FUTO AKIYOSHI / KAZUHITO TANAKA

Either / Or
July 4 - August 2, 2020
open Thu. to Sun. noon-5pm
closed on Mon., Tue., Wed. and national holidays

cooperation: TARO NASU

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We are pleased to announce that KAYOKOYUKI will present a group show by Futo Akiyoshi and Kazuhito Tanaka entitled "Either / Or". This exhibition consists of a series of works that Akiyoshi and Tanaka have been developing in recent years.

In Futo Akiyoshi's series, he paints on a series of two-connected canvases, disassembles them when he has completed multiple paintings, and then joins one-half of the canvases with another half to create a new series of two-connected canvases. There, the independence and unity of painting as a subject is torn apart, and the collective and social nature of painting appears. It also becomes a metaphor for human existence in society, and it reflects the relationship between the individual and the individual, and between the individual and society.
Kazuhito Tanaka's "PP" series is made up of photographs (on the photographic paper) exposed in various colors on top of paintings drawn from the perspective of the history of abstract painting.
The composition of this series has been carefully considered over a period of time, while maintaining the medium and process of both "photography" with delicate printing operations and "painting" with improvisational nature, the artist integrates them into a single image and by doing so the artist attempts to have them repeatedly reversing and restoring themselves, simultaneously dismantling each other.

Given the history of their work to date, these series are significant in the sense that they are deconstructing that history themselves.

Akiyoshi has been questioning what makes a painting a painting by applying rules and contingencies, mixing various techniques, visualizing the production process, and emphasizing the materiality of the works.
While Tanaka has been focusing on the relationship between painting and photography, he has been experimenting with the possibility of new abstract expression through photography from various angles, and his attitude of recognizing the experience of "looking at a painting" through photography has been consistent for the whole time.

There seems to be an underlying trust in, or a longing for, a modern value system, that makes "painting" pure and independent which already on the verge of being lost. Yet, in their recent series, they have dismantled the completeness and independence of the concept of "one painting" and we can read a willingness to make a breakthrough towards the incomplete, the omnipresent, and the plural.
We would like to invite you to discover new horizons of the two artists, who are constantly asking the fundamental questions of what is "painting" and what is "photography".

Futo Akiyoshi
Born in 1977 in Osaka, Japan. Graduated with BA in 2001, with MA in 2003 from Nagoya University of Arts, Japan. Core to Akiyoshi's painting is the quest about what makes the canvas and paint into a painting. He has been enjoying this quest from the beginning of his career, through manifold of approaches including not only painting but also sculpture, photography and video. Following five representative series of his painting are the examples of his creation; “A certain aspect (mountain)”, “Room”, “naked relations”, “something too much”, and “We meet only to part”. Through these works, He has explored the ways in which borderlines from the painting practice is articulated through painterly relationships. He has been based in Osaka, Berlin, and Aichi, and has shown his works in Japan and abroad.
Recent solo exhibitions include Something of Painting Part 3, Minatomachi POTLUCK BUILDING ,Aichi (2019), We meet only to part,TARO NASU,Tokyo (2018), All for One, SEXAUER, Berlin (2018), etc. Recent selected group exhibitions include COME TOGETHER, SEXAUER, Berlin (2020) , Aichi Art Chronicle 1919 - 2019, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan (2019), 19th DOMANI, The National Art Center, Tokyo (2016), Temporal Measures, White Rainbow, London (2014), From a Quiet Distance, PARKHAUS im Malkastenpark, Düsseldorf (2014), THE ECHO, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Berlin (2014, 2012), Aichi Triennale 2010, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi (2010), Garden of Painting - Japanese Art of the 00s, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka (2010).

Kazuhito Tanaka
Born in 1973 in Saitama, Japan. After graduating Meiji University in 1996 and then working as a corporate employee, he moved to New York. Guraduated from School of VISUAL ARTS (NY) in 2004. Questioning the relations in between photography and painting, he explores new abstract expressions using photographic medium. He also organizes exhibitions as a curator in parallel with his career as an artist. He is a director of artist-run- space soda founded by him in 2018 in Kyoto. Currently lives and works in Kyoto and Saitama.
Recent solo exhibitions include Trans / Real -The potensial of Intangible Art vol.7 Kazuhito Tanaka, gallery M, Tokyo (2017), pLastic_fLowers, Maki Fine Arts, Tokyo (2015), high & dry, Gallery PARC, Kyoto (2014), etc. Recent group exhibitions include NEW BALANCE #3, XYZ collective, Tokyo (2015), hyper-materiality on photo, G/P gallery shinonome, Tokyo (2015), etc. Recent curations include Photographs by 7 Painters, soda, Kyoto (2018), NEW INTIMACIES, Hotel Anteroom Kyoto Gallery 9.5, Kyoto (2014), Her Name is ABSTRA, Daido-Soko, Kyoto (2012), etc. He was awarded TOKYO FRONTLINE PHOTO AWARD 2011.

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