Rainbow Variations & Other Works, Taisuke Koyama at Metronom Gallery, Modena
Rainbows Variations and Other Works is Taisuke Koyama’s first solo show in Europe. Curated by Selva Barni and Francesco Zanot, it was presented at Metronom Gallery in Modena (Italy) from October 12th to December 28th 2013. He was previously featured in Fantom 03, Spring 2010.
The exhibition Rainbow Variations and Other Works presents the Japanese artist Taisuke Koyama with a selection ranging from the initial phase of his career to his most recent research. The thread running through this journey is the transformation of reality into images that challenge the beholder’s expectations and ability to recognise portions of their own world therein, calling into question the processes of perception and visual representation as forms of knowledge.
At the centre of the exhibition, a selection from the works Rainbow Form (2009), Melting Rainbows (2010) and Rainbow Waves (2013) supply an in-depth overview of Koyama’s relationship with the themes of reproduction and repetition, plunging the spectator into a kaleidoscope of sparkling colours. A grouping of close-up shots of a rainbow printed on a poster in the centre of Tokyo, Rainbow Form is not only a thoroughgoing reflection on the two-dimensional nature of each image and its relationship with the photographed subject (in a manner similar to Stieglitz’s Equivalents, the water particles suspended in the air are replaced here by typographical dots) but is also the departure point of Melting Rainbows, for which several inkjet prints of the previous series were exposed to atmospheric agents on the artist’s balcony and then re-photographed. Rainbow Waves is instead the result of immersing the same prints in seawater so that the refraction of the light on the surface mixes with the earlier images, radically modifying them.
On show here for the first time in complete form, Entropix is a collection of 60 close-ups paradoxically suspended halfway between abstraction and hyperrealism. Lemon peel, curtain fabric, bird droppings, paint spread on a wall and numerous other objects found simply by walking through the city streets are the foundations of this reflection, highlighting the superficial nature of images captured by our eye or the camera lens, both fixed on the skin of each thing. Organic and inorganic are thus fused in an indissoluble amalgam, at once mysterious and sensual, as in the images of the series Sandwich Textures in which glass spheres and a dark liquid recall the formation of a new universe.
Taisuke Koyama and Selva Barni at the opening of “Rainbow Variations and Other Stories”, October 12th 2013.
TAISUKE KOYAMA is graduated in biology at the college school in Tokyo, he works with photography since 2003. He has exhibited in solo shows at G/P Gallery, Tokyo (2012,2011,2010,2009); Kyoto Art Center (2012); 9.5 Gallery, Kyoto (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art (Foyer), Tokyo (2010); Spiral Garden, Tokyo (2009); Gallery Rocket, Tokyo (2008); No.12 Gallery in Tokyo (2007). He has participated in international group shows such the main exhibition of Daegu Photo Biennale 2012 “Photography is Magic!” curated by Charlotte Cotton, and won the 15th Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo (2012). In 2013 he has taken part of the Setouchi Triennale 2013 in Shodoshima, Japan.
Taisuke Koyama. Rainbow Variations and Other Works Curated by Selva Barni and Francesco Zanot 12 October - 28 December 2013 Metronom. Viale G. Amendola 142, Modena www.metronom.it
Selected press coverage: Arte Artribune Clamlab Espressione Arte F. Stop Fotoantologie Il Resto del Carlino L’Espresso Modena Qui Undo.net Wall Street International