Kenjiro Okazaki Viewing program "Block House Sunagawa"
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| Art Fair |
Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 Booth: 3D25
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art is excited to announce its participation in Art Basel Hong Kong 2025.
From left: On Ohrid Lake’s rocky shore, an ancient sage meditated, his bird-like face carved by time and fasting. Swallows skimmed waters. The novice’s azure beads glinted. “Master,” he murmured, “your strength wanes like autumn light.” Behind them stood a monastery, half-hidden among olive trees, its burned walls whispering tales of sacrilege.
“At night, Master, I see them: Hellenic maidens weaving flower crowns with blue wildflowers, their hair flowing with their hearts’ rhythm.” The youth’s voice trembled. Through azure darkness, mysterious figures like shadows – Macedonian shepherds driving boars through olive groves, Dryads herding pearl-white goats, laughter echoing across deep blue Aegean waters.
Lilies and roses, planted by long-departed Orthodox monks, wove through the garden where ferns advanced like silent armies. “The ancient Thracian gods still walk here,” the old man murmured, eyes gleaming. Beyond the flower-strewn ruins, cypress groves stretched toward horizon, harboring secrets of Cyclopes and Thessalian nymphs dancing in moonlight.
“I seek the moment when immortal spirits sing,” the sage revealed, clutching his cypress staff. “When the sun passes between Ram and Lion, their song trembles through creation. Tomorrow at dawn, I shall hear it.” His eyes blazed with ancient wisdom, reflecting centuries of searching through Byzantine and Delphic lore.
The youth gathered roses bright as rubies and lilies white as pearls, weaving them through rushes as the last grains of sand fell. “You’ll find me young again,” the master had promised. When dawn painted the walls with clear light, he sat motionless, embracing the dewy flowers, his quest ended.
Kenjiro Okazaki | 岡﨑乾二郎 2025, Acrylic on canvas, (H)160 x (W)130 x (D) 7cm each Set of five ©︎ Kenjiro Okazaki Courtesy of Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
Nobuo Yamanaka
Nobuo Yamanaka
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| Art Fair |
Tokyo Gendai 2024 Galleries: C10
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art (TSCA) is pleased to present works by Kenjiro Okazaki and Rafaël Rozendaal at Tokyo Gendai 2024. Presenting at Galleries’ sector for this year, TSCA features a large tile work exhibited at “Retrospective Strata”, a large solo exhibition by Kenjiro Okazaki held at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in 2019, and new sculptures. Rafaël Rozendaal also shows a series of three-meter-high lenticular works from an exhibition “Modern Times in Paris 1925 – Art and Design in the Machine-age’ held at POLA Museum of Art from 2023 until 2024.
Kenjiro Okazaki’s (b. 1955, Tokyo) achievements in painting and sculpture can be more fully understood by examining his wide-ranging activities and body of work as a whole. As an artist, architect, community project leader, critic, and thinker, Okazaki has made many significant and lasting contributions, establishing himself as a master of both the practice and theory of art. At the core of his expansive work is a steadfast artistic philosophy.
The distinctiveness of Okazaki’s artistic practice and thinking is most strikingly manifested in his innovative use of ceramic tiles.
To conceive of a single artwork composed of variously colored titles, each made with different materials and firing processes, transcends the scope of traditional drawing methods.
Born in the Netherlands in 1980, Rafaël Rozendaal began presenting works on ‘web pages’ with each of their own domains in 2001. Defining his art as “like a gas or liquid that appears everywhere” by himself, Rozendaal has used the ubiquitous nature of the internet as the basic structure for his works, presenting works in a variety of formats using a wide range of motifs such as from web browsers, food, landscapes and other unique phenomena in the world around us. The variety of his works with their rich colors and freewheeling compositions not only entertain the viewers, but also propose a more universal structure beyond the diversity and individuality of each work due to their structural coherence. Inquiry: gallery@tsca.jp |
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(Japanese) 岡﨑乾二郎 × 村山悟郎の対談を公開しましたSorry, this entry is only available in Japanese. |
| Artist |
Kenjiro Okazaki: Kunitsukami as Chthonius
Installation view, Kunitsukami as Chthonius, 2024, photo by Shu Nakagawa ©Kenjiro Okazaki
Exhibition Period: Sunday, March 10, 2024 – Sunday, May 12, 2024
We are pleased to announce Kenjiro Okazaki’s solo exhibition Kunitsukami as Chthonius. This exhibition offers a preview of new sculptures and will be open until Sunday, May 12. Takuro Someya Contemporary Art was involved in planning this collaborative exhibition.
These new sculptures are the culmination of a quarter-century period during which the artist prepared to resume their production and will soon be widely exhibited. In the lead-up to their public unveiling, we hope to provide an opportunity to reflect on and renew our understanding of the significance of Okazaki’s sculptures, as well as the inherent power and presence of the medium of sculpture itself. This exhibition also aims to foster synergy across the various elements of Okazaki’s diverse endeavors as he continues to expand his practice, both domestically and internationally.
In Kunitsukami as Chthonius, Okazaki offers a glimpse into his vision of sculpture-making for the first time since his presentation of ceramic sculptures twenty-five years ago. This exhibition features sculptures that adhere to the original dimensions of the artist’s handmade forms as well as those that, through enlargement, demonstrate the presence of volume as a major element of sculpture. Each work confronts us with the dynamism born from the fusion of form and material.
Translation by Eriko Ikeda Kay
Installation view, Kunitsukami as Chthonius, 2024, photo by Shu Nakagawa ©Kenjiro Okazaki
Kenjiro Okazaki | Kunitsukami as Chthonius This exhibition is by appointment only.
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| Project |
Kenjiro Okazaki: Viewing Program Vol. 8 "Who Knew Cat Nowhere"
Appointment:
Kenjiro Okazaki: Viewing Program Vol. 8
Open: Tue – Sat 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
TEL ＋81 (0)3-6712-9887 ｜FAX ＋81 (0)3-4578-0318 ｜E-MAIL: gallery@tsca.jp |
Art Fair
Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 Booth: 3D25
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art is excited to announce its participation in Art Basel Hong Kong 2025.
Art Basel Hong Kong 2025
Booth：3D25
Kenjiro Okazaki, Nobuo Yamanaka
Date ：Wednesday, March 26 – Sunday, March 30
First Choice
Wednesday, March 26, 12:00 PM ー 8:00PM
First Choice and Preview
Wednesday, March 26, 3:00PM ー 8:00PM
Thursday, March 27, 12:00PM ー 4:00PM
Friday, March 28, 12:00 ー 2:00PM
Saturday, March 29, 12:00PM ー 2:00PM
Sunday, March 30, 11:00AM ー 12:00PM
Vernissage
Thursday, March 27, 4:00PM ー 8:00PM
Public Days
Friday, March 28, 2:00PM ー 8:00PM
Saturday, March 29, 2:00PM ー 8:00PM
Sunday, March 30, 12:00PM ー 6:00PM
Venue：
Convention & Exhibition Centre
1 Harbour Road
Wan Chai
Hong Kong, China
https://www.artbasel.com/hong-kong
From left:
On Ohrid Lake’s rocky shore, an ancient sage meditated, his bird-like face carved by time and fasting. Swallows skimmed waters. The novice’s azure beads glinted. “Master,” he murmured, “your strength wanes like autumn light.” Behind them stood a monastery, half-hidden among olive trees, its burned walls whispering tales of sacrilege.
“At night, Master, I see them: Hellenic maidens weaving flower crowns with blue wildflowers, their hair flowing with their hearts’ rhythm.” The youth’s voice trembled. Through azure darkness, mysterious figures like shadows – Macedonian shepherds driving boars through olive groves, Dryads herding pearl-white goats, laughter echoing across deep blue Aegean waters.
Lilies and roses, planted by long-departed Orthodox monks, wove through the garden where ferns advanced like silent armies. “The ancient Thracian gods still walk here,” the old man murmured, eyes gleaming. Beyond the flower-strewn ruins, cypress groves stretched toward horizon, harboring secrets of Cyclopes and Thessalian nymphs dancing in moonlight.
“I seek the moment when immortal spirits sing,” the sage revealed, clutching his cypress staff. “When the sun passes between Ram and Lion, their song trembles through creation. Tomorrow at dawn, I shall hear it.” His eyes blazed with ancient wisdom, reflecting centuries of searching through Byzantine and Delphic lore.
The youth gathered roses bright as rubies and lilies white as pearls, weaving them through rushes as the last grains of sand fell. “You’ll find me young again,” the master had promised. When dawn painted the walls with clear light, he sat motionless, embracing the dewy flowers, his quest ended.
Kenjiro Okazaki | 岡﨑乾二郎
2025, Acrylic on canvas, (H)160 x (W)130 x (D) 7cm each
Set of five
©︎ Kenjiro Okazaki
Courtesy of Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
Nobuo Yamanaka
Untitled (Manhattan in Pinhole (40)C)
1980, C-Type Print, (H)12.5 x (W)20.2 cm
©︎ Nobuo Yamanaka
Courtesy of Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
Nobuo Yamanaka
Dazzling Sun in Pinhole (7)
1973, C-Type Print, (H)25 x (W)30 cm
©︎ Nobuo Yamanaka
Courtesy of Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
Art Fair
Tokyo Gendai 2024 Galleries: C10
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art (TSCA) is pleased to present works by Kenjiro Okazaki and Rafaël Rozendaal at Tokyo Gendai 2024. Presenting at Galleries’ sector for this year, TSCA features a large tile work exhibited at “Retrospective Strata”, a large solo exhibition by Kenjiro Okazaki held at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in 2019, and new sculptures. Rafaël Rozendaal also shows a series of three-meter-high lenticular works from an exhibition “Modern Times in Paris 1925 – Art and Design in the Machine-age’ held at POLA Museum of Art from 2023 until 2024.
Kenjiro Okazaki’s (b. 1955, Tokyo) achievements in painting and sculpture can be more fully understood by examining his wide-ranging activities and body of work as a whole. As an artist, architect, community project leader, critic, and thinker, Okazaki has made many significant and lasting contributions, establishing himself as a master of both the practice and theory of art. At the core of his expansive work is a steadfast artistic philosophy.
The distinctiveness of Okazaki’s artistic practice and thinking is most strikingly manifested in his innovative use of ceramic tiles.
To conceive of a single artwork composed of variously colored titles, each made with different materials and firing processes, transcends the scope of traditional drawing methods.
The process of understanding the individual characteristics of the countless colored tiles and creating a sequence of hues is similar to editing a film or constructing a philosophical argument. Leveraging the unique qualities of each tile (for example, the contrast between transparent and matte colors is key to understanding Okazaki’s paintings), Okazaki constructs the visual surface as if solving a mathematical problem or weaving a story. Like a sequence of scenes in a film or a continuous architectural space, each part of the finished work appears as though an independent color composition or individual painting. Yet as these individual components are integrated into the experience of a continuous and connected whole, the work sparks the viewer’s imagination anew. The process of viewing the work and the process of thinking overlap and become one.
Born in the Netherlands in 1980, Rafaël Rozendaal began presenting works on ‘web pages’ with each of their own domains in 2001. Defining his art as “like a gas or liquid that appears everywhere” by himself, Rozendaal has used the ubiquitous nature of the internet as the basic structure for his works, presenting works in a variety of formats using a wide range of motifs such as from web browsers, food, landscapes and other unique phenomena in the world around us. The variety of his works with their rich colors and freewheeling compositions not only entertain the viewers, but also propose a more universal structure beyond the diversity and individuality of each work due to their structural coherence.
Inquiry: gallery@tsca.jp
Artist
Kenjiro Okazaki: Kunitsukami as Chthonius
Installation view, Kunitsukami as Chthonius, 2024, photo by Shu Nakagawa
©Kenjiro Okazaki
Exhibition Period: Sunday, March 10, 2024 – Sunday, May 12, 2024
We are pleased to announce Kenjiro Okazaki’s solo exhibition Kunitsukami as Chthonius. This exhibition offers a preview of new sculptures and will be open until Sunday, May 12. Takuro Someya Contemporary Art was involved in planning this collaborative exhibition.
These new sculptures are the culmination of a quarter-century period during which the artist prepared to resume their production and will soon be widely exhibited. In the lead-up to their public unveiling, we hope to provide an opportunity to reflect on and renew our understanding of the significance of Okazaki’s sculptures, as well as the inherent power and presence of the medium of sculpture itself. This exhibition also aims to foster synergy across the various elements of Okazaki’s diverse endeavors as he continues to expand his practice, both domestically and internationally.
In Kunitsukami as Chthonius, Okazaki offers a glimpse into his vision of sculpture-making for the first time since his presentation of ceramic sculptures twenty-five years ago. This exhibition features sculptures that adhere to the original dimensions of the artist’s handmade forms as well as those that, through enlargement, demonstrate the presence of volume as a major element of sculpture. Each work confronts us with the dynamism born from the fusion of form and material.
Translation by Eriko Ikeda Kay
Installation view, Kunitsukami as Chthonius, 2024, photo by Shu Nakagawa
©Kenjiro Okazaki
Kenjiro Okazaki | Kunitsukami as Chthonius
Exhibition Period: Sunday, March 10, 2024 – Sunday, May 12, 2024
This exhibition is by appointment only.
To schedule a visit, please contact us at gallery@tsca.jp.
Project
Kenjiro Okazaki: Viewing Program Vol. 8 "Who Knew Cat Nowhere"
Appointment:https://calendar.app.google/qonwZ7cMobtNJb4j6
For enquiries, please email <gallery@tsca.jp>.
Kenjiro Okazaki: Viewing Program Vol. 8
Venue: TSCA Viewing space｜Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
Exhibition Period: Thursday, February 22, 2024 – Friday, March 22, 2024
*Extended until around late April, 2024
Open: Tue – Sat 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Closed: Sun, Mon and National Holidays
Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
3F TERRADA Art Complex Ⅰ 1-33-10 Higashi-Shinagawa
Shinagawa-ku Tokyo 140-0002 Japan
TEL ＋81 (0)3-6712-9887 ｜FAX ＋81 (0)3-4578-0318 ｜E-MAIL: gallery@tsca.jp