Yoi Kawakubo video ‘Waiting for Diogenes’ online screening on e-flux
‘Waiting for Diogenes’, a 2020 video work of Yoi Kawakubo addresses complex phenomenon related to socio-political, philosophical and psychological reality of our daily life. The work was to be based on a research project to explore life of, and with, an octopus, only to be shattered with the unsurmountable rise of the pandemic, and the artist found himself confronted with another set of issues, a large part of which had to do with how the art world is conceived and his internal conflict as an artist. 74-minute work explores the universal themes while always anchored to his personal accounts, in a year of the expected Tokyo Olympic games and the Covid 19.
Also noteworthy is a new attempt of integrating the subtitles in English and Japanese into the visual whole of each scene.
'Waiting for Diogenes' is the second installment of Faraway, So Close, a program of films and interviews convened by Koki Tanaka, and comprising the sixth cycle of Artist Cinemas, a long-term, online series of film programs curated by artists for e-flux Video & Film.
‘Waiting for Diogenes’ screens from Monday 26th April to Sunday 2 May and it is accompanied by an interview of the artist with a curator Julian Ross.
Faraway, So Close will run from April 19 through May 31, 2021, screening a new film each week accompanied by an interview with the filmmaker(s) conducted by invited guests.