Gana Art is pleased to announce Hiroto Kitagawa’s solo exhibition for the first time in Korea. The artist’ssignaturesculptures of young peoplewith an indifferent but proud gaze, which look like the characters in Japanese animation and comics, are hand-molded terracotta figures. He works directly in clay without preliminary sketches, paints the terracotta with acrylics, and then attaches to them real items such as zippers, headphones, etc.Since he first began to study in earnest the terracotta technique while studying in Italy, the artist has been fascinated by working with the material and in the way closest to natural ground, striving for creating sculptures which can breathe or reveal the artist’s true self.The sculptures of Kitagawa, who has always wanted to make ‘ordinary people,’approach the archetypal human being irrespective of their Japanese names.
His works enjoy great popularity now but Kitagawahas deviated from the current of contemporary art and forged his own way. In the 1980s when the Japanese art world was predominated by abstract sculpture and gave little attention tohuman figure sculptures, he determined to study in Italy and managed to complete his course by returning home and staying there for several months in each year to work to solve his economic problems. During the fourteen years of living and working in Italy, he could develop his own sculptural language. Through clay, the material which not only has been used to make forms since the primitive age but also has occupied the lowest position in the tradition of Western sculpture, Kitagawa intended to embody direct meeting of artist and material and revive the traditional Japanese earthenware culture in the present day.
This solo exhibition will provide a special opportunity to appreciate the works of Kitagawa who, now in his middle forties, reached more maturity and depth as an artist. Besides, in this most arduous moment for Japan, the Tohoku region of which wasstruck by the most powerful earthquake and tsunami in the last March, the artist sincerely wishes that his homeland will be able to overcome the disaster and rise again and ultimately, through this, contribute to that the world will take another step forward, while giving an appreciation to the Korean people for their warm-hearted support in this time of crisis. To express this hope for the future, Kitagawa gave the title “Post New Type-Foresight” to his exhibition.
Though “Post New Type-Foresight,” we expect that the Korean audience who hasseen his works only partially in art fairs and auctions will understand the art of Kitagawa more fully and generally, as well as being introduced to one aspect of Japanese contemporary art.
