ALTERNATIVE KYOTO in Fukuchiyama: Light of My World

This show is a part of Kyoto Regional Art Festival: ALTERNATIVE KYOTO in Fukuchiyama

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Period: October 8 (Fri.) — November 7 (Sun.), 2021

*Only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays during the exhibition period, and on November 4 (Thu.) as a special opening day

Venue: Former Ginrei Building (former pachinko parlor 1F & 2F)

Admission Free

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Participating Artists: 

Asako Fujikura, Takuro Goto, Daiki Honda, Yuuki Horiuchi, Kenichi Ishiguro, Shun Kimura, Taro Komiya, Tevita Latu, Kai Maetani, Miki Murakami, Hira Nabi, Morihisa Ogasawara, Shu Ogasawara, Taniela Petelo, Riar Rizaldi, Kai Sakamoto, Haruka Shima, Ryo Wakabayashi, Chihiro Yoshioka, 

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Curator: Takuya Tsutsumi and Yuka Keino

Graphic Designer: Katsunobu Yoshida

Public Relations and Editor: Haruna Hirano

Installer: Kosan Kosanji

Coordinator: Ryota Tomoshige (Kyoto Prefecture)

Curatorial Intern: Zhao Yuehan, Madoka Okoshi, Guo Yugao

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Organized by: Fukuchiyama Irumiraito Executive Committee, Kyoto Cultural Power Project Executive Committee

Supported by: ARTCOURT Gallery, LEESAYA, Yama Yama Art Center

Funded by: Arts Support Kansai

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On Light of My World

Jesus Christ, is considered to have been born as the sun had regained its power, born on the day light had been resurrected, said, “You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world,” meaning that each person is helpful to the world and has an irreplaceable existence. This is to suggest that humans are like no other, making use of their mutual good points, and living brightly together. Sometimes, however, humans have been absorbed in even the handling of immediate things, and when putting their life on the line as they confront the world, there is a vivid radiation of light. We are perhaps able to call such people artists.

In this exhibition Yo no Hikari/Light of My World, the paintings or video as two dimensional works by 19 contemporary artists working in various regions are gathered for display on the 1st and 2nd floor of Former Ginrei Building (formerly a pachinko parlor in front of Fukuchiyama Station in Kyoto Prefecture). While set quite like a table between people and the world, able to be carried around and stored somewhere, the works render (reflect) a trace or existence of something using disappearing light and shadow as its basis. In this sense that was carried out many times before, people were able to provide a clear function to works of art as a thing that conveys the biblical story, like murals or paintings found in churches. As the creators live by gaining compensation in exchange for achieving this goal, trying methods of drawing to which no person has ever considered nor seen, they take an overwhelming amount of time being careful concerning their works as they become independent of the individual and continue a semipermanent existence. The sort of tire tracks in this context are called「我」(“ware”, means “I”) or「個」(“ko”, means individual). The two become a sort of evidence for「余」(“yo”, means “I”), overcoming time and space and at any moment illuminate in the retinas of those who stand before the form of the work. The works of the artists who live now are the same in that it continues to shine towards the future, becoming a fixed point for somebody’s “light”.

From May of this year, in order to put forth this exhibition we had visited Fukuchiyama a number of times, gradually getting to know the small details of the area and how the people of this place live. We had coffee at Mai Mai Do, ate golden oyakodon at Yanagimachi, and while looking at old books in Mojika took a short rest. We saw basalt rocks, felt soba in my stomach from Oeyama Oni Soba shop atop the clouds. I float over thoughts of Sato and Fukuchiyama Family, the bustling shopping center. In the end we had soaked up to my shoulders in Fukuchiyama Onsen (hot spring), and rested while listening to the sound of the wild deers at Yama Yama Art Center. Especially with the works of Mitsuji Kinugawa who has revived the culture of Tamba Lacquer and has individually researched it, as well with traces that go beyond such, We had felt something in the same sense as “Light of My World”. In this exhibition, this varietal “Light of My World” that has been compiled becomes like that of a church, with a number of events and memories are folded up.

Takuya Tsutsumi & Yuka Keino, Co-curators

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On Salt of the Blood/Light of My World

This project takes the words of Jesus from the New Testament Matthew 5:13-16 “Ye are the salt of the earth. Ye are the light of the world,” as the basis of two exhibitions that were implemented as two sides of an idea made continuous. First what was conceived from the former (Salt of the Blood), by Yamanaka Suplex* “Chi no Shio/Salt of the Blood” (LEESAYA, August 21st 2021 – September 11th 2021) three dimensional structures (salt/function) was considered as a theme. Something to which it is possible to be held in two hands, carried, passed along and turned, was exhibited as a rod. Based upon the existence of COVID-19 which has been “distributed” amongst others around the world, this exhibition puts attention on the ideas of “hands”, “oils”, and “blood”, in a way that evokes a sense of “infection”. In such, this exhibition reconsiders the physicality that is the condition of human activity we call art. Additionally, in conducting the exhibition as one space within “Kyoto Prefectural Art Festival ALTERNATIVE KYOTO in Fukuchiyama” in the exhibition confronting the latter (Light of My World) called “Yo no Hikari/Light of My World” (Former Ginrei Building, October 1st 2021 – November 7th 2021), the main purpose of the work is put on the paintings (light/ “enlightenment”) and includes 9 members affiliated with Yamanaka Suplex and 10 guest artists and one curator from outside of the studio. Putting one’s eyes on laminated thoughts that are paintings (flat works, video works), what comes to display is an emblematic object of the early poetic world that the artist has come to bear upon their own shoulders. Through the two exhibitions, conducting a trend towards relativity in the two fields that are connotative of modern and contemporary art that we call aesthetics and ethics, using Christianity as its foundation, we aim for the construction of an organic time coiled around a consistency never seen before.

*​​Yamanaka Suplex was established as a shared atelier on the order of Kyoto and Shiga in the year 2014. Creating objects and structures by means such as wood, resin, metal, stone etc. it has been possible to produce large scale, outdoor works. At present, there are 12 members utilizing this facility.

(Translated by Nicholas Locke)