Txema NOVELO
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Research Residency Program
update: 2023.1.12
Txema NOVELO
| Participating Program | Research Residency Program |
|---|---|
| Activity Based | Mexico City |
| City | Tokyo |
| Period | 2023.1 - 2023.3 |
Purpose of the residency
My research project for the TOKAS artistic research residency is about the time that Taro Okamoto spent in Mexico City in 1967 painting his masterpiece mural The Myth of Tomorrow. Since the time when Okamoto San was an ethnography student at La Sorbonne in Paris, he developed an admiration for ancient indigenous cultures. The influence of the Jōmon people from Japan was evident in his work, but he also professed a deep admiration for cultures like the Mexican Aztecs or the native ethnicities of Oceania.
Based on a Mexican clay folk sculpture called "The Tree of Life" that he owned and is exhibited permanently in the living room of his house memorial in Aoyama in Tokyo, my research aims to find a relationship and a parallel to his monumental sculpture from 1970 The Tree of Life featured at the interior of the "Tower of the Sun" in Osaka.
Plan during the residency
- I am planning to visit The Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum in Aoyama, Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, The Tower of the Sun Museum in Osaka, The Tokyo National Museum (which in September 1955 hosted the Mexican Muralist exhibition "Mekishiko Bijutsu Ten") as well as the library of the Mexican Embassy in Tokyo.
- I also plan to interview the art historian and academic Kaoru Kato, who wrote the essay "Approach to the influence of the Mexican muralist movement on contemporary art in Japan" as well as Keiichi Tanaka who's an expert on Taro Okamoto's "Myth of Tomorrow" mural.
- With my research, I plan to create a first approach for a short film script that I plan to shoot during the summer of 2023 between Mexico City, Paris, and Japan.
