Winners Revealed for Tokyo Contemporary Art Award 2022–24
By Pamela Wong
Left: Installation view of MICHIKO TSUDA‘s Tokyo Behavior (2021) at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal, 2021. Photo by Akira Arai.
Right: Photo of SAEBORG’s performance Cycle of L, at The Museum of Art, Kochi, 2020. Photo by Taisuke Tsurui.
On January 12, the art center Tokyo Arts and Space (known as TOKAS) named Michiko Tsuda and Saeborg as the winners of the 2022–24 edition of the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award (TCAA). The winners will each receive JPY 3 million (USD 26,200) for the production of a new project and a maximum of JPY 2 million (USD 17,450) as support for the overseas research and expenses. The new works will be shown at an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in March 2024.
Michiko Tsuda is an Ishikawa-based video and performance artist whose works critically reflect on the omnipresence of screens and cameras. Her recent lecture-performances look into how narratives are delivered by bodily movements and question the gender roles embedded in the films of iconic Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu including Tokyo Story (1953). The selection committee acknowledged “the consistently motivated and inquisitive approach that permeates her work.”
Saeborg, whose name represents the alter ego of a Tokyo-based artist, creates and wears latex suits that cover the artist’s human form, exploring the stereotypical expectations for a woman’s body and the discomfort of being judged on her body shape. Her projects feature animal-beings such as pigs, usually in a fairytale-like setting made of oversized inflatables. She is recognized by the selection committee for her “longstanding commitment to social inclusion, which is inseparable from her attitude of respecting all life equally in her artistic practice.”
The TCAA acknowledges the achievements of mid-career artists and provides support for the artists’ new projects. The winners this year are chosen by a jury of six members, including Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy from Rotterdam’s Kunstinstituut Melly; Carol Yinghua Lu from Beijing’s Inside-Out Art Museum; Takahashi Mizuki from Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage, Arts and Texitle; Nomura Shino from Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery; Washida Meruro from the Towada Art Center; and Kondo Yuki from TOKAS. The award ceremony will be held on March 20.
