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Takeshi Murata, Untitled (Pink Dot), 2006, still, Single channel digital video on DVD, 5 minute loop; 20 minute soundtrack by Robert Beatty.

Takeshi Murata, 001, 2007, Archival inkjet print, 30.25 x 23".

Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden
National Mall
Corner of 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW
202-633-1000
Washington, D.C.
Black Box: Takeshi Murata
May 28-September 9, 2007

Takeshi Murata produces films involving masterful manipulation of digital animation while also integrating hand-built dimensions. Psychedelia, abstraction, intense color and hypnotic soundtracks are utilized in Murata’s short films.

The exhibition includes two works: Monster Movie (2005) and Untitled (Pink Dot) (2006). Monster Movie is a montage of scenes the artist sampled from a video of the 1981 B-movie Caveman. To create Monster Movie, Murata hand-selected frames from Caveman,”creating a final film montage with 7,200 images. Untitled (Pink Dot) references early avant-garde films and also includes borrowed feature film footage. Soundtracks developed with Robert Beatty add a hypnotic dimension to these short works. The Hirshhorn’s Black Box presents recent film and video works by a diverse range of emerging and established international artists. This presentation is organized by associate curator Kelly Gordon. Films run continuously during regular museum hours.

Takeshi Murata (born 1974, Chicago, IL, lives and works in Saugerties, New York), graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1997 with a B.F.A. in Film/Video/Animation. His work has been screened nationally in various film venues, including the Anthology Film Archive, New York and the New York Underground Film Festival. His work has been included in exhibitions at Deitch Projects, New York (2005), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2005), Willy Wonka Inc./Gallerie S.E., Oslo, Norway (2005), Peres Projects, Los Angeles/Berlin (2004), and Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York (2004). In 2006 he will exhibit at Grimm|Rosenfeld, New York/Munich, gallery.sora, Tokyo, and Deitch Projects, New York. Murata currently lives and works in New York. This is his first solo exhibition.

Murata’s work is uniquely contemporary in its formal reconstruction of filmic imagery. Utilizing both found and self-generated footage, Murata exploits the potential of pixel as pigment while investigating narrative space.