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biscuit gallery group exhibition "re"

This time, biscuit gallery will hold a group exhibition “re” by 7 artists as the first exhibition of fiscal year 2022, during the period from January 6 (Thursday) to 23 (Sunday), 2022.

The exhibition title “re” is quoted from a prefix in English that forms meanings such as “again” and “opposite.” Due to its semantic nature, “re” necessarily involves something as an origin or something to confront. In this exhibition, 7 artists sharing the same era are grouped together in one project, and by doing so, we aim to examine the art trends seen in Japan today and to reflect on the flow up to now.

That said, among the participating artists, there is great variation in their artistic styles, the careers they have each pursued, and the issues they grapple with, making it impossible to simply lump them together. If anything were to be pointed out, it would be that they were all born after the 1980s and began their activities from the 2010s onward, and that in the process of forming their artistic identity, they studied art expressions, techniques, and history unique to Japan.

The participating artists in this exhibition are the following 7.

Arisa Nakahara, who constructs female figures while assembling fragmented images and colors; Yuki Koyano, who skillfully deconstructs pictorial expressions from Japanese art from the Edo period and other eras, incorporates cultural elements from Heisei and zero-era TV games and card games, and replaces Japanese art on a contemporary timeline.

Yuki Ideguchi, who studies the brilliance and grandeur inherent in Japanese painting from the Heian through Momoyama and Edo periods as a clue, and then combines the pictorial quality obtained from it with the style of 20th-century Pop Art to incorporate Japanese art into a global context; Kota Suzuki, who interprets bugs occurring online as contemporary landscapes and creates works that embody the process of “data/image → materialization” through the material texture of Japanese painting materials. And Kanako Taniguchi, who reads out unique physical expressions from ukiyo-e and shunga, places a viewpoint on sensuous expression, and depicts on washi paper with a texture described as “like human skin.”

Takumi Kikuchi, who creates what he himself calls “off-painting,” depicting ethereal situations by wiping away paint, and presents the sense of distance between ideals and himself and the tactile sensation perceiving it as a painting experience; Takafumi Ohba, who takes the cognitive phenomenon of “remembering/forgetting” as a theme and creates flat works with the strength and texture of relief-like surfaces, using styrofoam boards and Japanese painting materials as supports.

Each artist’s concerns, works, and creative styles are all refined as unique methods to themselves, and no two are identical. Yet the reason for placing them side by side in one exhibition is none other than the thinking of “re,” which appears in the title itself.

 

The globalism we enjoy today can be characterized, from one perspective, primarily as the sharing of morals and values. There are many problems we share, such as discrimination based on gender and race, and rapidly progressing climate change. With the rise of the internet, world problems are immediately transformed into our own problems, and seamless environments in culture are being established. Even so, one way to maintain a certain sense of self is to retrace the genealogy of our own culture and reconsider it from a clear contemporary perspective—neither in praise nor denial, nor in ridicule, without any fixed ideas.

The art world is the same. In a country where certain art forms that once existed in Japan and continue to exist today coexist with art forms installed from outside, and in the history of art in this region where numerous art movements have been born, we hope to introduce to you, together with these 7 artists at the forefront of our era, what kinds of expressions are possible. While each artist shares a common broad starting point in art, every single one possesses a unique awareness of issues and presents works imbued with the power to leap from there. We sincerely hope you will feel, at the beginning of the year in the gallery, the power of these artists’ works—gleaming as if in gestation—to accomplish that “re.”

Shinzo Okuoka

 

Artist Profiles

Takafumi Ohba | 大庭 孝文
Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1988. Graduated from Hiroshima City University, Faculty of Art, Department of Fine Art, Japanese Painting Specialization in 2013, and withdrew from the doctoral program at the same university’s graduate school in 2018. Major solo exhibitions include “Perspective for New Generation 2019 Takafumi Ohba Exhibition” (Gallery Natsuka, 2019, Tokyo) and “Encoded Landscape” (Lapis Gallery, 2020, Hiroshima). Major group exhibitions include “26th Garyūzakura Japanese Painting Award Exhibition” (Grand Prize, Gifu Prefectural Museum of Art, 2015, Gifu), “Selected Exhibition of Emerging Artists FAUSS” (3331 Arts Chiyoda, 2018, Tokyo), and “WHAT is Art? Exhibition” (WHAT CAFÉ, 2021, Tokyo).

Takumi Kikuchi | 菊地匠
Born in Tochigi Prefecture in 1991. Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Art, Japanese Painting Specialization in 2015, and completed the Art History Specialization at the same university’s graduate school in 2017. Major solo exhibitions include “Angels That Had Disappeared by Morning” (Gallery Kaze, Tokyo, 2017), “In Pause.” (Gallery Aoi, Tochigi, 2019), and “in Platea” (Gallery Aoi, Tochigi, 2020). Group exhibitions include “ART = Research Where is Inquiry?” (Oyama City Kurumaya Museum of Art, Tochigi, 2020).

Yuki Koyano | 古家野雄紀
Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1993. Completed the master’s program in Design, Drawing and Decoration Research Studio at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2019. Recipient of the Design Award (Chionami Senami Prize).

Kota Suzuki | 鈴木康太
Born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1993. Completed the doctoral program in Japanese Painting Research at Tamabi Graduate School in 2019. Major exhibitions include “Another View” (KIYOSHI ART SPACE, 2021, Tokyo), “Tamabi Assistant Exhibition 2021” (FEI ART MUSEUM YOKOHAMA, 2021, Kanagawa Prefecture), “Ike Sei Style” (Seibu Ikebukuro Art Gallery, 2021, Tokyo), and “SHIBUYA STYLE vol.14” (Seibu Shibuya Art Gallery, 2020, Tokyo). Currently an assistant at Tamabi’s Integrated Design Department.

Kanako Taniguchi | タニグチカナコ
Born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1996. Graduated from Kyoto Seika University, Faculty of Art, Japanese Painting Course, and completed the master’s program at Kyoto Seika University, Graduate School of Art. Major solo exhibitions include “Open Closed Room” (art space NUI, 2021, Kyoto). Major group exhibitions include “Yurika Rokkon × Kanako Taniguchi Two-Person Exhibition pile” (Gallery coco, 2021, Tokyo).

Yuki Ideguchi | 出口雄樹
Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1986. Completed the master’s program in Japanese Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Art in 2013. Since 2013, he has been based in New York and exhibited works in Japan, the United States, France, Poland, India, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and other countries. Major solo exhibitions include “LIFE GOES ON” (Sono Bank Chiba Art Gallery, 2021, Chiba), “Yuki Ideguchi Exhibition -Art is Inside You-” (Seibu Art Forum, 2021, Tokyo), and “Waterfronts” (RESOBOX, 2017, NY/USA). Major group exhibitions include “KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI. PASSAGES…” (National Museum in Krakow, 2021, Poland), “Collectors’ Collective vol.4 Osaka” (TEZUKAYAMA GALLERY, 2021, Osaka), and “Relay 20/Fourth Leg” (YiCollecta, 2020, Taiwan), among many others. Major collections include the National Museum in Krakow, the Teruhisa Kitahara Collection, the Myōō Bussan Collection, and the Leo Kuelbs Collection.

Arisa Nakahara | 中原亜梨沙
Numerous exhibitions at Art Fair Tokyo and other venues domestically and internationally. Works adopted for cosmetics advertisements and illustrations. Published “Yū Nareba Hana” in 2016 and “BORDERLINE” in 2021.

 

Related interviews published in the WEB version of Bijutsu Techo can be found here

 

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