Natsunosuke Mise solo exhibition
“golden silver”

11 Mar.Thu. – 10 Apr.Sat.2021

Imura art gallery is pleased to announce “golden silver,” an exhibition by Natsunosuke Mise. For the artist’s first solo exhibition at Imura Gallery in seven years, he shows new works created in the image of gold and silver. Mise is normally based in Yamagata Prefecture, but for this exhibition he has attempted to reproduce here in Kyoto the approach and production processes that underlie his practice.

Mise has been teaching at the Tohoku University of Art and Design in Yamagata since 2009. When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011, he directly experienced the disaster of a major earthquake for the second time in his life, following the Great Hanshin earthquake that occurred when he was a student in the Kansai area. This occurrence led him to reconsider the role and practice of art, and greatly influenced his work ever since. This year is the tenth since the disaster. According to the artist, he doesn’t particularly feel anything special about the tenth anniversary, but at the same time, it would feel wrong to let the anniversary pass unmarked.

Mise works in the area of nihonga (Japanese-style paintings), but his paintings consistently break through the boundaries traditionally ascribed to nihonga. In recent years he has been producing works in the shape of flags, exhibiting them a wide range of venues. During the disaster ten years ago, he was perhaps seeking a new flag (painting) for Japan that could function as a catalyst for depicting a brighter future. And now, at a time when we are filled with anxiety at the invisible threat of a virus, it is valuable to consider where Mise’s flags could lead us.

Coinciding with the timing of this exhibition, the artist is presenting a large work at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art as part of “Bubbles / Debris: Art of the Heisei Period 1989–2019.” This is a good opportunity to explore his work at two venues in close proximity.

amu design
“gokan”

20 Apr.Tue.- 25 Apr.Sun.2021

showcase #9
“visions in and out”
curated by minoru shimizu

Meisai Okamoto

Karen Sato

2 Apr.Fri.- 30 Apr.Fri,2021
open on Fri., Sat., & Sun. 12:00 - 18:00
appointments are available on weekdays.

eN arts is pleased to present the ninth edition of “showcase” curated by Professor Minoru Shimizu, one of Japan’s most respected contemporary art critics. “showcase” is a group exhibition focused on photography and itself has truly been a showcase for up and coming photographers since 2012. For “showcase #9”, Professor Shimizu has selected, from the perspective of “visions in and out”, two talented photographers, Meisai Okamoto and Karen Sato. The detailed information on the exhibition will be found in the next page, and the artists’ statements will follow.

We hope you will enjoy the photographic visions through Sato and Okamoto’s eyes.

showcase #9, 2021
“visions in and out”

This is the 9th “showcase” since its inception in 2012 as a curatorial program for emerging talents of photography (see details in the archives of the gallery’s homepage). The theme of the show is “visions”, which have two meanings. The one is “visions” as optical images projected or printed on a plane. The other refers to “visions” that exist only for certain “visionary” people, but not in reality. The former is produced in a darkroom, as the latter in a visionary’s head. In both cases the visions need a closed space for its generation. How does this closure or shielding relate itself with the reality outside, and what kind of visions are produced through the relations? I have selected two artists who are inspired by each “vision” respectively.

Meisai Okamoto (b.1971) has been inexhaustibly inspired by the most elementary principle of turning the real world into images: Camera obscura and pinhole photography. Adding his original techniques and devises to the pinhole photography, Okamoto has produced surprisingly rich visions. The images emerging in the darkness of Camera obscura seem rather dreamy, but, as they are produced through the most elementary principle of image-making, they can be regarded as the most authentic images of reality, for they are optically generated firsthand images, not yet degenerated to “photography” or “cinema” in our everyday circulation.
Few people understand that there is no such thing as a focus of pinhole camera. Its vision consists of points of rays that pass through a pinhole. When the points are enough small, the image becomes dense, and when large, diffused. This is none other than the principle of pixel images. The most primitive photographic devise directs itself to the basics of digital images.
A few years ago Okamoto came to my portfolio review on the occasion of Canon’s New Century of Photography, and showed his pinhole works, which have been unforgettable since then.

Karen Sato (b.1983) won the Grand Prix of Canon’s New Century of Photography Award 2010 and participated in the first “showcase” in 2012. The uncanny, complex images represent facets of reality sensed by the artist. They are also images produced by light passing through the two pinholes (eyes) in the living Camera obscura (scull).

April, 2021 Minoru Shimizu

〈Discover Japan ? 〉
Shoji Satoru Solo Exhibition

6 Apr.Tue.– 17 Apr.Sat.2021

SHOJI Satoru, developing his artworks from 1960 with an art installation of cloth. Like the series of works “Red Fabric in the Space”, and “CLOTH BEHIND” he is known as the artist who utilizes the characteristics of cloth such as the wide cloth hang up by numberless threads from the ceiling, and to pull until the cloth is about to tear.

When SHOJI exhibit in the 10th Tokyo Biennale: Between man and matter, he got huge attention by exhibiting a copy-printed newspaper and 52 pages of newspapers.

In this exhibition, we will exhibit “the work by copy” when he exhibited in his solo exhibition at galerie16, 1972. It was the work of pasting the commercial postcard, enlarged copy printed in black and white, on the panel and partially adding a trace of the object by the red line or adding outline or straight red line on the surface.

The familiar landscape on the commercial postcard could be seen differently with the red line, it coolly breaks or betrays our perception. Now after 49 years why don’t we realized it again.
This exhibition was open on April 14th, 2020, however, it closed on April 17th due to a state of emergency. After a year, we make re-exhibition by replacing a few artworks.

Akamatsu Kana Exhibition
“ I'm painting here”

20 Apr.Tue.– 1 May Sat.2021

Akira Koyama Kiyomi Kobayashi
Exhibition
“LOST IN THE STARS”

10 Apr.Sat. – 25 Apr.Sun. 2021

Monthly exhibition by April 2021
Yasunori Kinukawa special issue

Yasunori Kinukawa
"my little stones"
2019-2020

Yasunori Kinukawa
“untiteled #21"
2002-2003

Hayato Nishimura

Yuko Sakamoto

2（Fri）～ 4(Sun）.9（Fri）～11（Sun）
16（Fri）～ 18（Sun）.23（Fri）～25（Sun）
Apr.2021

〈Room A〉
Yasunori Kinukawa

〈Room B〉
Hayato Nishimura
Yuko Sakamoto and others

The publication commemorative exhibition
"Suujin Visual Reader”
Zheng Bo, Yuka Mori

17 Apr.Sat.- 23 May Sun.2021

Curated by
Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery @KCUA
Organized by
Kyoto City University of Arts

Zheng Bo:

ZHENG Bo (born in Beijing, 1974; lives and works in Hong Kong) is an artist, writer, and teacher, committed to socially and ecologically engaged art. He investigates the past and imagines the future from the perspectives of marginalized communities and marginalized plants. He is learning to cultivate ecological wisdom for a Good Anthropocene. www.zhengbo.org

Yuka Mori:

1991 Born in Osaka
2016 MFA in Nihonga, Kyoto City University of Arts

“ permanent exhibition “

16 Jan. Sat. − 28 Feb. Sun. 2021

〈1・2 F〉
Gyoji Nomiyama Solo Exhibition

6 Apr.Tue.– 18 Apr.Sun.2021

〈1・2 F〉
Shintaro Iba Solo Exhibition

20 Apr.Tue.– 25 Apr.Sun.2021

〈back yard〉
Ryo Wakabayashi Exhibition

9 Feb. Tue.– 31 July Sat. 2021

“between things, phenomena and acts”
Kirizuki Saki
Murata Chihiro

Kirizuki Saki

Murata Chihiro

17 Apr.Sat.- 30 May Sun.2021

Open only on-line for a state of emergency.
GALLERY TOMO ONLINE STORE

HONDA Mariko solo exhibition
“unknown spirituality”

13 Apr.Tue.- 18 Apr.Sun.2021

HONDA Mariko (b.1997,FUKUSHIMA pref,lives and works in Kyoto) is a spiritual performance and installation artist using fablics.
She is an active graduate student in Kyoto University of the Arts.

“Bijyutsu VAGINA"

ARAKAWA Tomoko

OKAMOTO Mitsuhiro

MIYAKAWA Hikaru

YAMASATO Natsumi

ROKUDENASHIKO

23 Apr.Fri.- 9 May Sun.2021

ARAKAWA Tomoko
OKAMOTO Mitsuhiro
MIYAKAWA Hikaru
YAMASATO Natsumi
ROKUDENASHIKO

HIROTA Yoshino Exhibition
“near future”

10 Apr.Sat.- 25 Apr.Sun.2021

"FLOWER"
UEMURA Lyota
KURITA Sakiko
TAKAGI Tomoko
NAKAGAWA Masabumi
YAMAMOTO Ayumu

1 May Sat.- 16 May Sun.2021

〈1・2 F〉
KURODA Katsumasa Exhibition
Paintings & Drawings

15 Apr. Thu.– 25 Apr.Sun.2021

MATSUDA Keisuke Exhibition

3 Apr. Sat. – 25 Apr.Sun. 2021

Ashikawa Yuji Solo Exhibition
"Reintroducing the Female Image"

23 Mar.Tue. – 27 Mar.Sat.2021