Artist: Ei Arakawa
Exhibition title: Don’t Give Up
Venue: Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Date: March 11 – May 14, 2023
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg
Note: Full press release and exhibition text are available here and here
For Don’t Give Up, three living American painters (Nicole Eisenman, Laura Owens, Trevor Shimizu) and a couple of dead ones (Mary Cassatt, Alice Neel) mentor Ei Arakawa about the hardship and reality of being a parent and an artist at the same time, a subject which is still a rare topic for female and queer artists (although Cassatt was neither married nor a parent). Arakawa’s psychic preparation for planned queer parenthood becomes a maze of hallways and rooms of cardboard in the gallery, through which the visitor encounters singing paintings. Together with the LA based composer Celia Hollander, Arakawa creates an insecure opera of “figuring this out” or “figuring paintings” in need of temporarily connected parenting artisthoods.
Ei Arakawa (*1977, Fukushima) is a queer Japan-born American performance artist based in Los Angeles since 2019. His exhibitions and performances are often created through fervent collaborations with artists (and at times their artworks), art historians, and with audience members themselves. His activities undertake the lo-fi mimicry, duplication, and embodiment of cultural forms—be they architectural structures, art historical legacies, or organizational systems—to reanimate their potentialities anew.
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, cir 1889, & The Family, cir 1886), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Untitled (Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, & Mary Cassatt, Maternal Caress, 1896), 2022. Photo:Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Untitled (Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, & Mary Cassatt, Maternal Caress, 1896), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Trevor Shimizu, Baby Expert (Walking), 2016), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Nicole Eisenman, George, cir 2009, & Freddy, 2009), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist
Ei Arakawa, Don’t Give Up (Laura Owens, Untitled, 2008), 2022. Photo: Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and the artist