NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to present the solo-exhibition by Kosuke Tsumura（1959-）. Kosuke Tsumura was awarded “So-en” prize in 1982, and he is well known as fashion designer, who started his own fashion brand “FINAL HOME” from the Miyake Design Company. His creativity, based on the concept such as “defense”, “survival”, has never stopped just in the field of fashion design, but also it has been regarded widely in the various fields, beyond the border of expression. For example he took part in “The 21st exhibition of Japanese Contemporary Art” in Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 1992, where he was awarded in the second prize, “VISION OF THE BODY: FASHION OR INVISIBLE CORSET” in Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 1999, “Venetia Biennial Architecture Exhibition” in 2000, and “SAFE DESIGN TAKES ON RISK” in MOMA the Museum of Modern Art, NY in 2005. Tsumura’s multiple creativity, with both elements of Mode and Art, shows us the new possibility for the expression today.

For this exhibition, Tsumura shows fabrics, reusing plugs and LAN cables, which were destined to be industrial waste. It is not just because he has been very good at using themes such as “recycling” and ”ecology”. But also classical working techniques with his hands, such as “knitting by hand” and “patchwork” are based on his pure sincerity as artist, who is a fashion designer on the other hand. Tsumura considers about the invisible added value, such as “time” and “techniques”, which is made in the background of handwork. He says, “I consider of the relieved mind by twisting strings each other, not to stop my own creativity by taking it for craft and design.”

Tsumura comments for this exhibition as follows:
“The surface of the city, where mode melts unclearly and stopped to work, floats in the air wondering to look for warmth in those old days impossible to go back. This is my challenge to make another dreamy code by using affectionate traditional craft-techniques such as “knitting by hand” and “patchwork”, and to put good sleep to the functional monster called “development”, which is flooded with the jungle of mechanical codes, and natural design made of chemical materials.

We will have the opening reception with the artist. We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce the group exhibition [CORNER], by Alexander Gelman, Paul Davis, Toast Girl, and Yuichi Yokoyama. This exhibition focuses on unique artists carrying out their original style not being limited to genres and rules of expression, who are also isolated from trends of art but have strong talents to move the times. Recently people tend to pay attention to the necessity to change the present state of our society including art and culture. The exhibition [corner] is titled to consider about overdoing market principle of art, wondering if the concept of art has reached a turning point.

Alexander Gelman is an accomplished media artist based in New York and Tokyo. His work, widely shown around the world, is included in permanent collections including The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D. C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Biblioth_que National de France in Paris. Employing various media, challenging the boundaries between art, science, politics and popular culture, he is regarded as “most influential artist all over the world” by The Museum of Modern Art in New York. In his recently published book in Japan, “POST GLOBAL”, he shows his research in the unique skill of workmen, and a sense of beauty in Japan, talking about the new possibility of culture in the global society, commenting that he is proud that he had a chance to take part in their works with ideas, skills over the times, and inspired his creativity.

Paul Davis started his creation in the end of 80’s, who is a popular illustrator all over the world with his intentional clumsy drawing, and well known in Japan as well with works for official Home Page for Ryuichi Sakamoto. He is good at satire on society, and his drawing with wit and irony got popular among the top fashion media such as “VOGUE” and ”DAZED” in the late 90’s. But on the other hand, the valuation on his works as fine art doesn’t rise in inverse proportion to a rise in celebrity as illustrator, and although they use similar style each other, David Shrigley, 6 years younger Scottish artist whose works win a good reputation, outdoes him. It makes us consider about an ascendancy of market promotion over valuation on leading and originality of works.

Toast Girl completed MFA program, and she was graduated from the painting course at the department of fine art, Royal Melbourne institute of Technology. She is an artist who has performed to wear a hard-hat fitted with a toaster (toaster hat) that makes real toast, since she was a student in 1998. Her originality with versatility such as an activity as singer, dance, and an improvisational performance, which we can’t easily define as performance art, makes her unlimited to being the existing image of artist. It is because even she doesn’t have place in fine art, she carries out her original act as artist, brings it up, and influences not a little people, that her activity doesn’t stop in the world of complacency, although it has not got out of underground. Then when we reconsider her expression beyond time, her performance has enough possibility to show the important side involved in this time we live.

Yuichi Yokoyama is an artist graduated from the department of painting, Musashino Art University in 1990, who has worked as cartoonist since 1995. He is an isolated artist high regarded in the art scene, who took part in “Roppongi Crossing” (Mori Art Museum 2007), “City_net Asia” (Seoul Museum of Art 2009), and many fans love not only his cartoons but also his colorful works of paintings and drawings, His unique works based on his original, interesting and simple lines shine as if they give an alarm whistle to latent problems in art such as formalization of art. His talent beyond the existing world of cartoon and art scene is expected to enlarge the possibility of cartoon, and open the future of art as well.

These above 4 artists may be considered as outsider in the existing art scene. Even though, it is sure that expression and the nature vested interests, will be replaced by new things someday. We need to consider its possibility paying attention to overlooked talents, which don’t follow the fashion.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to present “Kochuten”, a solo exhibition of new works by Keiichi Tanaami. In this exhibition, we show his 10 works of new paintings inspired by Chinese traditional story in the book of the later Han.

Keiichi Tanaami was born in 1936 in Tokyo and graduated from Musashino University of Art. Since 1960’s, he has been the one and only artist, who worked actively as graphic designer, illustrator, and artist, without being limited to media or genre, or rather beyond them. While a university student, He was associated with artists such as Ushio SHINOHARA and Tomio MIKI, the leading figures of Neo-dada Japan, then after his graduation in the middle of 1960’s, he was influenced by the psychedelic culture and Pop art, and has been making works widely such as films, silk-screens, paintings, and sculptures. Especially the encounter with Andy Warhol in the end of 1960’s, got him triggered, and he has kept experimental tries against main problems in the contemporary art scene, such as “art and design”, “merchandise and art”, and “connection between daily life and beauty” until today.

‘Kochuten’is the theme for Tanaami’s new works, which is based on Chinese ancient story. “There is a heaven even in a pod”, explaining the importance to have and deepen own utopia, even living in this world. He painted his utopia being strongly inspired by it’s concept “own small universe existing in a pod”. Tanaami shows his own world with the original motifs of various artists, whom he was influenced by in his long creative activity, such as Warhol, Lichtenstein, Chirico, Picasso, Escher, Hokusai, Kyosai Kawanabe and Fujio Akatsuka. It is the mysterious world in where they are living together with Tanaami’s original characters such as odd looking gold fish, girls, and creatures. And there are also many important elements for Tanaami’s work, such as beam, explosion and spiral pines, which are associated with his experience of the war and disease. Tanaami describes his own experience in the World WarⅡas following. “I still wonder if it occurred in the real world or not. In my memory, it has been obscure and the real world and my dream have been mixed.” However Tanaami has described throughout his extreme experience in the war and disease which made him hover between life and death, these his new works show his ultimate utopia.

Tanaami comments for his works and this exhibition as follows:

“My latest paintings have Calabash, which has nothing to do with Eros. It is because I describe the world of ‘Kochuten’, inspired by Chinese ancient story. In the Han era, there lived an old man who was a dealer of medicines, but he was actually an immortal. Every night he jumped into a pod shaped like a Calabash, in where the magnificent palace with innumerable castles exists. There is the world of immortals which has the whole universe in a tiny pod. It is the Shangri-La beyond time and space, and it is the ultimate utopia.” (Keiichi Tanaami)

*** For inquiries please contact the following.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce an exhibition “Recollection” by Hiroki Tsukuda. We are presenting not only 10 new drawings but about 8m size of wall drawing on the main walls of a gallery.

Hiroki Tsukuda was born in 1978 in Kagawa, who graduated Department of Imaging Arts and Science at the Musashino Art University. He recently received Bacon prize, which is an award for young artist at Art Fair Tokyo in April. His art works were collected by Thyssen-Bornemisza contemporary art foundation, which Mrs. Francesca Hubsburg serve as a representative and who was also an selector committee at the Prize.

The new works which Tsukuda is presenting at this exhibition is the series of parallel world "Imaginary Land" which Tsukuda is pursuing consistently. Because Tsukuda was color-blinded when he was a child, he depended on the shade and a form to see the scenery around him, rather than color. When the scenery changes dramatically by temperature or the humidity, Tsukuda's peculiar eyesight which was changed into high contrast, often brought the unrealistic world to little Tsukuda. Its spectacles were printed in Tsukuda's mind with the sense of awe and became original scenery in present Tsukuda's art work.

The most important element is the composition of a light and a shadow, in the work of Tsukuda. Those drawings, which values black and white, somehow make us image the night. It is the result of reflection between Tsukuda's research of natural light and our vision. On the other hand, the geometric image in Tsukuda's drawing comes from his artistic point of view which is to draw the nature simply with small amount of information. The visual hallucination which Tsukuda has, could be in the same vector as what Cezanne says, “Treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone”

Tsukuda says as follows for this exhibition. “It is unknown if I have created fancy world based on the scenery which I have seen unconsciously, or if such world have appeared suddenly in front of me based on my imagination. But I would like to express those fragments of the scenery minced in my head as the memory (recollection).”

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce the group exhibition, PLAY ROOM, by the young artists, Tomoki Kurokawa, Martin Mannig and Moe Matsuhashi.

Tomoki Kurokawa was born in 1975. He is a self-taught painter, who spent many hours going back and forth between the library and the art museum. His work pulls from imagery that most of us regards as garbage. They are drawn with a wittiness that comes from his own decisive moments. His work is has been introduced in Kanye West’s blog, as “a new talent doing big things in Japan”.

Martin Mannig is a German painter who studied at the Dresden Art University. He is referred to as the “young hope of Dresden School”. Born in 1974, in Freiberg, he experienced first hand the German Reunification. His work maintains the intensity of the Classics, while skillfully incorporating subculture elements, such as movies, animation, comics, and music. Although Martin’s pictures are drawn with many layers that express the breadth of the human experience, the motif of the work is based on the juvenile mind.

Moe Matsuhashi is a new graduate of Tama Art University. Her installations are combinations of images and forms. They are the crystals of the images, which are found in everyday life, or unexpected, fleeting memories. The posture of her work seems to be faithful to the initial creative impulse, akin to a child’s creative activity, and presents a forcible answer to fundamental questions such as, what is art, and why the need to express it.

The concern for the innocent creative expression have been advanced by artists such as Paul Klee, Picasso, Miro, Kandenski and Dubuffet, at the beginning of the 20th Century. It is an important subject that helps usher in sublime new art by eliminating a vicious mindset. They examine the expressions of a child, an elderly person, etc, in hopes of gaining insight as to why culture has continued being necessary in civilization.

These three artists have groundless apprehensions of the “calculations of a certain type” in regard to the world of contemporary art. They instead seek their own sanctuaries. Although “calculations of a certain type” can also be stated as, “Making a concept to prove originality.” These artists know the demerit of that.

[Art is a trial to build a peasant form.] by Herbert Read.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to announce “YO-KAI” by MUSTONE , second solo exhibition in Nanzuka Underground. MUSTONE had worked mainly on canvas drawn by oil chalk in the past, but he is now working new painting and sculpture with the use of silicone resin in this exhibition.

MUSTONE has been originally researching on spectrology which is from ancient tradition of Japan, as the inspiration to bear basis of his own expression activities. YO-KAI（specter）is drawn comically, sometimes seriously, as evil creature to trouble people, or as the goodness to admonish people. MUSTONE has his attention to people's spiritualism charmed by its existence.

The idea of the mystery and awe which we often take in is the most important element for MUSTONE’s works. He draws "Something" that is taken by people's most sharpened sensitivity as YO-KAI, just like it has the symbolic word of "dwelling". That is why YO-KAI drawn by MUSTONE does not look like a stereotyped Monster.

MUSTONE carefully selected the motif for works based on his own special experience towards this exhibition. These works are the forms of things lives in parallel world which MUSTONE has looked in. Also they are expressing “Pleasant Sensation” which he was saved by. 　MUSTONE says “it is a pleasant sensation fascinated by mystery, in another word, mysterious pleasure". We wonder if such sensitivity dwells in every one of us just like him.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce the solo exhibition 「for the present」 works by Kawamoto Yoko. This will be the first exhibition in a domestic commercial gallery for Kawamoto and it will consist about 20 oil paintings which Kawamoto has been working over the past three years.

Kawamoto begins to paint and acquire knowledge through self-education since late 1990s. In 1999, she won "the choice grand-prix" of an illustration magazine. Afterward, she continued exhibitions [Ordinary Day] (Rocket, Tokyo) in 1999 and [Drifter] (ATM gallery, NY) in 2007, in an honest way. The works of Kawamoto, which painted carefully one by one to present her point of view in everyday life of the world, gives fresh surprise to the viewer what is regarded as wonderful. Or its simple view, which does not depend on the logic or technology, may touch sympathy of people.

At this exhibition, we will exhibit the series of scenery paintings, which was cut off with unique viewpoint that can be seen any suburbs in Japan, such as scrap, industrial materials, a car thrown away in the mountains, and factory or harbor where nobody exist. Although, Kawamoto call these motifs as 「the overlooked scenery」, these may actually symbolizes "another face" of Japan where repeatedly scrap and build to become new image of civilization city.

Kawamoto describe her point of view as follows. 「An object, which someone threw away on his own, someone placed or left unconsciously, or an object that has no idea of been watched by people. These attract and interests me.」

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of works by Akiyoshi Mishima. This is the third exhibition for him, which comprises of the installation including video work , painting and mixed media sculpture.

This exhibition is a continuation of his solo debut exhibition 「QUARTER」 in 2006. Mishima expressed the responsibilities and possibilities, which his generation undertakes with the future, by analyzing his cultural roots and realities of three generations after the world-war in its exhibition. Categorized generations are, 「First Generation (grandfather and grandmother) Collision」, 「Second Generation (father and mother) Rule and Conflict」, and 「Third Generation (myself) Acceptance and Fusion」.

In this Exhibition, Mishima aims at the origin relation which human beings share with possible live objects on the earth and entrusts the possibility of mutual peaceful coexistence into the title of 「FAMILY」. Mishima discribes about his mask work that he made for this exhibition as follow.

「Originally, the mask has been used in order to acquire the special power by wearing it. It was told in the man's history that it will be the most fearful when the true character was revealed. However, possibly it was the virtual image which covered with vicious mask, not what really is. My mask is a natural portrait which has the power to prevent man's malignancy, and leads to the Nature Creation.」

That’s why Mishima gazes man's past, present, and future, who were evolved by hybridization, the performers in Mishima's work looks mysterious complexes of a human, a monkey, a bird, a beast, a fish, or a reptiles.

It is going to be the first exhibition for us after we are moving to Gallery Complex in Shirogane, Collaborating with Yamamoto Gendai, Kodama Gallery. LONDON GALLERY, Research Institute for Novel Natural-Materials Co., Ltd., and Tomoyuki Sakakida Architect Associates Co.,ltd.

We are looking forward to see you there.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to present KANNOOON, a solo exhibition of a series of new sculptures and paintings by Keiichi Tanaami. In this exhibition, we show an original image of Kannon Bosatsu (Deity of Mercy) inspired by the fantastic Buddhist images of the traditionally multi-armed deity, in the installation of paintings, and a big piece of Amitabha Buddha and its 100 miniature works.

For this special exhibition, Tanaami worked for a year with the concept, which he has developed for a long time. In 1981, Tanaami contracted pleurisy and he hovered between life and death. Based on this experience, he made a series of works around the theme of “life and death” throughout the 80s and 90s. His works at that time tended to evoke his understanding of the finite aspect of life, heavily using spiraling motifs and images of pines and rings that evoke mini-escapes. Differently from them, works for KANNOOON take bright approach featuring rounded erotic forms personified through goldfish, despite a girl shaking with sobs. From the point that this sculpture is the multi-armed deity, which weeps about people’s torture, It is clear Tanaami formed the exhibition KANNOOON to show the Buddhists’ paradise that he had visualized during his various life experiences with war and illness.

Tanaami describes these works in KANNOON:

“The standard form of Buddhist statues is specified by its scriptures. My favorite Buddhist statues are, however, the series of bizarre, odd and mysterious ones that step out of the various rules. I have a continuous interest in the amazing Buddhist statues that transform freely into various forms including Rokuromi Kannon (in a temple in Rokuromi, Mie) that rides on the 4-legged and 8-headed bizarre bird and Senshu Senzoku Kannon that has multiple arms and legs (in Shomyoji).

KANNOOON will be exhibited concurrently with a show “Shonen Oja” by Soji Yamakawa and Keiichi Tanaami at a project space, TANYA (next to NANZUKA UNDERGROUND) produced by our gallery.

We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to present Shonen Oja (King of Boy), a special exhibition of works by Soji Yamakawa and Keiichi Tanaami, at art space TANYA. This exhibition features Soji Yamakawa’s original drawings and Keiichi Tanaami’s silkscreen works made by using Yamakawa’s original drawings, which were exhibited in a retrospective show of Soji Yamakawa held at Yayoi Museum in 2008, in commemoration of the 100 years since his birth.

At age 23 in 1931, Soji Yamakawa established a production company of “a picture-story show (which has a series of colored pictures depicting the content of the tales)” and published the first original picture-story “Shonen Oja (King of Boy)”. In the following year, 1932, he showed “Shonen Tiger (Tiger Boy)”, and it became incredibly popular. After enduring and making it through the war, Yamakawa again showed Shonen Oja (King of Boy) on the war-mangled streets of Japan. Released in book form in 1946, it became the first best selling book after the war and established a genre of its own. In 1951 Shonen Kenya (Boy in Kenya) was serialized in the national newspaper and Yamakawa soon left his mark in history by making his way to the top of a list of millionaires as an artist, overtaking Taikan Yokoyama (who was the highest authority on Japanese painting then) in 1954.

Many boys and girls were amazed when they encountered animals and supernatural beings in the unknown jungles drawn in the Yamakawa’s stories. Keiichi Tanaami was one of those enthusiastic young followers, as well.

Thinking back on those times and memories running after the picture-story show in his childhood, Tanaami talked about his encountering Yamakawa’s work as follows:

“A storyteller started a picture-story show “Shonen Oja (King of Boy)” as the gigantic sun was setting under the horizon. There were about 50 kids enjoying the show. I used to wait for a long time in long lines in order to see every show from the front row. Although the town had been destroyed and it was depressing, I got totally into the picture-story show as if I saw the whole world through it… Soji Yamakawa inspired me. I might not have worked in this field if I hadn’t encountered Shonen Oja (King of Boy) of the picture-story show and the book…” (excerpted from the article featured in “BRUTUS TRIP” (2008 July)

Shonen Oja (King of Boy) will be exhibited concurrently with a solo show KANNOOON by Keiichi Tanaami at Nanzuka Underground. We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Keiichi Tanaami (1936-). This exhibition especially focuses on Tanaami's early works, in painting and sculpture which restructured his paintings, drawings, video works and silk screens during the 60s and early 70s.

Keiichi Tanaami started his career as an artist in the 1960s. Throughout the 60s and 70s, he had been a central figure of the avant-garde art movement in the post-war Japan. He acted with Neo-Dada Japan, which was a key player in the antiart movement in Japan, established a close rapport with Robert Rauschenberg and Michel Tapié and also worked with Andy Warhol. Tanaami has been highly regarded since then, as a standard-bearer of the counterculture movement which rippled throughout society and effected the dialogue during the Vietnam War, the revision of Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the Great Cultural Revolution, and the oil crisis.

His representative works from the period include the “NO MORE WAR” series, a prize winning silk screen print work in the "Pacifist Poster Contest" sponsored by AVANT-GARDE magazine in 1968 and album covers for legendary bands such as The Monkees and Jefferson Airplane all of which have left a significant imprint on the introduction of Pop Art and psychedelic culture into Japan. Tanaami also focused on making art books from early on in his career, applying his energy to publishing art books including “Tamago-gata (Egg Shape)” (1963), "A Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami" (1966), and “Kyozo Mirai Zukan (Illustrated Book of Imaginary Tomorrow)” (1969). These works represent Tanaami's focused attention on the possibilities of Pop Art which uses the rules of advertising art by experimentally applying techniques like polychrome printing and image sampling with the concept of replication in his art since the mid 1960s.

Receiving a lesson from Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas around the same time, Tanaami also poured his efforts into making experimental movies and animations. These works have been invited to and highly regarded by many international film festivals and film exhibitions in the past, including the "New York Film Festival" (1976), "Japanese Experimental Cinema” (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1978), and the "London International Avant-Garde Film Festival" (UK, 1979, 2003).

His recent activities include: A collaboration for Paris Fashion Week with Indian fashion designer Manish Arora; A feature spread in the Norwegian art magazine "HOTROD" and Solo exhibitions at dominant galleries in Europe such as Art&Public (Geneva) and Galerie Gebr.Lehmann (Berlin).

This exhibition [COLORFUL] focuses on the early works of Keiichi Tanaami who has been trying to do freer expressive activities beyond the boundary between fine art and graphic art, and attempts to think again about the creative activities still embodying the social climate.

Tanaami comments looking back on the 60s as follows: "When I look back down my winding road I can see bright lights shooting from that special period in the 60's. Everything was born in the 60's: graphic design, editorial design, animation, experimental film, painting, printing, dimensions, and has now matured."

We hope you will be able to visit this exhibition.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of new works by Martin Mannig, an emerging German painter.

Mannig was born in Freiberg in 1974. He attended the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (HfBK, Dresden University of Visual Arts) between 1999 and 2004, and completed his Master’s degree under the tutorage of Professor Ralf Kerbach, also an acclaimed artist. Taking his inspiration from a variety of sources such as traditional German satire and contemporary subculture, his paintings explore the vibrancy and flexibility of the medium. Their witty and friendly veneer conceals the artist’s examination of the dark side of history and it’s raison d'être. The characteristic layering technique used in his paintings is a reflection of this thought process.

This show marks Mannig’s first solo exhibition not only in Japan but also outside of Europe. It features new works comprising of paintings, drawings and installations. In addition to his oeuvre from the world of German fairytales, he has also completed a series of works inspired by American late-night TV shows and all-night screenings of B-rate horror films from the 70’s.

Asked about the show, Mannig commented: "Mitternachtsbilder (Midnight Picture). In this title, there is a possibility of a Romantic and poetic interpretation. It can refer to the traditional figure of the German storyteller of fairytales such as Brothers Grimm. The title is also a play on the phenomenon of American Midnight Movies of the 70's. They typically featured a mixture of low-budget, independently produced horror, anime, western, fairytale, erotic & porno films shown late at night. It represented an opposition to the traditional depiction of normal life and order in mainstream film. These paintings are from the “Twilight Zone” of Midnight Movies where the Bizarre may turn out to be the Best and the Grotesque changes into the Good. And now, the Unbelievable is coming to the Land of the Rising Sun!
Good bye and Amen,
Yours, Martin Mannig."

The artist comes to Japan for this exhibition. We look forward to seeing you at our gallery and hope you enjoy the show.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Noritoshi Hirakawa.

Hirakawa is a renowned conceptual artist who has been the subject of solo shows at Hermes Forum, Tokyo, Museum of Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Wako Works of Art, Tokyo, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp and Deitch Projects, NY. He has also been included in group exhibitions worldwide such as the Venice Biennale in 1994, and more recently at P.S.1 in New York, Leeum, Seoul and Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf. His works have been acquired by the collections at CAPC Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Through works such as “S”, in which he expressed the inevitability of man's attraction to and fear of death with photographs of the last view that each jumper might have seen, “The reason of Life”, in which he expressed women's suppressed sexual desires by having female models flash their undergarments in public, and “Dreams of Tokyo”, in which the contention between the Japanese social system and its people are elaborated by his images of squatting female figure that reveal discreetly that they are not wearing any underwear, Hirakawa challenges the paradoxes and taboos of the society and attempts to uncover the unchangeable truth.

In this solo exhibition, he focuses on the district of Shibuya, and through figures of young women that gather in the area, deliberates on the issue of communication between daughters and their parents in the present-day Japanese society. Today, many women lead lives which their parents are not fully aware of; meanwhile, the parents force superficial morals upon their children in an attempt to maintain a community which they call family. People do not realize that under this oppressive state, women who play the role of the daughter only lose sight of their real selves and sense of existence within the society. In this exhibition, he displays two series "A sense of accomplishment" and "A daughter’s proposal" that are “images of daughters that parents are unaware of, and figures of parents that recognize what the daughters are going through,” which Hirakawa believes to be the truest form of relationship that should take place between children and parents.

This series also addresses Hirakawa's concern towards recent events in Japan (of children busjacking and randomly attacking with knives in broad daylight to spite their parents, parents abusing children, children killing parents) that epitomize the collapse of communication between children and parents.

For this exhibition, Hirakawa states the following: "I believe the function of art is to question the essential meaning of human existence without being inhibited by social conventions and wary of the public eye, and through such perspective, to suggest a new, undeceitful way of life to the society at large."

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce a new body of collaborative work by Alexander Gelman and Paul Davis, “GELMAN-IZE & DAVIS-IZE.”
Alexander Gelman and Paul Davis are not only old friends, but also good rivals with different styles with mutual respect for each other. This exhibition is the second collaboration following “Gelman/Davis” which was held by Andrew Roth Gallery, New York, in 2005.

Alexander Gelman is an artist who works through various media, such as videos, graphics, and installations, where he employs his ideas of “Subtraction.” His work has been collected by MOMA and the Smithsonian library. Paul Davis is the English artist best known for his coruscating humor and fine/ugly drawing. He has many fans in Japan, Europe, America and beyond.

In this exhibition, Alexander Gelman and Paul Davis react to each other’s work in their own different way. For example, Paul Davis sent Alexander Gelman new drawings of fantastical diagrams about life, love, sex, death and pointlessness for Gelman to Gelmanize them. At the same time, Gelman sent Davis his brutally pared-down images to be Davisized. With his unique drawing style, Paul reformed Gelman’s perfect works. Gelman in turn redefined the freehand appearance of Paul’s drawings. Gelman got Davised, Davis got Gelmanized.

It will be a fascinating exhibition raising questions of authorship, ownership and originality linked with constant, relentless reaction in the art scene today. We look forward to your attendance.