CASE STUDY

How New York based curator Dexter Wimberly launched a Japanese artist residency with a 3D art exhibition

ABOUT

Hayama Artist Residency is a four-week cultural immersion in the coastal Japanese town of Hayama taking place in the summer of 2021, which Wimberly launched in July 2020 in response to the global health crisis. The mission of Hayama Artist Residency is to introduce visual artists from around the world to Japanese culture and offer them an opportunity to have their first gallery exhibition in Japan.

Dexter Wimberly is an independent curator and entrepreneur who has organised exhibitions and developed programmes with galleries and institutions throughout the world including The Third Line in Dubai; Contemporary Art Museum CAM Raleigh in North Carolina; The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco; Koki Arts in Tokyo; and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Wimberly is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art. He is also the founder of Art World Conference a business and financial literacy conference for visual artists, and the Founder of Hayama Artist Residency.

KOKI ARTS is a contemporary art gallery located in Bakurocho, an art district in Tokyo. The gallery shows emerging and established artists from Japan and the US.

CHALLENGE

Curator Dexter Wimberly was opening the Hayama Artist Residency and wanted to present an exhibition for the promotion of this residency. With the three artists located between Brooklyn, Tokyo and Kyoto, there were limitations on how the artworks could be transported and exhibited. There needed to be a cost-efficient and wide-reaching solution. Furthermore, Wimberly wanted to reach a global audience amidst the COVID-19 during the holiday season when viewers would be home with family.

Tomorrow’s Bridge was launched on Jan 1, 2021, reaching international viewers with 26.35% from United States, 20.36% from United Kingdom, 4.79% from Canada and 4.79% from Nigeria.

With Oarbt, Dexter Wimberly was able to explore new methods of connecting with international viewers taking an innovative approach to engaging with new media. The exhibition was also featured in whitewall magazine.

"This exhibition is intended to open dialogue and spark curiosity about contemporary Japanese art, which in my view is under-represented in the international art world. There’s an interesting interplay between the work of the three artists we’re exhibiting, and I’m excited to be collaborating with Oarbt, a venture that shares my ethos of creating opportunities for artists."

SOLUTION

Dexter Wimberly selected the White Cube space from the 3D template library for its clean white walls and medium size to recreate the contemporary gallery viewing experience.

Wimberly and KOKI ARTS brought together work by three painters in the exhibition, highlighting some of the tremendous talent in the contemporary Japanese art scene. The artists are Tokyo-based Ryoichi Nakamura, who displayed a grid of 200 manipulated portraits of Japanese Americans during WW2; Brooklyn-based Hiroya Kurata, whose paintings depict expressionist figurations of everyday life; and Kyoto-based Tomonari Nakayashiki, who creates brightly-coloured abstract works.

The exhibition was launched on New Year’s day at 12 midnight Tokyo time with a livestreamed set by DJ SeanGran and a series of Instagram AR filters for users to interact with the art.

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