EXHIBITION

Yutaka Aoki

Without Blinking

1/Jul/2017 - 12/Aug/2017

KOSAKU KANECHIKA is pleased to present “Without Blinking”, Yutaka Aoki’s solo exhibition, as the gallery’s third exhibition since its opening in March 2017.

 

Recognizing the world through painting, understanding painting through its relationship with the world, and investigating its possibilities. Through many different approaches, Yutaka Aoki has always been engaged in these endeavors. His work freely traverses the two- and three-dimensional: installations composed of paintings intermingled with sculptures; or the series of silver paintings in which the artist emphasizes the touches of the brushstrokes by building up mountains of paint and then spraying color onto them; or the series of paper that he folds modeled upon genetic structures and then sprays with color from one direction. He demonstrates how scenery changes according to perspectives, and suggests that it is not the symbolic value of a particular image, but rather the materiality of media and the production process themselves which compose a painting, and his creation process thereby expands painting’s field of vision, offering visual experiences that bring back various human sensitivities to our digitalized daily life. This exhibition will feature approximately 15 new paintings, centering upon the silver painting series described above.

 



About This Exhibition

Aoki remarks on the exhibition as follows:

 

A piece of white cloth, fluttering. When I visited the Ise Shrine, I was struck by a sensation similar to awe, thinking that I had just glimpsed the structure of which the world was composed. The confusion was brought about from a white cloth called the Mitobari that hung at the gate existing between the main building of the shrine and myself. It was also a feeling that I had seen what painting was truly about.
Perhaps it’s reckless to say this, but any elements existing in a particular place do not have any reasons for their existence, and painting may be the same. What is important is what kind of recognition we can acquire of what happens, or does not happen, when the unordered elements existent in each place interact with each other.
The Mitobari is the very structure of the world itself, in the sense that it may be the connection, or the severance, or neither, of thought, material, or environment. It further functions as an unexpected clue for the living beings, that is to say humans, whose thoughts enter into that space, to recognize something that lies outside perception.
Because this function is also a role assigned for painting, I think that painting may also become a part of this world, or can be independent from it.
If we think about what is making all this possible, perhaps it is the unexpected collisions that happen when ceaseless lights and movements cross. The energy contained in simple differences everywhere in the world and the density of these differences is overwhelming, but I hope, through painting, to stand humbly in this nullified world.

 

The minimalist painter Robert Ryman reveals various materialistic aspects of painting, such as its mark-making, thickness, clarity, materiality, and sense of volume, by using only the simple color of white, and various contrastive means of installing, and choices of materials. Just as when it snows things that are not seen usually become visible, Ryman shows that painting contains the possibilities of allowing us to see many things.

 

Aoki too, explores the rich possibilities of painting, with the help of light – not illusionistic light, but the actual lights of the exhibition space – and invites us to reflect upon the act of seeing, and perception itself, by means of his own individual approaches. In our digitalized daily environment, Aoki’s work offers visual experiences that bring back various human sensitivities.

 



General information

Exhibition
Yutaka Aoki "Without Blinking"

Dates
July 1 - August 12, 2017

Hours
11 am - 6 pm / Tue, Wed, Thu and Saturday
11 am - 8 pm / Friday
Closed on Sun, Mon and National Holidays

Location
KOSAKU KANECHIKA
TERRADA Art Complex 5F
1-33-10 Higashi-Shinagawa
Shinagawa-ku
Tokyo
140-0002
+81(0)3-6712-3346
kosakukanechika.com

Free Admission




Yutaka Aoki

Yutaka Aoki was born in 1985 in Kumamoto. He currently lives and works in Tokyo. He graduated from the Painting major of the Department of Fine Arts, Tokyo Zokei University, in 2008, and received an M.A. in Fine Art from the Graduate School of Tokyo Zokei University in 2010. His major solo exhibitions include “multiprime” (hiromiyoshii, 2011), “OUTER ROOM, INNER GARDEN” (Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, 2012), and “Mouvements” (sprout curation, 2014). His major group exhibitions include “The Way of Painting” (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2014), “VOCA” (The Ueno Royal Museum, 2016), and “Collection Exhibition” (Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, 2016). Aoki’s work has been included in public collections including the Takahashi Collection and that of the Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto.

WORKS

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

  • Untitled, 2017

MORE

INSTALLATION VIEW