Masayuki Kawai

We follow Masayuki Kawai for a few years

Masayuki Kawai

Masayuki Kawai was born in 1972. He creates video works in a unique styles that take radical visions of philosophy and politics from the standpoint of the consideration and the criticism of informational society about the essence of image and media. He explores his broad styles and activities unconstrained by existing genres such as film, contemporary art, and media art. His works have been shown and received numerous awards in media art festivals and exhibitions in over 30 countries, including Honorable Mention in Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2002) and Prize in « Young Video Artist Initiative » of Mori Art Museum.

There are his collection in Queens Museum of Art in New York (in the U.S. ) and National Museum of Art, Osaka (in Japan).

He stayed in Israel at the invitation of Jerusalem foundation in 2004. He also sent to New York by The Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese government in 2005 and stayed there from 2006 to 2007 as a grantee of the Pola Art Foundation. Then, he stayed in Paris from 2008 to 2009 in the exchange residency program of Tokyo wonder site.

He also writes on arts, critique and philosophy and organizes exhibitions. He established nonprofit organization « VIDEOART CENTER Tokyo » in 2001 and has served as director of the organization until 2004. During the same period, he also served as one of the founders and art director of Phaidros Cafe, a pioneer of video art venue in Japan. His various projects had been supported by Japan Foundation, Pola Art Foundation etc, and he has been actively promoting video art and making international network of artists. Especially, in 2002, he successively organized « Maurice Lemaitre and Lettrism » exhibition in which the legendary figure of French avant-garde art came to Japan for the first time.

He participated founding an annual art festival « Hors Pistes Tokyo » with Centre Pompidou, and served as program director in 2011 and 2012, and general director in 2016.

He served as one of the jury in the international competition of 58th Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in 2012.

Currently, he has been dealing with the subject on « visual philosophy » which means « think by looking », and setting up the new media culture getting across web sites, books, video pictures.

Teaching in Tokyo Zokei University and Tohoku University of Art and Design.