The installation in the Match Gallery is named after the central artwork Love Can’t Pay Us Rent, which is also a sobering call to a partner in financial distress. The animation shows a couple with shopping bags on their heads trapped in an endlessly moving rodent wheel made of bills to pay.

The artist also presents a series of other works on the topic of financial dictates and daily obligations, depicting the vicious circle of chronic scarcity of money and time and the resulting work fatigue. The intimate dynamics of a partnership in such circumstances are embodied in 3D printed miniatures of couples in various poses, also with shopping bags on their heads, placed on white pedestals. The contrast in size between these figures and their pedestals is reminiscent of people at the top of a skyscraper, seemingly relaxed in an intimate physical dialogue, but constantly on the edge of a precipice, with a veiled vision of the world limited to the problems of consumer life.

The gap between aspiration and economic reality is also the second topic of the exhibition: an awareness of the transience of youth in the context of contemporary social norms related to ageing. In Quadragenarian, the artist shakes an anti-wrinkle mask off her face with an aggressive nod in slow motion while the grotesqueness of the scene is accentuated by the shopping barcode on her cheek. To the muted sounds of Ravel’s Boléro, we can follow Keiko’s dialogue with her mother about her youth, ageing and her relationship with her husband, the outcome of an arranged marriage. The repetitive rhythm of the masterpiece, composed by Maurice Ravel at the age of 53 under the influence of his rapidly progressing dementia, was introduced into the conversation by the artist to underline the recurring patterns of expectations and projections of her mother’s generation, unprepared to adapt to the new times.

An installation highlighting the inexorability and inevitability of ageing completes the exhibition. As sand creeps from the bottomless hourglass onto the gallery floor, symbolically suggesting the ebbing away of life, fluorescent images of ageing bodies and faces flood the space.

Population aging is one of the most pressing socio-political issues. Through her exhibition, Keiko Miyazaki exposes this theme while addressing the growing trend of ageism, which she increasingly experiences herself. Under neoliberal conditions of tenancy, consumerism and lack of time, the artist also highlights the existential uncertainty that resonates with most members of her generation. As Willem de Kooning put it: “The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.”

ACCOMPANYING EVENTS:

15. in 24. 4. 2025 at 5 p.m.
Guided tour with the artist Keiko Miyazaki and the curator Jani Pirnat.

10. 4. 2025 at 8 p.m
Premiere of the choreographic performance Anthology of The Scream II: Twister, performed by Urška Centa and Kristýna Peldová from the NEST Collective.
With iterations:
11. 4. and 5. 5. 2025 at 8 p.m
15. 4. 2025 at 6.30 p.m.

The exhibition is an adaptation of the artist's solo exhibition at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Celje.