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MoMA artist Kota Ezawa and Japans design doyen Keiichi Tanaami in Stuttgart
Comic style and psychedelic art at the ITFS '09
A handful of top-class artists who have been greatly influenced by the animated film genre will be present at the Galerienhaus during the upcoming 16th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (May 05 – May 10, 2009). In addition to specially chosen multimedia artists from the region, the Japanese designer Keiichi Tanaami and the internationally popular German-Japanese Kota Ezawa will be presenting their works.

German-Japanese Kota Ezawa (born 1969) is considered a shooting star in the contemporary multimedia art scene. In 2006/2007 his works were shown in the exhibition "Out of Time: Contemporary Art from the Collection" at the MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Further recent highlights were the exhibition "Photography on Photography: Reflections on the Medium since 1960" in 2008 in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the same year "The Geopolitics of Animations" at the MARCO – Museo de Arte Contemporànea de Vigo in Spain.
Ezawa draws on well-known elements and source material from art, culture, science and media which he reworks and stylizes on a computer. According to the 14-1 Galerie in Stuttgart "The result is reminiscent of old-fashioned comics shown as digital projections, film, slide shows or etchings". The gallery will be showing his animated 16 mm short film "Brawl" from 03 May onwards, throughout the Festival of Animated Film. The film is an original interpretation of a brawl involving fans and players during a basketball game between the US teams Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers in November 2004. At the same time the 14-1 Galerie will be presenting the newest animated music film by Rock & Bluse under the title "wenn der rock brennt" (When Rock burns). Well-known throughout the region, Rock & Bluse is a group of experimental artists, (Anke Bauer, Julia Finkbeiner, Pia Maria Martin and Monika Nuber) who animate felt-tip drawings with abstract and figured elements and combine images and sound to create a new musical entity.
A further highlight in the artistic supporting programme at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film '09 is the Japanese design doyen Keiichi Tanaami (born 1936), who in expert circles is looked upon as a creator of the experimental animated film. During 40 years of creativity, Tanaami, who amongst other things was employed as the first Art Director at the Japanese branch of the "Playboy", has created almost 60 films and continues to regularly produce films and pictures. An important characteristic of this visual artist's work - who also produces sculptures and performance events - is the speed with which he visualises his ideas and thoughts on paper. The Galerie Merkle also located in the Galerienhaus will not only be showing Taanami's psychedelic-touched animated drawings but also his silk screen prints and sketches.
At the same time as the works by Ezawa, Rock & Bluse and Tanaami are on show, the Galerie Naumann, the third gallery located in the Galerienhaus, will be showing creations from five contemporary international animation artists under the tilte "Partituren für Zeicherinnen und Zeichner" (Scores for Artists). Works by Sarah Jane Lapp (USA, born 1972) and Eva Koberstein (Munich, born 1969) will be shown as well as works by Jörg Mandernach (born 1963), Kirsten Lampert (born 1959), and Andreas Opiolka (born 1962), all three of whom are from Stuttgart.

All of the exhibitions will open May 03, at 11 o'clock in the Galerienhaus Stuttgart (www.galerienhaus-stuttgart.de) as part of the supporting programme of the 16th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film '09.