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EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow
at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Nov. 2021–Feb. 2022)
An installation of an endless repetition of the horizon line of the pristine ocean/stratum. The entire process was done by hand in complete darkness, a work of a human statue that will never be seen for eternity. (Visitors could also touch this sculpture one at a time in a room of complete darkness.) A ray of golden rain. An 8-meter oil painting by brush, in which small “groups of figures” form a pale rainbow gradation.
Eugene Kangawa’s EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow made him the youngest artist ever to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, where only a few Japanese contemporary artists, including Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono, have had solo exhibitions. This epoch-making exhibition, with “the power of imagination” at its core, attracted great attention. By the end of the exhibition, visitors had to wait for two to three hours a day to see the works.
「ユージーン・スタジオ 新しい海 EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow」
(2021.11-2022.2)
“まっさらな海/地層の水平線が無限に反復するインスタレーション。すべての工程が完全な暗闇の中で手によって作られ、今後も永遠に見れない人の彫像の作品。鑑賞者は一人ずつ、完全な暗闇の部屋でこの彫刻に触れることもできた。一筋の金色の雨。筆で描かれた細かい「群像」が、淡いレインボーのグラデーションをなす8mのオイルペインティング。「想像の力」が核となった東京都現代美術館での個展は……”
Publish
Catalog: Eugene i, ii, iii
EUGENE STUDIO / Eugene Kangawa has published three new catalogs.
One catalog features an abundant collection of photographs from Goldrain, capturing various angles, moments, and locations. Another catalog presents Rainbow Painting in sizes close to the original. The third catalog showcases monochrome and verdant works from the Light and shadow inside me series. Each catalog includes images of the studio, as well as the surrounding landscapes... .
“EUGENE STUDIO / Eugene Kangawaの図録が3種類出版。一冊にはGoldrainの様々な角度、時間、場所の写真が豊富に。一冊にはレインボーペインティングが原寸大に近いサイズで。一冊には〈Light and shadow inside me〉のモノクロームと翠色の作品が掲載されます。各冊、アトリエや周囲の風景も掲載……。”
Publish
EUGENE STUDIO / Eugene Kangawa has published three new catalogs.
One catalog features an abundant collection of photographs from Goldrain, capturing various angles, moments, and locations. Another catalog presents Rainbow Painting in sizes close to the original. The third catalog showcases monochrome and verdant works from the Light and shadow inside me series. Each catalog includes images of the studio, as well as the surrounding landscapes... .
“EUGENE STUDIO / Eugene Kangawaの図録が3種類出版。一冊にはGoldrainの様々な角度、時間、場所の写真が豊富に。一冊にはレインボーペインティングが原寸大に近いサイズで。一冊には〈Light and shadow inside me〉のモノクロームと翠色の作品が掲載されます。各冊、アトリエや周囲の風景も掲載……。”
Catalog: EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2021
Official catalog for the EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow, a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The EUGENE STUDIO by acclaimed contemporary artist Eugene Kangawa is the first Heisei-born artist to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The substantial artist book further explores the depths of the multifaceted world of his genre-defying works through a conversation with biologist Shinichi Fukuoka and an essay by American art critic David Geers, who has contributed to October (journal) and Frieze (magazine).
Publisher: torch press, Hardcover book binding, 220 pages, B5 Modified / Price: $33.44 (+tax) (Sold out)
Catalog: special edition 1/2 Century later. Shiseido Gallery, 2017
In this book, THE EUGENE Studio 1/2 Century later., includes several contents as below; descriptions of White Painting Series (2017–), Beyond good and evil, make way toward the wasteland. (2017), 6 discussions/essays about this exhibition and the artist, and photography of the artworks. The pages are detachable so that to display each page.
3 parts Boxed in, 234 pages, 455 × 305 mm (Sold out)
Official booklet | by Bijutsu Techo and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
The EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow guidebook is now available to amplify our understanding of this exhibition and the EUGENE STUDIO. In addition to scenes from the production site and a long interview with Eugene Kangawa, the guidebook also includes a conversation with Dai Tamesue, who discusses the similarities between art and sports from the perspective of an athlete and an artist, and a conversation with architect Tsuyoshi Tane, which was held when he presented Shikkoku-Noh (The National Art Center, Tokyo) in 2019.
Available at the museum store in the museum.
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (supervisor), Bijutsu Techo editorial department (editor), sold out.
Highlight & Thesis
- EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (November 2021–February 2022)
- 想像 #1 man / Image/Imagine #1 man
- White Painting series / Thesis “Passion in Monochrome” by David Geers (Art critic)
- Light and shadow inside me (Gelatin silver print [photogram])
- Light and shadow inside me (Aqueous dye on paper)
- Rainbow Painting series
- Playset & Park “PLAY EARTH PARK” (April–May, July–August 2022)
- Beyond good and evil, make way toward the wasteland. / Thesis “1/2 Century later.―In the case of conceptual art” by Arata Hasegawa(Independent curator)
- 海庭 / Critical
- Goldrain
- Everything shines (Draiwing series)
- de-sport at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa / Mr. Tagis room & dream
- 漆黒能 (EN: Pitch darkness-noh) at The National Art Center, Tokyo
- Regrading of stories
- Our dreams
- from the future
- Agricutural Revolution 3.0
Collection exhibition centered on EUGENE STUDIO
“Presence” & “Eugene Room”
at MAKI Collection / MAKI Gallery (Tokyo)
“Presence,” a large collection exhibition featuring works from the new collection of EUGENE STUDIO/Eugene Kangawa, is being held at MAKI Gallery / MAKI Collection in Tennozu, Tokyo. Also on view is the “Eugene Room,” open by appointment only, until the end of 2022.
Lee Kit, EUGENE STUDIO / Eugene Kangawa, Augusta Wood, Lawrence Carroll, Matti Brown, Luigi Ghirri, and others.
リー・キット、ユージーン・スタジオ/寒川裕人、オーガスタ・ウッド、ローレンス・キャロル、マッティ・ブラウン、ルイジ・ギッリほか
White Painting series, 2017–
Canvas
White Painting is only the collective name for the series, as each piece is titled with the names of the people who kissed the canvases—for instance, the names of about a hundred people.
There are 2 series of this work; one was done by calling out to people on the street in cities around the world (USA, Mexico, Italy, Taiwan...) and the other within a specific community unit such as “a certain family”.
For a certain family series (2017–)
The small For a certain family series (33.3 × 33.3 cm), works done within the community unit of a specific family, began with the creation of a piece for the family of a friend of his.
Portraits on consciousness, timeless portrait-like works are now in possession of more than one family.
The title of the work will officially be “a series of names of all the family members”. For example, “Anna, Ryo, Erika”.
And if there are more family members—for example, they have children—the title of the work would also change. There is flexibility in the concept of family.
This is the smallest form of commission work, but it is also a commission work that lasts forever.
“— THE EUGENE Studio’s White Painting series […] transforming the canvases into nomadic shrines to love and memory… White Painting series returns the monochrome to its iconic if uncertain place between a portal and a thing.”
From “Passion in Monochrome” (2018)
by David Gears, an art critic who contributes his writing to October magazine and other publications.
Read full story
Rainbow Painting series, 2021
Oil on canvas
In the oil painting, with its gradation of pale rainbow colors, upon closer inspection, one can see that countless human figures have been painted by brush, with the layers creating a complex gradation.
The shapes and colors are slightly different from one another. This is a “group portrait”.
The visitor passes through the sea into a brightly lit room surrounded by several of these paintings, each 3m high and up to 8m wide. All of the rainbow paintings on display will be transported to various locations, and the “group portraits” will continue to live on in yet another place.
“— Group Portraits
I thought to myself, we don’t need individual portraits right now, we need portraits of people—groups of people.
If you look closer, the people and the shadows they cast are each slightly different from the next. They appear to be countless groups, jostling and separated yet side by side. This place might be a continent or a country; it might be a virtual network. In any case, it is beautiful.”
Eugene Kangawa
(From the interview: Solo exhibition EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2021-2022)
“Painting by fading”
Light and shadow inside me, 2021
Aqueous dye on paper
A sheet of ink-coated paper is folded like origami and exposed to the sun for several weeks. The pattern was solely created “by the shadow of the picture”. It was created by the “principle of fading.” This work is both a painting and a photograph in the sense that it is subjected to the sun. It is characterized by the reductive nature of the “light and shadow of the painting itself.”
“— People and things ‘just by existing’ have both light and shadow.”
Light and shadow inside me, 2022–
Gelatin silver print (photogram)
This work, which looks like an abstract painting, is made entirely from the photographic paper itself.
In a dark room, the silver halide film is creased like folds and folded like origami to form pentagons, polygons, and other columnar shapes. In this state, it is momentarily exposed to light.
All these images were thus created only with the minimum of elements: “only light and the photographic paper itself.” “They are not shadows or effects of something else.” Things have light and shadow just by existing. These change in detail from time to time, and no two are the same.
Everything reflects the shining light toward me, 2021
Oil on brass / Oil, wax oil pastel on brass / Oil, gouache, grease pencil on brass / Brass, wood
This series of drawings is a rather special kind of “sketch diary” by Eugene Kangawa. Sometimes he directly sketches “landscapes/objects reflected in mirrors or brass metal,” and sometimes he enlarges the sketches and drawings based on them. It begins with the act of drawing what is reflected outside or inside from different angles.
Reflections cause light to appear from behind the paint, the ground and figure are frequently inverted, and the focus is never fixed.
Mr. Tagi’s room and dream #four-handed, 2014
Steel, wood, oil / wood, brass, glass, artificial leather, plaster
Twin Drums was one of Eugene Kangawa’s graduation projects in 2014, a “Research project into the history of sports by a fictional sports scientist.” At the time, the installation consisted of a number of objects, images, and fictional sports workshop devices related to sports, such as chance, probability, the origin of time, domain, dialogue, exchange, and community. This drum set is one of them, recreating the conditions after the workshop was done.
(*The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa hosted an exhibition in 2020 titled Desport, in which the title of the exhibition was Eugene’s graduation works (2013–2014).)
Detail
Playset & Park
“PLAY EARTH PARK” (2022. Apr-May, Jul-Aug)
EUGENE STUDIO considers “playground equipment” as a type of public sculpture, and designed the overall concept for PLAY EARTH PARK, a park for children who will build the future, in Tokyo and Toyama. New playground equipment that fosters imagination was designed by five architects.
EUGENE STUDIOは、遊具を公共彫刻の一種と捉えており、東京と富山で行われた”未来をつくる子どもたちに向けた公園" PLAY EARTH PARKのコンセプト全般の設計を行いました。想像力を育む新しい遊具を、5名の建築家が設計。