NANZUKA is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition of new works by American artist Todd James (b. 1969). This will be Todd James' first solo show in Japan.

Todd James is known as one of the representative artists from the '80s and '90s street art scene in New York. A participant in the graffiti scene since his mid-teens, he is also known by his tag name REAS and has had an enormous effect on people of his generation around the world as a symbol of the driving force behind the underground culture of the time. The exhibition "Street Market" held at the Deitch Project gallery in NY in 2000 spread his fame into the formal art scene. In the exhibition, James joined with Barry McGee and Stephen Powers, who both went on to become international stars, to recreate a New York alleyway, covered in graffiti, on a massive scale. The exhibition was shown at the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and later travelled as far as the Parco Museum in Tokyo, stirring up a worldwide sensation.

James' works are characterized by his use of innocent lines and forms along with colorful palate recalling the drawing style of children. This particular style, while possibly in part being influenced by UPA (United Productions of America) animations, is an expression of his creative worldview. The central theme of his work is the contradiction between the familiarity that is at first apparent on the surface and the loaded tongue-in-cheek criticism of the under side of contemporary society. The central theme of his work is the contradiction between the familiarity that is at first apparent on the surface and the loaded tongue-in-cheek criticism of the under side of contemporary society. A tank smoking a cigarette, a naked woman with a machine gun and a skeleton, anthropomorphic fighter planes romping about innocently like children, a woman in a bathing suit playing in a pool of blood; motifs like these appear repeatedly throughout James' works. He does not, however, consider himself to be particularly political. As he explains, each work is simply an assemblage of images created by adapting the information that streams out of TV shows and newspapers on a daily basis. James makes a satirical dig by taking the military-related news on "terrorism and war" constantly over-blown by the American media and turning it into a mirror reflecting the innocent, creative violence of children making games out of tanks and fighter planes and other generally destructive behavior.

This unique method and source of ideas is related to the fact that James is self-taught, which is also why his works remain far removed from the realm of ordinary academic paintings. It is also certainly a result of his being based in the dissident, anti-authoritarian core mentality that is graffiti. James' works, which originate from the self-teachings of the street, express more freedom than those by many academic artists, and this is why they are rather important within today's art scene. In the face of the fact that James' works attract the hearts of many people, they also strongly shake up the lofty, academic identity of contemporary art.

Todd James will be visiting Japan for the exhibition and a reception will take place on 6/2 (Sat) at 19:00 with the artist present. For this exhibition NANZUKA has also collaborated with New York publishing company Picture Box to present "Yield to Temptation", a book of James' drawings.

NANZUKA is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of new works by British artist Oliver Payne (b. 1979). This exhibition will be Oliver Payne's first solo gallery exhibition.

After studying at the Kingston University Faculty of Art and Design in England, Oliver Payne began working in collaboration with Nick Relph during the late 1990s, together creating video and installation work based on skating, hardcore music, punk, graffiti, and other street culture. He has had an extraordinarily bright career as a young artist, together with Relph winning the Golden Lion award in the young artist category at the 50th Annual Venice Biennale (2003) and having exhibited their collaborative work in solo exhibitions at Kunsthaus Zürich (2004) and at the Serpentine Gallery in London (2006). In Japan, they have showcased their work at Art Tower Mito (Lonely Planet exhibition, 2004) and at the Yokohama Triennale (2008). In 2009, Payne and Relph moved on to work separately as solo artists, and Payne has since been creating work mainly around the subject of Japanese subcultures.

Oliver Payne's work takes that which we recognize as common knowledge within a world context, flattens it, and boldly shifts the angle to present us with a new vision. In the two-artist exhibition with Keiichi Tanaami at project space Studiolo in Zürich last November, he exhibited collages composed of a barrage of stickers designed after the Japanese video game DonPachi pasted onto images of Greek sculptures torn from the pages of an old art book. These collages express how symbolic violence in Japanese video games overwhelms and dominates icons that serve as the symbolic identity of Western civilization. In another interpretation, these pieces suggest that the standardized authority on art is, in truth, born from blind faith.

This exhibition will feature a new installation based on the theme of "camp". Since ancient times, we have built camps as a means to rest during the night while on a journey. We built fire to keep wild beasts away, took warmth from that fire, and cooked using that fire, actions which have become acts of leisure, and which also represent the breadth of human innovation. The camp built by Payne is, in a word, hardcore. An intimidating black tent covered in countless needles to prevent anyone from coming near; a concrete video game console; a canvas with climbing holds pasted onto it; all bizarrely presenting the boundary between "game brain" virtual reality-like thinking and our daily lives.

The artist will visit to Japan to make an appearance at the exhibition. There will be an opening reception with the artist in attendance on 4/14 (Sat) from 18:00.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce Sumiyo Ito's debut solo exhibition, child's play. The exhibition features an installation of ten new sculptural works.

Sumiyo Ito was born in 1982 in Nagano, Japan, and completed the graduate studies course in sculpture at Musashino Art University in 2009. An up and coming artist, she has attracted much attention since, receiving the grand prize for three-dimensional work at the 2010 Toyota Art Competition and at this year's 2011 Tokyo Wonder Wall.

Ito's works have deep ties to childhood memories and experience. Among the major themes in Ito's creative works are the innocent violence and free creativity we all possessed as children. Ito confesses, "When I was a child I wanted to see the insides of the dragonflies I caught, so I would often peel off their exoskeleton." That sort of experience is not out of the ordinary. Ito's works, magnifications of casually executed activities such as dissecting dolls and putting them back together to form new figures, are faithful to the fact that we as mankind have made progress due to that fundamental appetite known as curiosity.

The overarching theme for child's play is the childhood desire to conquer the "environment" and "scenario" through the unique childhood role-playing game in which children assign and enact household roles. Ito attempts to cast forms that express that innocent childhood appetite displayed while playing house to "make everything around me mine" and to "determine the casting of roles as I please."

Of the exhibition, Ito says: "The interest in and fear of death; the fear of and hope for life: the sculptures I make are bodies born out of wanting for that pleasure we get from controlling the cycle of Eros and Thanatos (at least the cycle that, in reality, we cannot manipulate)."

The opening reception will take place on November 19 starting at 18:00 and will be attended by the artist.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to announce Dividing Bridge, a solo exhibition of new works by Keiichi Tanaami. The exhibition will feature life-sized sculptures and drawings in addition to the large-scale 2x3m painting Bridge to the Other World.

Keiichi Tanaami was born in Tokyo in 1936 and graduated from Musashino Art University. Tanaami is a one of a kind artist active since the 1960s as a graphic designer, illustrator, and artist who does not heed the boundaries of media and genre but instead traverses them. During his student days, Tanaami exhibited at Yomiuri Independent shows and collaborated with the likes of Ushio Shinohara and Tomio Miki, central members of the Neo Dada post-war Japanese art movement. After graduating in the mid-'60s, he was baptized by psychedelic culture and pop art, and began working in a wide range of media including film, silkscreen, painting and sculpture. He was especially inspired by a run-in with Andy Warhol in the late '60s, and has since been experimentally challenging major issues within contemporary art including art and design, art and product and the relation between daily life and art.

Tanaami has in recent years channeled much of his efforts onto the canvas. In particular, since 2010, he has been concentrating on making mainly large-scale paintings, mandalas of his 70 year-long personal history. These works contain, for example, many motifs drawn from Tanaami's childhood experience of war. Glowing grotesque creatures are personifications of bombs and the light from their explosions. Beams of light stretching outward recall the searchlights of Japanese troops keeping watch for American bomber planes. Skeletal monsters that appear in his works represent both those injured in the war as well as our selves, unaware of the true horrors of war. Goldfish-like characters also often appear in Tanami's work. This motif is deeply tied to a scene from Tanaami's memory etched permanently in his mind -- the image of light from the bombs reflecting off the scales of his grandfather's goldfish. Pine trees, seemingly pregnant with animal-like life forms, are based on hallucinations Tanaami witnessed when he nearly died from a pulminary edema at age 44. During his illness, for more than a week he suffered nightmares about pine trees tightening around him as they crept in spirals about his body. Traditional Japanese structures, Kabuki stages and drum bridges, also appear in Tanaami's works. In Japan it is believed that a red drum bridge connects this life with the next.

The Dividing Bridge exhibition is based particularly on Tanaami's strong interest in the unique meaning of the bridge. Tanaami explains, "The bizarre and dramatic combination of the severed head and drum bridge I had seen in a movie as a child and the dead body and drum bridge I had seen during a nighttime air raid invites me to another world divided from this world by a bridge. Since his childhood, Tanaami has noticed the relationship between the bridge and death, and has done much research about the mystery of the bridge as the cross point bridging this world and the next. "A long time ago, it was commonly believed that under the bridge "there exists, at any rate, a different world". The term "riverbed performer" is an example of how strong the ties were with the performing arts; that was where everything from street performances to kabuki took place. The derogatory term "riverbed beggars" was also commonplace, and deeply related to the expansion of the theater. The space beneath the bridge was believed to belong to another world, separate from reality, an alien world removed from every order, system and institution. Eerie, dubious freak show huts lined the banks, exposing the underbelly of society with sideshow attractions featuring the Long Neck Woman, snake ladies, dwarves and other "freaks" bustling in the dark. That strange space covered by the bridge as its roof was also a spot for hiding dead bodies and a secret gathering place for prostitutes. Brooding lovers, as an extreme breakup at the end of much languish, would throw themselves from bridge railings in miserable double suicides. No matter how you look at it, death is strongly related to and is a distinct feature of bridges in Japan."

The red bridge appears as a major motif in the main piece of the exhibition, Bridge to the Other World, a large-scale painting measuring 2x3m, as well as in his new sculptural works. These bridges always appear along with skull characters. Along with the red bridge in Bridge to the Other World, celebrated cartoon characters Atom and Popeye appear together with numerous deformed specters, monk ghosts, little girl ghosts and skeletons. In one sculpture, he recreates in model form a figure that appears in the painting, a skeletal girl carrying a golden, glowing baby in her arms as she crosses over a red bridge. Tanaami says that his personality morphs dark past experiences into positive expressions, but the world drawn here is Tanaami's ultimate paradise, transcending good and evil, affliction and fear.

Tanaami adds this comment about his recent works to be on display at the exhibition:

"For me, the profound and mystical world of the bridge poses a complex, haunting riddle. If the bridge is what separates this world from the afterworld, the border between the mundane and the divine, it must also be a place of meeting. Who is singing that song, faintly echoing from the other side of the bridge? I want to find out. I will always be intrigued by the infinite darkness that spreads out quietly beneath the bridge, the bottomless mystery hidden within that mystical, strange space."

Along with this exhibition, Tanaami's new silkscreens will be on display at Nanzuka Agenda in Shibuya from October 22 through December 11, featuring dozens of splendid/spectacular/stunning multicolor prints courtesy of 360° graphics.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to announce our upcoming solo exhibition of new works by Yuichi Yokoyama. Included in the exhibition are 18 canvas pieces by Yokoyama made during his open studio sessions at NANZUKA AGENDA Shibuya from November 2010 through February 2011, as well as all 12 original illustrations from his manga, "Color Engineering", that appeared in STUDIO VOICE magazine as a yearlong series in 2004.

Yuichi Yokoyama was born in 1967 in Miyazaki, Japan. He received his MFA in oil painting from Musashino Art University in 1990 and has been active as a manga artist since 1995. In addition to his manga, Yokoyama's colorful paintings and drawings have also drawn a wide fan base and his works have been praised within the art scene. Yokoyama's works have appeared in exhibitions including "Record of neo-manga by Yuichi Yokoyama: I am drawing time" (2010, Kawasaki City Museum), "City net Asia" (2009, Seoul Museum of Art) and "Roppongi Crossing" (2007, Mori Art Museum). His talent, which can be confined to neither the contemporary comic nor art scene, has garnered attention around the world, and some of his latest works are slated to appear in the upcoming exhibition "MANGA" (2012, Centre Pompidou).

The "Color Engineering" exhibition title references Yokoyama's deep fascination with the scenes he creates depicting construction work, such as the building of roads, dams and buildings. "I love watching the building process, watching someone use specialized occupational tools or devices crafted from what is available," he says. "It's more enjoyable to witness that process, and the overall lapse of time during the creation of a building, than to simply observe the completed structure." Appropriately, the key themes that recur in Yokoyama's creations are time, process and passage. One distinct aspect of his works is the way in which he expresses the steady, rhythmic passage of time. The mysterious and fantastic landscapes he creates are also key to understanding Yokoyama's world. As a child, he moved constantly from place to place, witnessing many different lands along the way. "I am mesmerized by landscapes and nature," says Yokoyama. "The man-made world is so easily destroyed, and is so uncertain; in contrast to that, the natural world is enduring, divine even. Humans, standing before such a gigantic force, are so tiny; all we can do is sit back and watch." Yokoyama's awe and respect for nature are represented in his imagery, in the landscapes and episodes, the constant tension, and in the characters he creates.

Of the upcoming exhibition, Yokoyama comments:
"In this body of work I am trying to capture the tension between the natural world and human desire. Whatever theme or motif I select, what I am drawing is not the physical thing in the picture but rather the particular sort of time that exists there."

The opening reception along with the release party for his new manga, "Color Engineering", will be held on 3rd September starting at 18:00, and will be attended by the artist.

Nanzuka Underground is pleased to announce HIERARCHY, a solo exhibit of new work by Akiyoshi Mishima. The installation features mixed media pieces, video art and wall paintings.

This exhibit is the third in a series following QUARTER (2006), Mishima's debut solo exhibit that explored the cultural roots and realities of the third postwar generation along with their responsibilities for the future and ultimate potential, and FAMILY (2009), an exhibition centered on the fundamental ties that exist between humans and all other living creatures, highlighting the potential for coexistence.

Mishima's concept of "hierarchy" is that of an internal hierarchy born from experience, in which personal decisions based on accumulated layers of experience and choice shape the solitary individual, and the resulting progress of the collective whole shapes the world. With this concept in mind, Mishima has created an experimental installation that flows like a correlation chart depicting the institution of human society, built from the inherited evolutionary history of human beings, the individual chronologies that grow like rings in a tree, and the collective whole of humanity.

Mishima refers to a "choice, a conscious control that exists between inevitability and chance" in regards to his new works. His mixed media piece made with aluminum board, for example, was created by layering color upon color, creating a strata of colors whose final form would remain unknown, and unpredictable, until its completion. Each of Mishima's works, made in this fashion, evokes within us a variety of expression, fueled by the harmony of his characteristic wit and the mysteriously beautiful colors. His video art and wall drawings are similarly composed of layers of colorful strata, and like a mandala that tells the history and roots of mankind and the world, arouse contemplation within the viewer.

"We can't change the past," says Mishima. "It is only by being conscious, each individual, in the present moment, that we are able to see the future."

The opening reception for this exhibition will take place on July 2nd starting at 6:00 pm, with an appearance by the artist.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND proudly presents a two person exhibit by Tomoki Kurokawa and Tatjana Doll.

Kurokawa was born in 1975 in Mie Prefecture. He is a unique self-taught artist with no formal artistic training. He ironically refers to himself as an "outsider", yet this rare artist uses his inexperience as his weapon, always attempting bigger and bolder challenges. His creative fuel comes from a powerful internal rebelliousness. One of Kurokawa's most common themes, for example, is to explore how he can betray the viewer's sense of common knowledge. Another recurring theme is his search for the antithesis of existential value. Kurokawa's creative drive takes garbage and turns it into imagery; it erupts with the raw strength of graffiti scrawled by a child, and at the same time eloquently communicates the problem of living as an artist within contemporary society, bound by all of its rules.

Tatjana Doll, born in 1970 in Burgsteinfurt in former West Germany, graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Her one of a kind talent has been recognized and praised worldwide as she constantly pushes the boundaries of the ever-evolving possibilities of painting. Dynamic energy backed up by evident skill; an incomparable and overwhelming sense of scale; a sense of speed, of pulsing vibrancy; these are all commonly said of Tatjana's paintings. She uses as her subjects the entire spectrum of things that symbolize the state of our contemporary era, from children's toys to automobiles, airplanes and traffic signs; from classical artistic masterpieces to scenes taken from films and TV games. Her works remind us of the first impulses of intellectual curiosity gained in the process of our human evolution.

These two artists, both born in the '70s, continue to grope towards new possibilities of art within the medium of painting. Their works, which can reach up to 10 meters in size, are like crystals cut from continuous hard work and faith in the power of painting. They create as though constantly asking themselves how much they can move a person's spirit with a single painting.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to present German artist Frank Nitsche's first solo exhibition in Japan. Nitsche was born in Görlitz on the outskirts of Dresden in the former East Germany. He attended the Dresden Art Academy, the same school from which Gerhard Richter graduated. Along with his peers at the Academy, including Thomas Scheibitz and Eberhard Havekost, Nitsche has been dubbed part of the Dresden school generation and has received international acclaim as one of the leading artists of contemporary German abstract painting.

Nitsche has said that he himself is unable to project when or how each of his works will reach completion. In some cases, Nitsche spends years adding layer upon layer of oil paint searching for the perfect composition that possesses both subtlety and strength, and colors that strike a beautiful harmony. Although the process is fluid and incidental, the artist's firm quality control guides the piece as it flows toward its point of destination, a sublime place that, like the world of natural sciences, maintains a miraculous balance as intellect and emotion collide. The hidden layers beneath the accumulated applications of paint evoke historical truths that remain unrecognized by mankind. Or perhaps they represent the veil of contemporary progression, masking those truths.

Nitsche's paintings are like a mirror reflecting simultaneously the past, present and future. They are reminiscent of graffiti scrawled across the Berlin Wall that once tore apart East and West Germany, full of raw anger and despair. At another glance, they seem to imagine some yet undiscovered microbe, or perhaps the symbols and charts used in molecular, quantum and other cutting edge sciences. Then again, perhaps they are the traces left behind by extraterrestrial intelligent life forms.

Nitsche has titled this exhibit of new works "I AM SINGLE", yet as has been the case with his past exhibitions, the interpretation of the title is left open to the viewer. It seems almost as if the title is a decoy, to distract from the real context hidden within the works. Meanwhile, Nitsche has publicly revealed within his portfolio the sources of his morphological images in the form of a massive, thoroughly archived collection of photographs. There is a journalistic nature to the collection, revealing finally that the artist is in fact attempting to look beneath the surface of this world.

This exhibition marks Nitsche's second visit to Japan. An opening reception with the artist will take place on February 19th at 18:00. We welcome you to attend.

Frank Nitsche
1964 Born in Görlitz, Germany.
1993 Graduated Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Academy of Fine Arts), Dresden.
1995 Completed graduate studies at Dresden Art Academy.
Recent major solo exhibitions:
2010 "COCKTAILHYBRIDCONCEPT" Haus am Waldsee, Berlin
2007 "Frank Nitsche International" Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg
Recent major group exhibitions:
2006 "Opening Up Art: The View from Here. Rehanging of the permanent collection" Tate Modern, London
2005 "Do it yourself" Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin
Currently lives in Berlin.

NANZUKA UNDERGROUND is pleased to present a group exhibition by Belgian young painter Rinus van de velde and two Japanese artists , Tomoo Gokita and Hiroki Tsukuda.

Rinus vad de velde is somewhat 27 years old who has already attracted high attention by the art scene in Europe as 40 exhibitions or more are digested. The work arises exactly from making good use of charcoal in the free hand in clay figure based on the technology that builds by the career of the sculpture department coming from. Rinus's wrok is based on a classical technique that collecting old magazines by oneself and lot of photographs of newspaper clipping. The work freely crosses the past and present future that shows universality of our managing in everyday life.

Tomoo Gokita builds the career as an illustrator in the 90's, and has boasted of charismatic popularity by magazine and the artwork such as CD jackets. Though the talent came up to be able to be admitted suddenly even by the art scene with the painting announced in recent years. The work of Tomoo field where the influence of music and the subculture that restructure the boundary of the high and low art. It has a huge influence on a lot of young artists.

Hiroki Tsukuda who is skilful in a plane, structural abstraction expression. It paints landscapes based on the theme like the light and shadow, construction, nature, and natural recognition and mistake. The work of Hiroki is using black ink, pencil and charcoal. The world of Hiroki's works which the nature compared with straight line artificial material and colors of shadow civilized society now at the time of alive of us is sharply reflected though it has futuristic atmosphere somewhere.

The exhibition is group exhibition by these three artists who are skilful in the arrangement of color of gray scale. There is a word " 5 colors in black sumi ink" at the field of traditional Japanese painting Sumi-e. The thing to develop a new expression by a simple color and the technique is not an easy thing at all. Three artists who see here will be able to say the art that it is an unusual talent who is presenting a fresh, lucid sound.