Arisa Kumagai, You or I, 2022, oil on panel / letterpress printing on paper, framed, 195 x 97 cm / 15.3 x 21.4 cm

Arisa Kumagai｜My yearning to be You

Saturday, April 16 – Saturday, June 25, 2022

12:00–19:00

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays

Gallery Koyanagi is pleased to present a solo show by Arisa KUMAGAI titled “My yearning to be You” from Saturday, April 16th to Saturday, June 25th.

In the exhibition “Shell Art Prize – Artist Selection 2020” held at The National Art Center, Tokyo in 2020, Kumagai presented a series of work depicting a ceramic leopard symbolizing one’s potential of becoming an assaulter. Deciding to move forward, the artist herself terminated the perfection of that leopard, and portrayed its remnant. After 3 years since the last solo show, we will be showing all new works including that leopard.

A craving to cause pain to someone, exists.

So does an urge to want to think, that the other is a part of oneself.

A hazy vengeance, is there.

And that seemed to have been in me too, innately.

Discovery brought despair, along with a cleared feeling coming out of a fog.

I can only live by continuing to ruin myself.

If I couldn’t evade my own compulsion, to keep on destroying myself and making an advancement, was one of the answers.

That, could possibly be the ethic and moral of myself in entirety.

Kumagai's works always reflect her own background as a starting point, focusing on the irrational and contradictory nature of human existence and its inextricable emotions and forms, such as wealth and poverty, life and death, love and hatred.

What Kumagai depicts is the thorn that appears when the resolution of the superficial “beauty” is raised acutely; or the domain of inauspiciousness. It implies that the positive world in which we live, such as beauty, love and happiness, stands on an uncertain ground, transient and brittle, such as restless consumerism and power imbalance due to gender.

-Tomoko Yabumae, the jury member of Shell Art Prize

The works, with their unsettling presence depicted with outstanding realism, born from Kumagai's confrontation with her personal feelings and experiences, her own past and present, penetrate the viewer with a strong energy, transcending one’s personal background. In this exhibition, texts that evoke a rich imagination in the viewer are juxtaposed, foreshadowing new developments in Kumagai's creative process.

The artist will be present on Saturday, April 16th, the first day of the exhibition. We will be honored if you could find the time to drop by.

Arisa Kumagai, You or I, 2022, oil on panel / letterpress printing on paper, framed, 195 x 97 cm / 15.3 x 21.4 cm

Photo by Keizo Kioku

Viewing

Christian Marclay｜Faces

Saturday, March 19 – Saturday, April 9, 2022

12:00–19:00

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays 

Akiko Hashimoto｜I saw it, it was yours.

Saturday, September 11 – Saturday, October 30, 2021

12:00–18:00 

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays 

*The gallery will be closed on October 22 and 28.

Gallery Koyanagi is proud to present a solo show of Akiko HASHIMOTO, titled “I saw it, it was yours.” from September 11th to October 30th, 2021.

Born in 1988, HASHIMOTO obtained Master’s degree from Musashino Art University in 2015.

HASHIMOTO’s recent activity includes being selected the finalist of the 14th shiseido art egg exhibition, and presented ‘Ask him’, her solo show with Shiseido Gallery, and won the shiseido art egg award in 2020. She has also held a solo show in Paris titled ‘Will it rain?’ to summarize her stay with Cité internationale des arts.

At first glance, HASHIMOTO’s work only seems to consist of pencil drawings on white paper, displayed in a dimly lit room with simple interior goods such as furniture and light fixture. The meticulously drawn pictures are often bent slightly, or folded to hide a part of it, and are attached lightly to the wall by adhesive. However, it is the composition of a picture embracing the elements, including the audience’s presence in it, made visible by careful lighting, that HASHIMOTO is trying to present.

There will be 10 new works shown, along with the large work shown in ‘Ask him’ that depicts a transparent curtain. Please come visit the installation and see what effect it might have on you.

 [ Important notice for visitors ]

* Please fill in form as a part of the prevention measures against the spreading of COVID-19.

* Please wear masks at all the time and sanitize your hands at the gallery entrance.

* Please refrain from visiting the gallery if you have such symptoms as fever or coughing. 

* Please note that we cannot accept visitors with fever of 37.5 C or above.

[ Our preventing measures against the COVID-19 ]

* All our staff take temperature every morning and co-check each health status.

* Gallery doors and windows will be regularly opened to ensure the space is sufficiently ventilated.

* The gallery staff will be washing and sanitizing hands frequently and keep wearing masks at all times. 

* Partitions will be installed at the reception counter to prevent droplets.

* We make sure to sanitize the exposed areas.

Photo by watsonstudio

still life　静物

Friday, June 4 – Saturday, July 31, 2021

12:00–18:00 *Shortened

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays 

Artists:

Diane Arbus

Michaël Borremans

Mark Manders

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Yoshihiro Suda

Ebosi Yuasa

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO | OPTICKS

Friday, March 26 – Saturday, May 1, 2021

12:00–19:00

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays

Gallery Koyanagi is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Hiroshi Sugimoto, titled “OPTICKS” from Friday, March 26 to Saturday, May 1. In this exhibition, we will be showing 4 works from the ‘Opticks’ series which was first presented at Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum last year. The work originates in his idea to recreate Sir Isaac Newton’s prism experiments, and it took Sugimoto 15 years to complete, trying and incorporating the newest photographic technology.

In 1704 Newton notified the world, who believed that the sunlight was white, that in fact it was made up of multiple colors like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, all with different refractive indices, by his publication OPTICKS. And today, Sugimoto employed and improved the observational apparatus that Newton has invented, which disperses the sunlight into the array of colors through a prism, and succeeded in capturing the exact colors, by recording it on the extinct Polaroid film.* He then produced large scale chromogenic prints by using those Polaroid films to recreate the infinite tones and gradations that appear in the gap between colors.

“The world is filled with countless of colors, so why did natural science insist on just seven? I seem to get a truer sense of the world from those disregarded intracolors. Does art not serve to retrieve what falls through the cracks, now that scientific knowledge no longer needs a God?” states Sugimoto. Known for his monochromatic photography, this is his first experiment to show a work using “light as my pigment”. Please come see and immerse yourself in the overwhelming color field.

*Note: Polaroid Corporation went bankrupt in 2008, and the production of the original Polaroid film had to be discontinued.  The works in this exhibition were created using the last stock of such film.

Opticks

It has been fifteen years since I started recreating Newton’s prism experiment. Every year, as winter comes around, the sunrise comes closer and closer to the frontmost side of the prism. Traveling through the cold winter air, the light is split, then drawn into the dim observation chamber, where it is projected on the white plaster wall at exaggerated size. The profundity of the color gradation is overwhelming. I have the sense that I can see particles of light, and that each of those individual particles is a subtly different color form the next one. Red to yellow, yellow to green, then green to blue — the projected colors contain an infinity of tones and change every moment. I am engulfed in color. Particularly when the colors fade and fuse into darkness, the gradation seems to melt away into pure mystery.

I realized that I could capture those fine particles of color within the square frame of a Polaroid photograph. After years of experimentation, I managed to create a color surface that was sufficiently expansive for me to merge into the color. With light as my pigment, I believe I successfully created a new kind of painting.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO | OPTICKS

Friday, March 26 – Saturday, May 1, 2021

12:00–19:00

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays

Luisa Lambri

Friday, January 15 – Friday, March 19, 2021

12:00–19:00

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National Holidays

[ Important notice for visitors ]

* Please fill in form as a part of the prevention measures against the spreading of COVID-19.

* Please wear masks at all the time and sanitize your hands at the gallery entrance.

* Please refrain from visiting the gallery if you have such symptoms as fever or coughing. 

* Please note that we cannot accept visitors with fever of 37.5 C or above.

[ Our preventing measures against the COVID-19 ]

* All our staff take temperature every morning and co-check each health status.

* Gallery doors and windows will be regularly opened to ensure the space is sufficiently ventilated.

* The gallery staff will be washing and sanitizing hands frequently and keep wearing masks at all times. 

* Partitions will be installed at the reception counter to prevent droplets.

* We make sure to sanitize the exposed areas.

Untitled (21st Century Museum of Comtemporary Art, #03, #02), 2007

 (left) Michaël Borremans, Fire from the Sun (single figure standing), 2018, oil on canvas

(center) Mark Manders, Unfired Clay Head on Wooden Floor, 2015, painted bronze, wood, glass

© Michaël Borremans｜Mark Manders / Courtesy of Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp and Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

(right) Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gemsbok, 1980, gelatin silver print © Hiroshi Sugimoto / Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi

Gallery selection｜

Michaël Borremans

Mark Manders

Hiroshi Sugimoto – Diorama

Wednesday, September 16 – Saturday, November 28

*The gallery will be closed on October 27.

*The exhibition will reopen on October 28 with some changes to the works on exhibition.

By reservation only --> For details 

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Past Presence 001, Tall Figure, III, Alberto Giacometti, 2013

© Hiroshi Sugimoto  © Succession Alberto Giacometti (Fondation Giacometti, Paris + ADAGP, Paris) 2020

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO|Past Presence

Saturday, March 14 – Saturday, August 29  [summer holidays: August 11 – 15]  *The exhibition dates extended.

By reservation only --> For details 

Gallery Koyanagi is pleased to reopen the gallery with the continued solo exhibition by Hiroshi Sugimoto “Past Presence” extended through August 29, 2020.

In this exhibition, we will be showing 4 works from the new series Past Presence for the first time in Japan.  In this series, Sugimoto explores his continued interest in the philosophic notion of space and time through a canon of twentieth-century modern masterworks.  Giacometti, Brancusi, Picasso and Magritte’s works are photographed the same way as in his earlier Architecture series, using the technique ‘twice as infinity’ as Sugimoto calls.  By intentionally blurring the focal point, he purifies the details.  In effect, it conjures the original conception nascent in the artist’s mind in idealistic form, while we the viewer unconsciously seek associations.  Sugimoto challenges the viewer to call upon our visual memory, evoking questions of how images are remembered, and whether the images are recalled in precise recollection or not.  Removed from the familiar, Sugimoto asks us to contemplate the inchoate essence of an artwork.

Currently, Sugimoto is having three exhibitions in Japan.  The first, “HYOGU–– Frame of Japan” is on view at Hosomi Museum (Kyoto) through September 6, 2020.  The second, “HIROSHI SUGIMOTO –– POST VITAM” is held at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum (Kyoto) until October 4, 2020.  The third, he will join the group exhibition “STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the World” at Mori Art Museum (Tokyo).

Past Presence 

In 2013 MoMA commissioned me to photograph their sculpture garden.  Designed by Philip Johnson, it is home to many masterpieces of Modernist sculpture.  Among the many famous pieces there, a Giacometti sculpture was the first to catch my eye. The form is extenuated—as if all the flesh had been scraped off a human body—while what remains successfully expresses the condition of being in extremis. This sculpture of Giacometti had already achieved what I set out to achieve with my own approach to photography. I therefore photographed the Giacometti sculpture twice, once in broad daylight and once in the evening twilight. For me, it evoked an image of two figures in Noh drama. Noh is about dead souls coming back to life and becoming visible. In the maeshite (the first half of a Noh play), the dead take human form and lament their own passing. In the nochishite (second half), the ghosts of the dead reappear again dance a dance of bitter sorrow because they cannot rest easily in their graves. In the performance one catches a glimpse of the dead, though the degree of reality depends not just on the power of the acting, but, to a large extent, on the viewer’s own imaginative abilities. Photographing Giacometti gave me the sense of watching a Noh drama, because in Noh the past is reborn as the present. Inspired by Giacometti, I went on to photograph other sculptures in the garden.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO|Past Presence

March 14 – April 25, 2020

*Temporarily closed

Gallery Koyanagi is pleased to announce the solo exhibition by Hiroshi Sugimoto, titled "Past Presence".

Past Presence 

In 2013 MoMA commissioned me to photograph their sculpture garden.  Designed by Philip Johnson, it is home to many masterpieces of Modernist sculpture.  Among the many famous pieces there, a Giacometti sculpture was the first to catch my eye. The form is extenuated—as if all the flesh had been scraped off a human body—while what remains successfully expresses the condition of being in extremis. This sculpture of Giacometti had already achieved what I set out to achieve with my own approach to photography. I therefore photographed the Giacometti sculpture twice, once in broad daylight and once in the evening twilight. For me, it evoked an image of two figures in Noh drama. Noh is about dead souls coming back to life and becoming visible. In the maeshite (the first half of a Noh play), the dead take human form and lament their own passing. In the nochishite (second half), the ghosts of the dead reappear again dance a dance of bitter sorrow because they cannot rest easily in their graves. In the performance one catches a glimpse of the dead, though the degree of reality depends not just on the power of the acting, but, to a large extent, on the viewer’s own imaginative abilities. Photographing Giacometti gave me the sense of watching a Noh drama, because in Noh the past is reborn as the present. Inspired by Giacometti, I went on to photograph other sculptures in the garden.

Hiroshi Sugimoto