Evening Discussion with Artists SOPHIE CALLE, MAKOTO AIDA and MAMI KATAOKA, Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum
Cocktail Reception at 6.30pm
Discussion at 7pm
Close at 8.15pm

Renowned French conceptual artist, Sophie Calle and Japanese contemporary artist Makoto Aida, will take center stage and speak together about their work and artistic practices with Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator of Mori Art Museum. Since the late 1970s, Calle has merged image and narration in her work; methodically organizing an unveiling of reality – her own and that of others, while allocating a controlled part of this reality to chance. Exhibiting in Hong Kong at the same time is artist Makoto Aida, whose work has won critical acclaim for its paradoxical mix of bawdy populism and sophisticated reflection in depicting the state of contemporary Japan.

Sophie Calle was born in 1953 in Paris. She lives and works in Malakoff, France. A major exhibition entitled “A suivre” was held in 1991 at ARC / Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. In 2003, a Sophie Calle retrospective titled “M’as-tu vue” (“Did you See Me?”) was organized by the Centre Pompidou which then travelled to the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany. Calle’s 2007 piece for the Venice Biennale, was exhibited at Bibliothèque nationale de France and thereafter at twenty museums across the world. In 2010, Sophie Calle was the recipient of the Hasselblad Award for photography. In the forthcoming months, several solo exhibitions of her work will be on view, including at the Museo Tamayo, Mexico, the Musée d’Art contemporain, Montréal, and a retrospective at La Virreina, Barcelona.

Makoto Aida was born in Niigata, Japan in 1965, Domestic Japanese audiences, in particular, have shown a keen appreciation for the complexity of his vision — his mid-career retrospective “Monument for Nothing”, held at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2012, drew a record 490,000 visitors, while his most recent exhibition in Japan was held this summer at the Kirishima Open-Air Museum in Kagoshima prefecture.

Mami Kataoka has been the Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo since 2003, where she has curated numerous exhibitions including “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” (2009), “Sensing Nature: Perception of Nature in Japan” (2010), Lee Bul (2012), “Aida Makoto: Monument of Nothing (2012), “Roppongi Crossing: Out of Doubt” (2013), and most recently “Lee Mingwei and His Relations” (2014). She has also extended her curatorial practice in many international projects including the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012) as the Joint Artistic Director, “Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past” (2012) at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as guest curator, and “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” (2012-14) which toured five museums in North America. She was the International Curator at the Hayward Gallery in London 2007-09, and Chief Curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery 1998-2002. Currently she is a board member of International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM), and a member of the Asian Art Council of the Guggenheim Museum. Kataoka also frequently writes and gives lectures on contemporary art in Asia.

This program has been organized with the support of Galerie Perrotin & The 
Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau.