TAKE NINAGAWA
EXHIBITION
EXHIBITION
RYOKO AOKI: STORIES ABOUT BOUNDARIES
A key member of the experimental art scene that emerged in Kyoto in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ryoko Aoki is known for making enigmatic installations of drawings and objects. Executed on a wide array of supports, from art paper to scraps, the drawings depict everyday scenes, natural imagery, and colorful abstractions in styles ranging from cartoon to realistic study. The objects range from stones to carved figurines to items Aoki fashions out of old fabric. Like odd shrines or crime scenes, her installations invite viewers to speculate about the significance of their parts while withholding meaning as a whole.
For her latest exhibition at Take Ninagawa, Aoki will create a series of works in boxes, presented on tabletops, shelves, the floor, and elsewhere, that deploy shifts in scale and perspective to draw viewers into the spaces they contain. For Aoki, the works converse with precedents ranging from Genpei Akasegawa’s Canned Universe (1964), for which the Anti-Art trickster conceptually canned the universe by reversing the position of the labels of canned goods from outside to inside the cans, to On Kawara’s Date Paintings and Susan Hiller’s vitrine installations.
VENUE
VENUE
TAKE NINAGAWA
- C3
- Azabu-Juban
Established in 2008, Take Ninagawa is dedicated to promoting emerging and historically established Japanese artists in a cross-generational, international framework. Represented artists build upon precedents in Japanese postwar experimental art in developing their own approaches to address contemporary concerns. International artists in the gallery’s program are invited to respond to the specific context for contemporary art and culture in Japan while giving expression to the broader perspectives they bring with them. Each exhibition at the gallery is conceived on a project basis, with artists encouraged to develop ideas across a series of exhibitions. Driven by a mission to produce new values that can challenge entrenched power structures in art and society, Take Ninagawa frequently collaborates on initiatives with other galleries in Japan, the Asia Pacific, and beyond. Represented artists include Ryoko Aoki, Thea Djordjadze, Kazuko Miyamoto, Shinro Ohtake, Aki Sasamoto, Danh Vo, and Tsuruko Yamazaki.
