White Casket

In The White Casket, Japanese artist Miwa Yanagi has created a bizarre fantasy world inhabited by department store “elevator girls.” In upscale Japanese department stores, the elevator girl performs the role of a hostess, directing customers to their destinations while lending an aura of elegance to the shopping experience. The position of elevator girl is a highly-prized one; those holding this position are selected by management, and are expected to exude youth, innocence and beauty. In The White Casket – the collective title for the work as presented here – Yanagi takes advantage of digital technology to create virtual spaces composed of elements from several different locations, creating elaborate settings in which the elevator girls live as “prisoners in paradise.” Miwa Yanagi is a pioneer in contemporary photo-based art. Her work is included in important public and private collections throughout Japan, the US, and Europe. The White Casket documents this well-known body of work in a large-format, beautifully-reproduced monograph. The first printing is limited to 2,000 copies, of which 100 copies comprise a special edition featuring accordion-bound covers and an original signed print.