Boundary Music

The New-York-based soundart-i-vist/socio-environ composer Keiko Uenishi will reinterpret Mieko Shiomi’s < boundary music > (1963) in a rare performance inside the gallery. Uenishi is known for her works formed through experiments in restructuring and analyzing one’s relationship with sounds in sociological, cultural and/or psychological environments. She is a doctoral candidate at the PhD-in-Practice program at Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), and currently works at NYU Music Technology as program administrator. 

---

< boundary music >

Make your sound faintest possible to a boundary condition whether the sound is given birth to as a sound or not. At the performance, instruments, human bodies, electronic apparatuses and all the other things may be used.

—C. Shiomi 1963

---

Keiko Uenishi is a sound art-i-vist, socio/environ composer and a core member of SHARE.nyc since 2001. Uenishi is known for her works formed through experiments in restructuring and analyzing one’s relationship through aural memory/perceptions in sociological, cultural and/or psychological contexts. She has been working on a research project towards a doctoral degree at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Her project Partitions: Dividers, Connectors, Gray-zones, Neighbours in Aural Space is an exploration of a “para-sphere” where auditory stimuli sneak over other perceptions, while de-stabilizing relationships, memories, space recognitions and time. Her work has been presented internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S. 1, Dia:Beacon, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, Eyebeam, Skolska28, Museu Serralves, ICA London, Tate Britain, Fortescue Avenue Gallery, Maebashi Bunka Cultural Laboratory, Research Pavilion Venice, Andore Village and Taipei Artist Village Treasure Hill.

Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus
October 13, 2023—January 21, 2024

Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus is the first to fully explore the essential role of Japanese women in Fluxus, a movement instigated in the 1960s that helped contemporary artists define new modes of artistic expression. Near the 60th anniversary of the movement’s founding, this exhibition highlights the contributions of four pioneering Japanese artists — Shigeko Kubota (1937–2015), Yoko Ono (1933–), Takako Saito (1929–), and Mieko Shiomi (1938–) — and contextualizes their role within Fluxus and the broader artistic movements of the 1960s and beyond.

This fall, celebrate the pioneering Japanese spirit of the global avant-garde through a special season of symbiotic, genre-crossing programming.

---

(top) Photography © Adrianna Glaviano. Courtesy of Japan Society; Mieko Shiomi, < boundary music >, 1963. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY; Keiko Uenishi, Photography by Shinya Kigure.

Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Japan Society programs are made possible by leadership support from Booth Ferris Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Exhibitions and Arts & Culture Lecture Programs are made possible, in part, by Sompo Holdings, Inc., the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund; the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; The Masako Mera and Koichi Mera, PhD Fund for Education and the Arts; Peggy and Dick Danziger; Thierry Porté and Yasko Tashiro; and Friends of the Gallery. Support for Arts & Culture Lecture Programs is provided, in part, by the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund. Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor for Japan Society gallery exhibitions.