Introduction

If there is a true Japanese Punk Spirit, which doesn’t limit itself to fashion and music, Kentaro Isotani is one of its embodiments. In his artistic role he is a “bastard”, he is a “skunk”, he is a “piece of shit”. People see him with a bottle of whiskey at art fairs and with various types of gun models at gallery talks. The exhibition space, of his solo work, in the end usually looks like a garbage-recycling plant: accumulations of plastic Pepsi-Cola bottles, empty alcohol packaging, pieces of torn clothing or textile, and of course, the unavoidable mud. All of these are actually basic working material for this sculptor and will probably be eventually used for creating works for his next solo show. 

To prepare for the “Instant Dogma” Exhibition in 2008 Isotani researched the immediate feeling of primitive man, who encounters a marvelous sculpture of a saint in a church. His experiment was to give Barbaric Form to The Sublime, to project The Wild Sensuality into a Delicate Expression, to mix Rustic Spirit with Elevated Sentiment. 

At the “Keep Smiling! God Loves Idiots!” Exhibition the world saw Isotani’s “White Ladies”: the totemistic pair of his Saints. They are Isotani’s “Junky Ladies”, “Seductive Bitches” literally filled with trash: guns, truck models, scissors, dangerous razors and other instruments for castration. “White Ladies” are Slut-Goddesses: they provoke for restricted, they push to transgression. Istani’s sculptures enchant onlookers. They incite us to interrupt the usual course of affairs, they push us to something bad: to shout out profanities, to have a “dirty mouth”, to show the middle finger to somebody or to spank somebody at the exhibition hall. 

1975 

Born in Tottori, Japan

1994-1998 

Kanazawa College of Art, B.A. Fine Art course, Sculpture 

1998-2000 

Kanazawa College of Art, M.A. Fine Art course, Sculpture

Solo exhibition 

2009   

“Keep Smiling! God Loves Idiots! The figures of critical grin in the art of Kentaro Isotani”, art project frantic, Tokyo

2008   

"Instant Dogma", Gallery KINGYO, Sendagi, Tokyo

2005   

"Transvestites", Gallery KINGYO, Sendagi, Tokyo 

2005   

"Kentaro Isotani Exhibition", Kishimojin Temple, Zoshigaya, Tokyo 

Selected Group exhibition 

2009   

“The Trash” Exhibition, 101 Tokyo Contemporary Art Fair, Akiba Square, Tokyo

2009   

“My favorite things”, art project frantic & unseal, Tokyo

2008 　

"MR1109", NO NAME, Tokyo

2008 　

"Kingyo of KINGO", Gallery KINGYO, Tokyo

2008 　

"Hatsudai Noise Festival", Tokyo

2006   

"Toy Box Vol.3", Otuka RED-ZONE (Live House), Otuka, Tokyo

2005   

"Seven Sculptors", Gallery 52, Iidabashi, Tokyo 

2004   

"Kin-no-Bi, Gin-no-za", Ono Gallery, Kyobashi, Tokyo 

2002   

"Size of The World", Yamawaki Gallery, Ichigaya, Tokyo 

2000   

"Kawaguchi Art Club", LILIA gallery, Kawaguchi, Saitama