This winter the main space of the Swiss Institute – Contemporary Art will feature a new work by Momoyo Torimitsu: a meditation on the world of global commerce. A landscaped diorama of the international business world will sprawl across the floor, inviting visitors to view and participate as giant judges of a maze of commerce-competition.
New York-based Japanese artist, Momoyo Torimitsu will transform the main gallery into a network of geographic territories, over which an army of mini-businessmen, the size of ‘GI Joe’ toys, will crawl, racing against each other, across imagined borders. Throughout diverse terrains, over hundreds of countries, Torimitsu’s project will evoke not only the competition, but the vast system of commerce that crosses boundaries, both political and physical. As they inch forward, like soldiers on a battlefield, the businessmen become corporate combatants, chasing each other, creeping over seas to occupy each other's economies.
Torimitsu first created a life-size Japanese businessman, a robot she called Miyata Jiro, (pictured above), in 1994, which she brought to business capitals across the globe. More recently, she has conceived of the possibility of racing multiple businessman robots of different nationalities; she presents this new work at Deitch Projects this winter. The paring down in size for her project at the SI reflects her wish to demean and belittle the competition of the global business world. She imagines an ant-like swarm of toy businessman-soldiers for the SI, where the visitors become giant observers, allowing the audience to take a step outside the competition, and act as observers, assistants, fans or judges.
Press
| Mar 1, 2004 | Momoyo Torimitsu - Swiss Institute | Flash Art | |