NEW Days

Art Center NEW is a newly established art center located in Yokohama. It will explore what “newness” means through a variety of activities such as exhibitions, live music performances, talks, and workshops. The exhibition “NEW Days” will be held as the very first event. Focusing on daily life and creative practice, the exhibition introduces a wide variety of expressions including painting, video, photography, installation, and performance by artists of all ages, from emerging to veteran. During the exhibition period, there will be events related to the exhibition and Yokohama city. Please feel free to visit the exhibition while enjoying a stroll around Yokohama in this early summer.

New compilations, new theories, new interpretations, new ideas.
It is said that during the Bakumatsu and Meiji Restoration period in Japan, a large number of books were published with the prefix “new” in their titles, far more than in previous eras. This was a time when the ideology of progress flowed in from the West, and society was promised daily advancements toward the modern age they aspired to.
The excitement for new publications may have stemmed from a linear perception of time — one filled with a sense of continuity, moving steadily from the past toward the future.
What about now ？
In the field of expression, being new can be paralysing, as it can feel like an obsession, and it has been said that newness has come to an end since the post-modern era.
But now, we would like to positively view its demise as freedom from the historical imperative or the demand to be historically new, in other words, freedom from the linear concept of “newness.”
In this way of thinking, new media may transform into something primitive, and old masters may evolve into a more contemporary form. Just as people must continue to change as long as they live, works of art, too, will not remain stagnant in the past.
It is precisely within this ongoing transformation, much like the flow of everyday life, we may find the “newness” nobody has yet to encounter.
In other words, this is an exhibition aimed to see the “New Days” yet to come.
（Art Center NEW Daisuke Akiba）

Related Event Information

6/1 (Sun) 15:00-17:00 
Yuta Geshi “Miso Preparation” 

Capacity: First 20 people (Required advance reservation )
Fee: ¥500 (exhibition admission fee will be charged separately)
Please let us know the number of participants, along with your name and age, via email.info@artcenter-new.jp
After the lecture, participants will make miso from soybeans. The miso will be stored and aged at the exhibition site for a period of time, even after the exhibition has ended. However, if you prefer, you may also take some home after the event.

6/15 (Sun) 14:00-16:00 
Guest Talk by Kei Hirakura「Perception, Underground, Newness」

Capacity: First 50 people (Not required for advance reservation )
Admission: Free (exhibition admission fee will be charged)
We will invite Kei Hirakura, Associate Professor of Yokohama National University Graduate School, to give a talk and explore the meaning of ‘newness’.

7/20 (Sun) 17:00-17:30
Kaede Yamato “Fit Performance”

Capacity: First 50 people (Not required for advance reservation )
Admission: free (exhibition admission fee will be charged)
There will be a performance by participating artist Kaede Yamato in her installation work.The artist will focus on the ‘posture’ of the prison camp during the Battle of Okinawa, and through the bodies of its former inmates, she will attempt to approach the individual ways of being that were inscribed upon them.

※Please note that these events will be recorded with videos and pictures and made available to the public at a later date.
In addition, there will be other events such as talks, symposiums, and tours. Details will be posted on this page as soon as they are finalized.