Andi Schmied – Japan – photographs and videos

Open to the public:
March 17, 2017 – April 16, 2017
weekdays: 2pm – 7pm
weekends: 11am - 7pm
Mai Manó House is closed on holidays.
No admission fee.
Curator: Gabriella Csizek

Pécsi József Photography Grant at the Mai Manó House

The Pécsi József Photography Grant is among the most important, challenging, and rewarding opportunities for young artists in contemporary photography. Over the 26 years since it was established in honor of József Pécsi photographer (1889-1956) in 1991, the grant, available for one-year periods for maximum three times, has provided the opportunity and support to a great number of excellent photographers to develop subjects current in form and content alike, and present them in an exhibition accompanied by a catalog, realizing an important stage in their artistic career.

For 17 years, Mai Manó House has been representing the recipients of the Pécsi József Photography Grant with professional responsibility. Since 2000, the Mai Manó House also is the organizer of the grantees’ showcase exhibitions.

Andi Schmied – Japan – photographs and videos

The exhibited videos and photographs were created as part of the Noguchi Town project in Sapporo, Japan.

Noguchi Town is a place where nobody has ever been to.

Maybe nobody may ever will. Yet, one can develop a closer relationship with it. Here or somewhere else. A range of unexplainable situations, which are familiar yet difficult to identify, lead to Noguchi Town.

It is a town that puts aside functionality and practicality. A place where otherwise eccentric architectural elements, snowed-in playgrounds, absurd urban situations, or the deer eating a banana in the bathroom are a natural part of everyday life.

The name of the town refers to sculptor, designer and architect Isamu Noguchi, and to the exuberant frame of mind with which he created urban plazas that combined European modernism and Japanese design culture.

(Andi Schmied)