POST BODY / NATURE

POST BODY / NATURE
TAISUKE KOYAMA + TAKASHI KAWASHIMA

Opening Reception: 2017.6.10 (Sat.) 15:00 – 17:00

Period: 2017.6.10 (Sat.) – 8.19 (Sat.)
Venue: LhGWR, The Hague
Open: Wed. – Sat. 12:00 – 17:00
Closed from 27th July – 5th August
Web: http://www.grotewittereus.nl

Organized by LhGWR
Cooperated by Hester Keijser (Stead Bureau), Sawako Fukai (G/P gallery)
Supported by Arts Council Tokyo, Stroom Den Haag
Special Thanks: Kohei Nawa | Damien Jalet, Tomoko Mukaiyama, G/P gallery

Press Release by LhGWR:
You are cordially invited for the opening of our summer exhibition POST BODY / NATURE, for which Japanese artists Taisuke Koyama and Takashi Kawashima entered into a one time artistic partnership. In their individual photographic and video practices, both explore the role of nature in our (post-digital) era. Now, in their inimitable way, they have created an exhibition that belies their understated demeanour; be prepared for an excessive fireworks brought to combustion with scientific rigor. Arriving at their respective work guided by completely different urgencies, their joining of forces has generated a particularly exciting visual dialogue between ratio and emotion.

Koyama (1978, Tokyo) approaches the medium of photography in line with his studies in Biology and Environmental Sciences. He investigates the relationship between organic processes and phenomena, and the manmade objects that facilitate their visual capture. Although photography has become predominantly digitalised, his own research brought him to a field where the most important players are the physical processes that photography requires for its existence on the one hand, and the physical objects that we need for the reproduction of the resulting images on the other. Sometimes, these players form a team, and sometimes they find themselves placed as opponents. This field of play Koyama games by manipulating the rational connections between process and object, by tinkering with the physical objects themselves, and through wilful impairment of the algorithmic base rules, in order to arrive at his manipulated images. In recent years, Koyama has been investigating the expressive power of devices that generate data input, such as hand scanners and digital microscopes, focussing in particular on the plurality and fluidity of the data generated, recording the results in his latest works.

Starting from a similar fascination for nature and its processes, Kawashima (1985) translates his experience of nature in a fundamentally different manner. He grew up in the region in Japan where life came to a halt after the 2011 submarine earthquake. In the Netherlands we have come to know this incident of natural violence as the tsunami that destroyed Fukushima. We can all remember the disastrous images of the first days after the impact. Alarming reports of total destruction were accompanied in our media by mentions of the potentially terrifying consequences for our ‘ecosystem’. By creating a fictional visual narrative, Kawashima speaks about natural violence of similar magnitudes to initiate the conversation about the event itself. It needs no saying that such events inevitably make us stare the fragility of our bare existence in the face, but it remains one of the great mysteries of mankind how we manage to process this on an emotional level, or how it is possible to reach a catharis. Can the human brain defy the forces of nature? These concerns Kawashima puts central in his work.

POST BODY / NATURE
TAISUKE KOYAMA + TAKASHI KAWASHIMA

オープニング・レセプション:2017年6月10日(土)15:00〜17:00

会期:2017年6月10日(土)〜 8月19日(土)
会場:LhGWR、デン・ハーグ
時間:水〜土 12:00〜17:00
休廊:7月27日〜8月5日
Web:http://www.grotewittereus.nl

主催:LhGWR
協力:Hester Keijser(Stead Bureau)、深井佐和子(G/P gallery)
協賛:アーツカウンシル東京、Stroom Den Haag
謝辞:名和晃平 | ダミアン・ジャレ、向井山朋子、G/P gallery