Kikuko Tanaka‘s Traumatic Encounter Forever! is one episode of a multi-media tragicomic epic A Tragic Bambi, which revolves around recurring images of urination on Bambi as an idée fixe. It is based on her psychic autobiography as well as her encounter with works in various forms (literal, theoretical, theatrical, cinematic, and visual art works and not exclusively “high art.”) Traumatic Encounter Forever! originated chiefly out of Tanaka’s passionate identification with, as well as mocking at, her lovers’ desires to be a continuous being, which is expressed in two literal and theatrical works. One is the Comte de Lautreamont’s farcical text concerning a lonely hermaphrodite, dreaming of fulfillment of love in her sleep. The other, a Japanese traditional puppet play Double Suicide, in which lovers, entangled with various social constrictions, seek death as a refuge. Originating from self-examination on her own desire, the piece is a public spectacle that explores desire for continuity, manifested within the sphere of aesthetic, politics, morality, and religion. Coupled with obscenity, cruelty, and absurd scenario, Tanaka’s work suggests absurdity of desire that fuels our cultural aspirations.
A performance will be held at the opening reception, between 6:30-8pm. The performers are Chloe Bass, Raymond Fun, Eric Heist, TJ Hospodar, 0h10 M1ke, and Kikuko Tanaka.
Born and raised in Japan, Kikuko Tanaka is a frantic artist currently based in New York. She has performed and exhibited in various venues, including Smack Mellon, Momenta Art, NARS Foundation, Amelie A.Wallace gallery at SUNY Old Westbury, Vox Populi, and Arario Gallery, among others. Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, Art Info, and Hyperallergic. She was nominated for a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Visual Art Grant in 2010. Her ongoing multi-media tragicomic epic, A Tragic Bambi, is fiscally-sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts. She has an interdisciplinary background, holds a BA in Landscape Design, has studied fine art at the School of Visual Arts, and various academic disciplines including art history, anthropology, philosophy, and literature, at Hunter College. She is also a co-founder of a gallery Agape Enterprise, which will open it door this October in Brooklyn, New York.
