Kentaro Kobuke, Ricca, 59.4×84.1cm, Colour pencil on cherry wood, 2008
An explosive group show of ten artists collectively engaged in sweeping explorations of the hyper real. Locating opposing attitudes of aspiration and displacement the artists navigate both the repressed urban and the burgeoning placidness of the remote and removed outdoors.
Elaborate contortions of folkloric landscape and outlandish universes court a collective consciousness of the elsewhere within the here-and-now. BAROCK PLASTIK draws on the materialistic and visual excess of the Baroque while pointing resolutely to a contemporary bridging point of new Americana, caught between unapologetic nostalgic resolve and fresh Presidential sway.
Tereza Buskova’s photographs configure ritualistic narrative where androgynistic sexuality is neutralised by ostentatious dress and Geisha-white. Toshiaka Hicosaka presents erased and reduced landscapes, enforcing the selective and arbitrary nature of decision-making, the works strive for an unobtainable core of reason. Yutaka Inagawa’s paintings contrast ornamental elements of tree and vegetation against flat painted grounds while Kounosuke Kawakami locates panoptical architectural elements in dislocated and impenetrable landscapes. Kengo Kito’s presents an excessively large helium balloon, a self-sustained hovering entity, while Kentaro Kobuke ‘s intimate works describe a patchwork of normality that sit against the fantastical urban landscapes of Tom Leighton’s mirrored and folded impossible realities. Further informing a site of theatrical performance Stine Ljunedalh’s photographs disclose a latent shadow of self, transformation and disguise while Akiko Takizawa’s empty interiors preside over the lost lives, objects and histories withheld within their rich tonal contrast.
I-MYU
