TAKAMINE Tadasu The SUPERCAPACITOR

July 12 - September 6, 2008

104-0041
2-2-5
3A
3A 2-2-5 Shintomi Chuo-ku
Tokyo 104-0041 Japan
Tel +81-(0)3-3555-0696
Fax +81-(0)3-3555-0697
info@arataniurano.com
www.arataniurano.com

Arataniurano is pleased to announce that it will be holding Tadasu Takamine's solo

exhibition "The Supercapacitor" from July 12 to September 6, 2008.

Having graduated from the Kyoto City University of Arts in 1991, Tadasu Takamine
soon won the honorable mention award at the 2nd Sony Music Art Artist Audition in
1993, and from 1993 to 1997 he was one of the members of Dumb Type. Thereafter, he
studied Media Art at the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS).
An internationally renowned artist, he is continuously invited to hold exhibitions
abroad, and in 2002, he was invited to the 50th Venice Biennale to show his work "God
Bless America", an ironic video installation depicting two tons of oil clay. Takamine
employs a diverse range of media, including installation, video, performance, and
others. In recent years he has been working on composing and choreographing his own
theater pieces, further expanding the breadth of his practice.

The one constant issue that Takamine has been addressing since the beginning of his
artistic career is how to suggest a certain "something" that reveals the varied faces of
human existence, lived in the face of contradiction, and which has in turn been com-
bined with his own physicality. In this exhibition, Takamine takes up the theme of our
idealized electrical storage system, the "electric double layer capacitor" (supercapaci-
tor). Already, with Masdar City, a city in Abu Dhabi being built to run entirely on
renewable energy sources, and the emergence of a global trend towards the rejection of 1. "Kagoshima Esperanto"
dependence on fossil fuels, more and more attention is being paid to supercapacitors 2005,
video installation (mixed media),
and how their ability to store large amounts of electricity will be key to our upcoming 800 x 1050 x 1620 cm,
transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. A durable, harmless and low- Installation view at Yokohama
Triennale 2005.
TKAMINE Tadasu The SUPERCAPACITOR

104-0041
cost device for the storage of electricity is humanity's dream. The technology is right 2-2-5
there in front of us, and if we are able to make it spread, it will change the world. 3A
3A 2-2-5 Shintomi Chuo-ku
However, the price of this technology remains an obstacle. Capacitors are expensive, Tokyo 104-0041 Japan
and yet the raw materials from which they are made are extremely cheap. One has to Tel +81-(0)3-3555-0696
Fax +81-(0)3-3555-0697
question why the price is so high. info@arataniurano.com
www.arataniurano.com

In this exhibition, Takamine experiments with making a brand of these enigmatic

supercapacitors, and we believe that visitors will be fascinated to see how his new
work expresses his desire for the spread of this technology.

In August this year, Takamine will be collaborating with musician Yoshihide Otomo at
the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) and in November he will hold a solo
exhibition at the Sendai Mediatheque. Furthermore, with the publication of a book of
his work by Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Tadasu Takamine is engaged in increasingly
exciting activities, so we hope that you will take the opportunity to see this solo show,
the first in five years that shows his new works.