Gelatin Silver Print on Dibond
97,5 x 73 cm, framed
Edition: 1/3 + 2 AP
signed
The painting Vendanges à Arles, ou Misères humaines by Gauguin (Grape Harvest in Arles, or Human Poverty) from 1888 shows as the central figure a girl sitting at the foot of a vineyard, her head supported in her hands. Behind her, two stooped women are seen picking grapes; another, darker figure, possibly her sister, looks down on her.
In contrast to the girl’s sinister expression, the red hills glow in the sunset. Gauguin’s original title for the painting was Vendanges à Arles; the subtitle was added later so that the subtext of the painting would not be overlooked.
In Kimura’s work Harvest Human Misery the grape harvest is missing and is abstracted into the space. Kimura’s original five silver gelatin prints depict Gauguin’s grapes in black and white. They are photos that Kimura had found during a stay in Milan and whose backgrounds she erased. (In Vendanges à Arles a long white area separates the girl from the vines). While the image of grapes is a symbol of fertility, cycle, and abundance – beginning long before Gauguin and still valid today – their different contexts are decaying. The grapes, detached from their surroundings, speak almost in the language of advertising, although their medium betrays their age. (Tess Edmonson)
Yuki Kimura was born in 1971 in Kyoto. She studied at the Kyoto City University of Arts until 1996. Her installations, mostly based on photographs from various sources, deal with themes such as time and space, which compete the contemporary space in which her works are shown. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Oracle, Berlin, 2018, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, 2016, IZU PHOTO MUSEUM, Shizuoka, 2010, Daiwa Press Viewing Room, Hiroshima, 2009, among others. Selected group exhibitions have been the California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, 2017, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2015, and the 30th São Paulo Biennial, 2012.
