Family Regained
Eiki Mori, Courtesy of KEN NAKAHASHI
Main Gallery Area Artist
Artist Information
Photo by Shun Wakui
Eiki Mori
1976 Born in Ishikawa
2001 Graduated from Parsons The New School for Design, Photography Dept
2017 “Family Regained: The Splash ―We brush our teeth, take a shower, put on pajamas and go out into the street” NADiff Gallery (Tokyo,Japan)
2017 “Family Regained: The Picnic” Festival/Tokyo (Tokyo,Japan)
2018 “Letter to My Son” KEN NAKAHASHI (Tokyo,Japan)
2018 “Things So Faint But Real”Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (Tokyo,Japan)
Family Regained is an observation of the family, a sociological performance that sublimes the visual art medium, and an aesthetical or political aim to spread a visualized and acknowledgeable image. This series relies on self shot portraits taken over 3 years, picturing himself with friends and their families at their places and yards using a self-timer, and performance videos as an exploration of insight into today’s idea of ‘a family,’ documenting a fictional family’s memories composed of a man, a boy, and Mori himself, strolling around the city of Tokyo.
Selector
Vice Director of Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation
[Comment by Selector]
Eiki Mori’s “Family Regained” shows an extended family. With his distinctively delicate and light portrayal, and openly facing his own sexuality as gay, Eiki Mori depicts a variety of diverse contemporary families, revealing that family is no longer restricted to bloodline, and includes being single as well. What is expressed there is approval: approval to live as you are, approval from family, approval as family. It’s something that many of our pioneers couldn’t attain even though they yearned for it. Taking over for those artists who have been lost to AIDS, he takes a part of the future that they were not able to express on himself. I think that is quite noble.