Aleksandra Mir: NAMING TOKYO (Part III)

January 24 - April 4, 2004

 
Aleksandra Mir
Unnamed map of Tokyo, (c)2003 Zenrin CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved
 

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is pleased to announce the fifth in a series of commissioned works for the ICA Ramp: NAMING TOKYO (Part III), by New York-based artist Aleksandra Mir. In response to the frequent Western complaint that Tokyo is difficult to navigate, Mir has interviewed artists, students, politicians and business people internationally to help her come up with an alternate, more user-friendly identity for the city. The fictitious street names and hypothetical neighborhoods produced by this research find their place on a giant map of Tokyo applied to the Ramp wall. In addition, Mir had some of these absurdist designations made into actual street signs, fabricated by the New York Department of Transportation in yellow, red and blue. These are hung around the map, creating a forest of names and graphic cues. Rich in pop cultural reference and good-natured irony—one set of streets takes its name from Rolling Stones song titles, off Exile on Main Street, of course—Mir's "new" Tokyo suggests that our understanding of cities derives from the imagination, built by fantasy as much as fact.


Aleksandra Mir
Naming Tokyo, Part II, Swiss Institute, November 2003
 
Aleksandra Mir (b. 1967, Lublin, Poland) will be included in the upcoming 2004 Whitney Biennial. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and abroad, with one-artist projects at Serpentine Gallery, London; Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland; and CCAC-Wattis Institute, Berkeley, California. Projects have been commissioned by the Public Art Fund, New York; Dazed & Confused magazine, London; and the Swisss media conglomerate Ringier. Mir is the author of Corporate Mentality, an anthology documenting collaborations between artists and corporations, recently published by Lukas & Sternberg. Additional details will be available on www.icaphila.org on December 14.

ICA Ramp Project
Since 2000, ICA has commissioned artist installations for its 92' ramp, a transitional space that connects the first and second floor galleries. With its striking architecture and soaring windows overlooking 36th street, the Ramp has been transformed into a dynamic programmed exhibition space, exposing the public to the contemporary art that is central to the ICA's mission.

Previous Ramp Projects:

ICA acknowledges the generous sponsorship of the William Penn Foundation for this project. Additional funding has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania. (Information complete as of 11/18/03.)