The artist duo, Mai Yamashita and Naoto Kobayashi have been actively exhibiting in Europe, especially in Germany and Switzerland as “Re-imagining Asia” Haus der Kulturen der Welt/ HKW, Berlin, 2008, “I Am Future Melancholic” Tate Modern, London, 2007, “Videonale 11″ Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, 2006, “ARS 06 -Sense of the Real” Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland, 2006 etc…

Communicating with nature or animals which we are unable to control. Setting one foot outside of the repetitive monotony of daily life. Facing doubt and having a little courage to move in action and patience to make it reality.

The process of production by Yamashita + Kobayashi brings us to find the fun of going over a mountain of common sense and the brilliance of little miracles which exist in our daily lives. Mai Yamashita + Naoto Kobayashi make little miracles with their passion and unimaginable humor far from the high-tech efficiency of contemporary society.

Artists Comment:

We go over a little mountain every time we create our artwork. This mountain, which is not so far away and we feel intimate with, appears as if we can go over it at any time, but on the other hand, we need to have preparedness and patience to go over that mountain from one’s uneventful daily life.

In this exhibition, miracles happen in reality, such as a spoon born from a mountain of sand, some lions slitting some canvas like Lucio Fontana and 23 radio-controlled model cars connected to a sled and run in a Berlin park under falling snow.

We hope that people come to feel some courage from setting one foot outside of their daily lives with our attitude to try going over many small mountains. (Moreover, if one Chinese character from each of our last names, “Ko” and “Yama,” are translated, they become “Small Mountain”).

In this Exhibition, our gallery space will extend from 420㎡ to 700㎡ and it will probably be the final exhibition in TSCA Kashiwa. Now we are preparing to move to our new gallery space in Tokyo. We hope that people who have never come to TSCA Kashiwa and also who often visit our space take perhaps the last opportunity to feel the power of this unique space.