ARTISTS
CHIM↑POM
(c) ChimPom, courtesy the artist, Anomaly, and Mujin-to Production
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Video
2 min., 8 sec.
Two light bulbs flicker in the dark. Personified with cartoonish eyes and lips, they swing and intertwine in a romantic slow dance until suddenly a fatal collision shatters their affair. This video by the art collective Chim↑Pom evokes the loneliness and fear that hung over Japanese society following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011. Tinged with subversive humor, the work was conceived as part of a wider installation that drew awareness to the ramifications of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and the growing momentum of Japan’s antinuclear movement.
About the Artist
Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group was formed in Tokyo in 2005 by artists Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Ellie, Masataka Okada, Motomu Inaoka, and Toshinori Mizuno. Known for making works that function as social interventions, the collective has had solo exhibitions across the world, including at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2022 and at Dallas Contemporary in 2017. The collective also organizes independent initiatives like “Don’t Follow the Wind” (2015–), an ongoing exhibition installed at multiple venues in the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that was established after the nuclear accident of March 11, 2011. The group’s work is on view during Art Week Tokyo in an exhibition at Anomaly.
