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.
