Hagoromo Okamoto: Ich habe noch nicht mal gefrühstückt

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Saturday July 29 & Sunday, July 30 2017, from 2-7pm

Reception: Saturday July 29, 6-9pm

The exhibition “Ich habe noch nicht mal gefrühstückt” by SomoS Artist-in-Residence Hagoromo Okamoto presents new work which the Japanese artist developed during his stay at SomoS Art House in Berlin May-July 2017.

The young artist works across disciplines, focusing on performance and installations which incorporate photographs, films and videos. Believing that these visual media include not only physical properties but also some inherent essences, Hagoromo aims to leave images more undefined and up to imagination, in a way that allows people to conjure their own reminiscences and imaginations.

"My interests these days build on that experience by considering how photography and film can involve not only physical properties, but also the “essences” inherent in the images, everything from elements of folklore to personal conversations to scenes from films, poems, or novels. My aim is to place traces of these in space, but in a way that leaves the images more undefined and up to the imagination."

-- Hagoromo Okamoto, Artist’s Statement   

While Okamoto’s earlier works explored the residues of Japanese cultural constraints, this time, his research focused on Germany, ranging from its people, history and community, to incorporate the city’s features in his artwork for fusion/hybrid elements of cross-cultural and cross-temporal associations. Moreover, he developed analog photography techniques to expand upon his vision of “memories of texture,” allowing audiences to look back at their life experiences and reflect on the workings of remembrance.

In his performance/installation “Ich habe noch nicht mal gefrühstückt,” Okamoto pointedly explores the theme of the “father figure” and male anxiety from a Japanese perspective. Taking as a starting point the painfully detailed official breakfast instructions of Erich Mielke, East Germany’s secret police chief, which the artist discovered while visiting the Berlin Stasi Museum, Okamoto develops a creative narrative involving existential anxiousness, absurdity, fear and gloom.

About Hagoromo Okamoto

Born in Nagano, Japan 1990, Okamoto obtained his BA in Contemporary Sociology, majoring in Philosophy, from Wako University, Tokyo. Afterwards, he spent three years working at Zeit-Foto Salon in Japan, a photography gallery, where he deeply cultivated his interest in images and thus decided to pursue his Master of Fine Art at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Okamoto has participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions. In 2013 and 2015, he respectively presented his solo projects of “Possible Existence” at Domatotoko, Tokyo and “Blue tarp and forlornness” at art space YORU, Tokyo. Some of his key group exhibitions feature “Aoki Kaoru and Hagoromo Okamoto” at art space kimura ASK? Gallery, Tokyo in 2013, “Harf-Understood, Harf-Collapse, Harf-Open” at Chinretsukan Gallery, Tokyo University of the Art in 2015, as well as “Art in Yujyuku” at Gunma, Japan in 2016.