City of Nature
Artist
Kota Ezawa
(German, born 1969)
CultureGerman
Date2011
MediumSingle channel HD video with sound on Blu-ray disc
DimensionsVideo duration: 3 minutes 54 seconds
PortfolioEdition 7 of 10
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds provided by Meredith and Brother Rutter
Object number2016.4.1
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, 242, 107--10, 107--10B
Label TextIn the Box: Kota Ezawa Kota Ezawa’s drawings and videos may seem oddly familiar. That’s because the artist derives his images from popular culture, feature films, and Western art history before rendering them in his deadpan, cartoonlike style. At once amusing and arresting, his use of unmodulated colors, flattened forms, and a restrained palette makes cliché imagery seem uncanny, calling attention to our own expectations about images. The Box includes three of Ezawa’s works. In City of Nature, projected on the back wall, Ezawa has digitally drawn and animated snippets from 14 feature films that depict nature—for example, a thicket from Days of Heaven, swarming fins from The Old Man and the Sea, and serene sheep from Brokeback Mountain. The pastiche releases nature from its role in the original films as an evocative metaphor or setting. Flattened and emotionless, Ezawa’s nature unexpectedly takes on new depth. In Beatles über California, shown on a monitor in the center of the room, Ezawa pairs his animation of the Beatles’ famous 1964 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show with Dead Kennedys’ punk anthem “California Über Alles.” The incongruity is surprisingly seamless, suggesting how popular media and nostalgia soften what once seemed revolutionary. Earth from Moon, seen through the doorway, recreates the iconic Earthrise photograph taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. When first published, the photograph was widely seen as a revelation about the fragility of our planet, and it helped launch the environmental movement. Reduced to only a few shapes and colors, the now-familiar image becomes unusual all over again. Kota Ezawa German, b. 1969 City of Nature, 2011 Single channel HD video Beatles über California, 2011 Black and white video with sound Earth from Moon, 2005 Lightbox Courtesy of Murray Guy ProvenancePurchased from the artist via Murray Guy Gallery, New York, by the Chrysler Museum of Art, March 2016.Exhibition History"In the Box: Kota Ezawa," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 15, 2015 - April 10, 2016.
2012
