Total Body Conditioning: Mika Tajima

In her mixed-media practice, Mika Tajima combines sculpture, painting, video, music, and performance, drawing on contradictions of modernist design and architecture to interrogate the built environment in which the maximised performing subject is shaped and managed. Tajima’s body of work excavates the social implications of contemporary built environments, and the concomitant development of particular kinds of human performers, such as the flaneur, the slacker, and the good worker. She draws inspiration from many different fields as she investigates the performative potential of sculptural objects and the complexities of collaborative production. Tajima also works collaboratively under the moniker New Humans, including on projects with Vito Acconci, Charles Atlas, Judith Butler, and C. Spencer Yeh, among others.
‘Total Body Conditioning’ is an illustrated overview, exploring the artist’s practice and methodologies with generous full-page illustrations of her work including her polychromatic textile portrait series Negative Entropy and Furniture Art ambient paintings. The book-the first to document the artist’s work-is published in collaboration with Eleven Rivington and includes contributions from Matthew Lyons, curator at The Kitchen. Tajima’s work has been shown internationally, at venues including the South London Gallery, London; Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; Sculpture Center and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York City; Bass Museum, Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and at Art in General, New York.