Overland_Spillover#1｜INTRO｜EXHIBITION｜BUG

BUG, operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., will host Overland_Spillover#1, an exhibition curated by independent curator Arata HASEGAWA, opening (Wed.) May 8, 2024.
Since September 2023, BUG’s key message has been “BUG the world ,” and our central commitment has been to provide space and opportunities for artists and art workers* to challenge themselves to the best of their ability.
When developing the concept for BUG, we spent over two years in discussion about the environment surrounding artists and art workers, together with Hasegawa, who has hands-on experience in the art scene. The results of these conversations are reflected in BUG’s activity directives.
Hasegawa curates this exhibition, in which Hasegawa, Shuhei Hayashi, MES, and FAQ? will present new works inspired by spillover, an effect where radio waves reach beyond their intended range. Planning for this exhibit, which is BUG’s fifth, began in January 2023. In collaboration with Hasegawa, the artists will explore the possibilities that BUG offers as a space generating “opportunities for challenges.”

*Museum and gallery staff, and freelancers in the field of art.

Curator’s comment

Spillover, or signal overspill, refers to the phenomenon of radio waves spread beyond their intended boundaries to reach other lands, regions, states, and people. Regardless of how much executive powers or corporations work to prevent it, radio waves cross national borders, deviate from provincial boundaries, and continue to expand their coverage area, reaching more “beneficiaries.” There are probably many people in this world that have unintentionally received information they weren’t supposed to. Conversely, systems such as subscription models and digital broadcasting (and the termination of analog broadcasting) have created clear lines of division between subscribers and non-subscribers, and do nothing more than strictly manage the delivery of culture (or, cultural products). Still, there is no such thing as perfect control, and spillover will never disappear completely.

This project based on the phenomenon of spillover will continue as an ongoing exhibition program. The first iteration, Overland_Spillover#1 will feature one solo artist, one collaborative unit, and one platform: Shuhei HAYASHI, MES (Takeru ARAI and Kanae TANIKAWA), and FAQ? (a platform by Kanae TANIKAWA and Marina Lisa KOMIYA). “Overland” is to be interpreted as the title of the first episode of this project.

As the organizers of this exhibition, we believe spillovers happen ceaselessly in our world and will continue to occur into the future. But we don’t see this as some miraculous happening, it’s as ordinary as the sun rising every day. Most radio waves also dissipate without reaching people, and even when they do reach someone, they are mostly defanged and under control, a situation that isn’t conducive to the enjoyment of culture and expression. But instead of worrying about this, we should work through it.

The main graphic for the exhibition depicts a world where spillovers are happening, created by graphic designer Kai. In our world, where spillovers are happening somewhere at this very moment, we hope you’ll witness the moves that Shuhei Hayashi, MES, and FAQ? are making.

Photo by Natsuki KURODA

Arata HASEGAWA

Independent curator

Independent curator. Notable projects include Chronicle, Chronicle! (2016–2017), Impurity / Immunity (2017–2018), Grand Reverse (2019–), Halfway Happy (an αM project, 2020–2021), Anti War (2022–), and Nara Machiya Arts Festival HANARART 2023 Uda-Matsuyama Area SEASON 2 (2023). He writes a column, “The Art of Izanagi Era (Izanagi to yobareta jidai no bijutsu),” which reconsiders post-war Japanese art for Tokyo Art Beat. He is currently working on a translation of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era by Julia Bryan-Wilson (co-translation by Sayaha TAKAHASHI, Risa MATSUMOTO, Rie TAKEZAWA, and Arata HASEGAWA, to be published in March 2024).

About the exhibition

A concentrated art experience

This exhibition emphasizes physical experiences that cannot be measured or quantified. According to curator Arata Hasegawa, “if there is still potential in exhibitions, these are the kinds of qualities that we must not dismiss.” The artists have created rich artworks that have the power to transform the viewer, leaving them a different person to their former self.

New works by the artists

Each of the participating artists has attempted to push in a new direction, while still maintaining a sense of continuity from their existing practice.
Shuhei Hayashi has shown works that expose the contradictions within laws, ordinances, customs, and other norms relating to our physical bodies, based on his experience of raising reptiles and amphibians. For this exhibition, he will present a death-growl lecture performance, in connection to the discourse stemming from animal extermination.
MES have presented installation, performance, and video works using photo- and thermo-reactive materials. In their recent work GA-I, they attempt to evoke the individual relationships between animals and humans, and the acts of mourning that take place even within a capitalist economy and cycles of standardization. The new works presented in this exhibition are also an extension of the ongoing exploration of various issues within the duo’s practice.
FAQ? is a network that began from a shared journal, and they have organized screenings and talks on people who have done work around sexuality, life, and resistance. For this exhibition, they plan to produce and present their first zine in the form of a newspaper, which will showcase their thinking as it has developed over the course of these activities.