Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past - Kioto Aoki
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Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past
March 12 – June 13, 2021
Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past is a solo exhibition by Fall 2020 Artist-in-Residence Kioto Aoki constructed
in conversation with the collections of the International Museum of Surgical Science. The exhibition
intertwines the histories of medical imaging, anatomy, physiology, the museum’s origin and physical
architecture through the technological studies and processes of analogue photography. Adjacent
explorations of the physicality of the body and the photographic image proposes Aoki’s work as a sinew
that negotiates the poetic ambiguities of embodied time – whilst considering the notion of fibre in biological,
material, conceptual and historical contexts.
The International Museum of Surgical Science is housed in a four-story landmarked Chicago mansion built
in 1917 for socialite and philanthropist Eleanor Robinson Countiss as a family home. The design for the
mansion was inspired by the Le Petit Trianon chateau on the grounds of Versailles completed in 1770,
which Eleanor had visited during her travels to Europe. The fortune to fund the construction of the home
was provided by her father, John Kelly Robinson, an executive at The Diamond Match Company. The
Diamond Match Company was founded by Eleanor’s grandfather George Barber in Ohio and became the
largest match manufacturer in the late 19th century.
The mansion was later acquired from the family in the early 1950s by the International College of Surgeons
(ICS) founded in 1935 by surgeon Dr. Max Thorek and headquartered next door. The goal of the ICS was to
promote a global exchange of surgical knowledge. Initially conceived as the ICS Hall of Fame, the museum
eventually expanded to become a repository for its growing collection of historically significant surgical
instrumentation, artworks and manuscripts from surgeons, collectors and institutions.
Together with Dr. Solomon Greenspahn, Dr. Thorek founded the American Hospital primarily to support
low-income patients in 1917 – the same year the Countiss Mansion was completed. His professional
endeavors are chronicled in his autobiography, A Surgeon’s World. Dr. Thorek was also an accomplished
photographer, participating in photography salons worldwide. He published two photography books,
Creative Camera Art (1937) and Camera Art as a Means of Self-Expression (1947), detailing the technical
aspects of the paper negative process and aesthetic concerns of the Pictorialist photographer.
Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past begins with an homage to these two historical narratives and continues
throughout the four floors of the museum. The exhibition responds to these intertwined histories by
engaging objects from the museum’s permanent collection, which include original blueprints of the mansion
and a variety of medicinal and photographic material. By pulling together varied physical and textual
sources, Aoki reveals the layered architectural, historical, and haptic relationships that compose a place.
Official Exhibition Guide:
1st Floor
E XHIB IT
first floor
1D
Pharmacy
AP
Apothecary
1E 2C
Dental Optical H
2B
Polio
1A 1G 1F
Ticketing & Entrance/Lobby Welcome
Gift Shop Room
*See 1F Gallery Guide
on next page
third floor
Diamond Tin Series – photographs of the Countiss Mansion made with the Diamond
Camera [gelatin silver prints from paper negatives]
Anatomy of - Sectional cyanotypes created from original architectural drawings of the
Countiss Mansion from 1916
3B 3C 3D
Taiwan Classroom Obstetrics & Tem
Urology
*1F Gallery Guide:
G 1F
Lobby Welcome
Room
Diamond Tin Series – Anatomy Of - Sectional cyanotypes
photographs of the Countiss Mansion created from original architectural
made with the Diamond Camera drawings of the Countiss Mansion
[gelatin silver prints from paper negatives] from 1916
Dr. Thorek business Photograph by
loor
card & trophy Dr. Thorek
Diamond Camera –
Books pinhole camera made Dr. Thorek CV
from a Diamond Match
H IB IT M A P
2nd Floor
second floor
ry Original blueprint of
2C Countiss2DMansion
Optical History architectural drawings
Hall of Murals
2B 2G
Polio Hall/ Landing
Cyanotype photograms of
original Countiss home keys
1F 2Awork in
Dr. Thorek’s Photo of Dr. Thorek
2F
Welcome Library Annual of
1938 American Hall of Immortals
Room Photography Vol.52
2 Photographs by Dr. Thorek
fourth floor
Diamond Tin Series – photographs of the Countiss Mansion made with the Diamond
D 4C 4D 4E
trics & Camera [gelatin
Temporary silver prints from
Gallery paper
Spanish negatives] Temporary
Mural
ology Gallery Gallery
Anatomy Of - Sectional cyanotypes created from original architectural drawings of
the Countiss Mansion from 1916
4B 4F
Nursing Temporary
Gallery3rd Floor
third floor
3B 3C 3D 4C
Taiwan Classroom Obstetrics & Temporary Gal
Urology
4B
3H Nursing
Hall/ Landing
3A 3G 3F 3E
Japan Medical Medical Imaging Understanding
Illustration Pain
Countiss Countiss
International Museum of Surgical Science ▪1524 N Lake Shore Dr., Chicago IL 6061
Anatomy Of - Sectional cyanotypes created from original architectural drawings of
the Countiss Mansion from 1916
Photograms on x-ray film against
Wall of Fame in Japan Room
windows & light box
Appears to Be – A series of sequential images where exposure is determined by the
number of breaths taken, ascending from one to twelve. Frames created by former
respiratory therapist Steve Ducklow [gelatin silver prints]4th Floor
fourth floor
4C 4D 4E
Temporary Gallery Spanish Mural Temporary
Gallery Gallery
4B 4F
Nursing Temporary
Gallery
Find us on social!
E
tanding Rear exteriork:
(untitled) - Faceboo view@imssch icago
of the Countiss Mansion
in [gelatin silver print]
Instagram @surgicalmuseumchicago
Signature Bun - Photograms hung at artist bun height
Twitter @IMSS_Chicago
[artist’s hair, gelatin silver prints]
e Shore Dr., Chicago IL 60610
[gelatin ▪
silver prints] ▪ info@imss.org ▪ 312-642-6502
Not a Realist - stereograph cards created without a stereographic camera
www.imss.org
Sightline Siteline – panorama photographed from the mansion rooftop with the Henry
Clay Camera [gelatin silver prints from paper negatives]
Anatomy of - Sectional cyanotypes created from original architectural drawings of the
Countiss Mansion from 1916
Henry Clay Camera from IMSS’s permanent collection. Camera manufactured
between 1891 – 1899Breathe, Fibres of Papers Past
March 12 – June 13, 2021
Special Thanks: Aoki Family, Kiyomi Negi, XiZi Hua, Jennifer Chen-su Huang, Steve Ducklow, Yoko
Kawaguchi, Sherwin Ovid, Lauren Deutsch, Miranda Pettengill, Shannon Fox, Asian Improv aRts Midwest
Kioto Aoki is an artist and educator using the material specificity of the analogue image and image-making
process to explore modes of perception as a politics of vision. Her photographic work oscillates between the
still and the moving image, attentive to the apparatus of the human eye and the camera; while installation
and artist book works engage mechanisms of structural tangibility and site-specificity. Forming a rhetoric
of nuanced quietude, her practice considers the intimacies of vision through the experience of sight from
inception through presentation.
As a musician, Kioto descends from the Toyoakimoto performing arts family in Tokyo with roots dating back
to the Edo period. Studying under her Tokyo-born father, Kioto is carrying on the artistic family lineage in
Chicago as sole professional taiko artist in the city. She has been performing on stage since the age of 7 and
also plays shamisen and tsuzumi. Kioto plays in both traditional and contemporary musical contexts and
is active within the experimental and creative music communities in Chicago and the Bay Area. She also
leads the National Gintenkai Project – the performance unit within Tsukasa Taiko, the Japanese drumming
program at Asian Improv aRts Midwest.
She has exhibited in Chicago, Berlin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Japan. Her work is held in
the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Library. Musical
projects include Yoko Ono’s SKYLANDING, Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project, The Reduction Ensemble,
and the Taiko Legacy / Reduction series at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Kioto is also a multi-
year Ethnic and Folk Arts Master Apprentice Program Awardee from the Illinois Arts Council. Curatorial
projects include the ongoing Chicago Obihiro Exchange Project and 思考回路 • Shikoukairo: Patterns of
Thought which reframes the conversation around Asian & Asian-American cultural diegesis in the arts.
Learn more at: kiotoaoki.com
This Artist-in-Residence Capstone Exhibition at the International Museum of Surgical Science is partially supported by a
grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.You can also read
