Jonathan & Muragishi

Jonathan & Muragishi is developed from previous projects Domestica Invisibile and Voices Lapsed to explore the notion of absence and past in a quotidian context by means of language, photography and installation of found objects.


installation view

Installation view at ISCP, New York

Jonathan & Murgaishi intends to recall the voice of the past in the present through the stories of two actual people no longer living and fictionalized in the work, Jonathan Napack (1967 - 2007) and Hiroaki Muragishi (1984 - 2006). They were two interviewees from an earlier project, Domestica Invisibile (2004-2007), an exploration of psychological response and physical adaptation to often pre-defined and cramped domestic spaces in urban Asia. Jonathan was a mid-career American arts writer, who witnessed the development of the Asian contemporary art scene, and Muragishi was a young multimedia artist from Sapporo, Japan.


Domestica Invisible #20, chromogenic print, 120x150cm, 2006

Based on the reading of two photographs shot at home of Napack and Muragishi, a series of sound sculpture were created as interpretations. In their interviews, they both spoke of their small apartments and how they reinvented or repurposed these tiny living environments. These interviews, transcribed and re-recorded by others as soundtracks first presented in Voices Lapsed, were transmitted throughout the gallery in furniture and other domestic objects, invoking some of the spaces described by Jonathan and Muragishi. A visual strategy mounting the speaker with cables penetrating through all furnishings and reference materials is consistent.

 



?LDK #20, chromogenic print, 120x150cm, 2005

 

Jäll-Fräjen-Tekla-Muragishi, detail. Muragishi’s voice is sampled in the track Missing by Rennie Gomes in the album, Fade to Black.


Bestå Tofta-Idyllisk-Pokal-Jonathan, single channel-audio track, speaker, Tin House magazine, IKEA furnishings, 17x65x80cm, 2013.





Bestå Tofta-Idyllisk-Pokal-Jonathan, detail. Jonathan Napack’s “Cruel Cities: Interview with Mian Mian” is published in Tin House, Vol. 1, No. 3, Winter, 1999, pp. 15-25.

 


Installation view: ?LDK #20 (left), Liatorp-Gosig Golden-Gosig Kanin-Gosig Vovven-Klappar-Vandring Hare-Muragishi (centre) and Domestica Invisibile #20 (right).





Installation view: ?LDK #20 (left), Liatorp-Gosig Golden-Gosig Kanin-Gosig Vovven-Klappar-Vandring Hare-Muragishi (centre) and Domestica Invisibile #20 (right).

 




Liatorp-Gosig Golden-Gosig Kanin-Gosig Vovven-Klappar-Vandring Hare-Muragishi,
detail. Monkey Love (2005), directed by Royston Tan, starring Royston Tan and Hiroaki Muragishi, Japanese with English subtitles, produced by Zhao Wei Films was released in Grand Prix Collection (DVD) by Objectifsfilms, Singapore, 2006.

 



Liatorp-Gosig Golden-Gosig Kanin-Gosig Vovven-Klappar-Vandring Hare-Muragishi, detail.




Kaustby-Knoppa-Bladet-Jonathan, single channel-audio track, speaker, Art Asia Pacific magazine, IKEA furnishings, 44x48x103cm, 2013.




Kaustby-Knoppa-Bladet-Jonathan,
detail. Jonathan Napack’s “Museum Fever Breaks Out in China” is published in Art Asia Pacific, Issue No.56, Nov/Dec 2007, pp. 56-57