raum für Kunst 5 July, 2005, 7 pm artist talk                             Cuisine Digitale/MQ quartier 21 10 July, 2005, 6 pm Moderation: Dieter Buchhart Curator Toni Kleinlercher kuspace association www.kuspace.org	Japanese art in Vienna The project MAP OF MEANINGS provides six Japanese artists from various artistic genres including film, photography, video, fine arts, music and performance art with an opportunity to conduct intercultural studies in Vienna as part of an `artist-in-residence` project. The artistic results presented reflect the project participants` confrontation with the `meanings` and `practices` of everyday life in Vienna as well as their experience with the local art scene interpreted against their individual backgrounds. This exhibition is produced by kuspace association as a contribution to the Japan-Year held across the European Union in 2005. About the project Map of Meanings deals with the meanings and practices of everyday life, in other words with the way daily activities and rituals, for example TV watching, cooking and eating, greeting or celebrating are dealt with in different cultures. Within the context of cultural studies, described by the English cultural historian and sociologist Raymond Williams (1921–1988) as `a particular life style of individuals or during a particular period or of a group of people` (Culture and Society), not only the written word but also film, video, fine arts, music, dance and performance art have proved to be suitable means of presentation. Three `artist-in-residence` projects provide two Japanese artists respectively with the opportunity to spend one month together in Vienna. The close contact with local citizens creates the possibility to integrate their individual experiences with the meaning and practice of daily life in Central Europe. Map of Meanings I The `artist-in-residence` project starts with two female artists, Minako Saitoh and anti-cool (Tomoko Takahashi). In large format photographs accompanied by short texts Minako Saitoh shows gloomy views from windows in psychiatric clinics (the windows being made of thick plastic boards) leaving the viewer with feelings of isolation and hopelessness. These photographs can be seen as an urgent message about social relations in a more and more performance-oriented society bound to suffocate individuality through the mechanisms of commercialisation, creating a growing feeling of helplessness and depersonalisation in an increasingly alienated environment. In a similar way, dealing with the unfamiliar and the different is central to Tomoko Takahashi`s work 'An Ideal Foreigner in Vienna'. Inspired by the poster campaign of a well-known local politician, anti-cool –as she calls herself- is going to explore the image of the `ideal foreigner` held by the locals and to document her findings on video.The work will be accompanied by several performances and a series of photographs with political comments about the image of foreigners living in Vienna taken from the local press. A catalogue about the project `Map of Meanings` will be published by the end of 2005, documenting all three exhibitions and providing a transcription of the artist talks scheduled to be held during the exhibitions. Kind support for MAP OF MEANINGS by the following institutions is thankfully acknowledged: Pola Art Foundation, The Kao Foundation for Arts And Sciences, The Nomura Cultural Foundation, Shiseido, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd  ART BY XEROX, Fuji Photo Film, Mécénat, EU Japan Year 2005, Wien Kultur, MQ quartier 21, PLATTFORM – Raum für Kunst