2013.02.09—2013.03.16
Total Body Conditioning
Mika Tajima

Total Body Conditioning continues Mika Tajima's interrogation of the maximized performing subject in the built environment, where material objects and production imperatives shape action.

The exhibition features a series of paintings, painted screen partitions, serigraph wallpaper, and a distorted chair sculpture.
     

Performance society. Ergonomics. Taste profile. Morir soñando. In the early 1970s, Herman Miller company revolutionized interior office design through the use of color and décor (painting) to not only make work life more palatable, but to increase productivity through masking the institutional work space, giving it expressive possibilities. New options were given to customize wall surfaces using a standardized palette or pattern library, while individuals further personalized the space with casual effects. Here painting becomes an architectural device, interchangeable surface, and directional image of itself.
     

Animal Laborans. Mood. Paradoxical freedom. Havana. The gallery walls are lined with an iterative series of paintings titled Furniture Art, which are reverse spray painted acrylic frames. These transparent frames contain abstract blooming paint mists and lustrous monochromes – sometimes delineated by hard-edged architectural patterns that reveal multiple surfaces. Each Furniture Art piece is subtitled by a geographic location – Hong Kong, Tulum, Frankfurt – drawing on the specific psychogeographic associations that are produced by affective naming of colors and paints, its relationship to the rise of immaterial economy and its ambient global flows. Furniture Art refers to Erik Satie's furniture music (musique d’ameublement) – a series of infinitely repetitive compositions meant to be background music for different occasions (aural decor).
     

Fitness. Individual right. Scène. Inspiration. Two of the gallery walls are covered by a silkscreen printed wallpaper. Its pattern is created using the image of a contortionist’s bent and flexed body placed into a geometric growth formation: a spreading star pattern. It is an image of the body working at its physical limit while constituting a uniform whole – this strained body becomes the background, a decorative motif. A contorted sculpture comprised of two ergonomic kneeling chairs balanced in an impossible posture, stands as a symbolic proxy to the performing human.
     

Body index. Molecular. Thirst. Disclosure. Orange juice. Milk. Rum. Sugar. Ice.

Total Body Conditioning, 2013 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning (installation view). Untitled, 2013. Plywood, foam, fabric. 150 x 50 x 40 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Furniture Art (Recife), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning (installation view). Furniture Art (Porto), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm 
Furniture Art (Porto), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning (installation view). Morir Soñando 1, 2013. Wood, spray enamel, plexiglass. 168 x 330 x 5 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Furniture Art (Aarhus), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm 
Furniture Art (Gothenburg), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Furniture Art (Abuja), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (Warsaw), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (Nassau), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (Tehran), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (Belo Horizonte), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Furniture Art (Barranquilla), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm 
Total Body Conditioning (installation view). Morir Soñando 2, 2013. Wood, spray enamel, plexiglass. 168 x 220 x 5 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning (installation view). Untitled, 2013. Plywood, foam, fabric. 50 x 75 x 40 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Total Body Conditioning (installation view). Furniture Art (San Jose), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass, digital photo. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (San Jose), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass, digital photo. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Total Body Conditioning, (installation view), 2013 
Furniture Art (Embarcadero), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass, digital photo. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (Bangalore), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass, digital photo. 61,5 x 46,3 cm 
Furniture Art (Tulum), 2013. Spray enamel, plexiglass. 112 x 84 cm