2022/8/27 ~ 9/18

Hey, River Snake C’mon.
KINJO

at: parcel
東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-14 まるかビル2階
Maruka bldg 2F, 2-2-14 Nihonbashi-Bakurocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Open :
Wed ~ Sun 14:00-19:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

parcel is pleased to announce KINJO’s solo exhibition “Hey, River Snake C’mon” starting from August 27. This will be the gallery’s second solo exhibition of the artist.

This exhibition will feature an installation of canvases of various sizes, including KINJO’s “One’s Eyes”, which is a series where the artist depicts eyes glowing in the dark. The exhibition will also include a series based on animals and cartoon scenes, as well as patchwork canvases of these motifs.

KINJO’s renowned series of works depicting character-like eyes glowing in the dark, has its origins in the artist’s own childhood uneasiness with the eyes of others and the way their gaze was directed at him. Although his fear toward the gaze diminished with age, the awareness remained with him, leading to the series of eye motifs. The eyes in the paintings appear to be peering towards something on the viewer’s side, but the entire image on the canvas remains hidden in the darkness. There is a distance between the viewer and the subject, leaving the viewer to imagine what is beyond the canvas without knowing what the subject depicted looks like or where his or her eyes are directed.

In addition, the motif of the series featuring living creatures is one of familiarity, as Kinjo’s brother in law breeds many animals of various kinds. There is a cycle in which pets are welcomed into homes, die, and give birth to new ones, all of which have a shorter lifespan than human life. At the same time, there is also an argument surrounding the very idea of keeping pets. However, these debates remain somewhat distant from the artist’s feelings which are intimately connected to the pet’s existence, and such debates are not directed to the artist, as he is not the pet’s owner but rather an occasional helper in its care. This position enables KINJO to develop a personal awareness regarding pets, creating a gap of perception between himself and others.    

Likewise with the works depicting cartoon scenes, the seemingly catchy motifs that KINJO depicts are not symbolic, but rather an expression and documentation of personal events that could be recognized as  the artist’s own roots. These motifs are painted and erased repeatedly on the canvas, and at times patched together. The artist repeats the act of painting anonymous eyes, the social aspect of keeping a living creature as a pet, and the relationship between fiction and reality, while he portrays the emotional discrepancies and distortions that arise in communication with others, as well as objectively reflecting on himself in the midst of such differences.

Kinjo

Born in Tokyo, currently based and works in Tokyo. With roots in Okinawa, KINJO has been creating paintings, sculptures, and performances based on American pop culture, which has deep ties to Okinawa, and in Japan. In the process of repeatedly drawing and erasing motifs such as eyes glowing in the dark, cereal packages, and snakes, the outlining context becomes blurred and ambiguous, and like the artist’s own portraits, they are transformed into something personal with a charming appearance. His works can be seen as a self portrait, or a documentation of exploring his own roots.

2022/7/16 ~ 8/28

patchwork my city
EVERYDAY HOLIDAY SQUAD Solo Exhibition

at: PARCEL
東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-1-1F
1F, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuoku, Tokyo

Open :
Wed ~ Sun 14:00-19:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

PARCEL is pleased to announce “patchwork my city”, an exhibition by the artist collective EVERYDAY HOLIDAY SQUAD (“EHS”). EHS was formed in 2015 by several artists who produce works in urban public spaces with a diverse approach based on research. After participating in the 2017 Reborn-Art Festival in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, EHS has expanded its site-specific expression not only in the streets, but also to museums and art centers as well as public spaces.

Below is the artist statement by EHS: 

As the title “patchwork my city” suggests, the theme of this exhibition is to connect fragments of the city, using the map of Tokyo as a motif for this new series. One would think that Tokyo would be free from the hustle and bustle of redevelopment after the Olympics, but even now, a year after the event, huge construction projects are still underway in various parts of the city. In addition, it seems that the desire for public power over cities continues to grow, as if we are turning a blind eye to the pandemic and the international affairs that cast a large shadow over our society. We are now faced with the need to redefine the nature of the urban environment in which we live based on our own values and behaviors. This exhibition attempts to patchwork (deconstruct/reconstruct) maps that reflect our daily urban activities and redefine contemporary Tokyo from a variety of angles.

From 1957 to 1972, the French-based organization Situationist International (S.I.) 1 worked on a project called “The Naked City,” which involved redrawing maps of Paris and other cities based on people’s lives. The activities of the Situationists is not only limited to artists, but has had a broad influence on political movements and urban planning in the contemporary era. Archigram, a British avant-garde architectural group formed in 1961, also uses visual art, drawing, and collage to express the future of architecture and cities brought about by technology and the information environment. Their expressions often include blueprints of future cities collaged from maps.

The series of map works presented in this exhibition is inspired by the physical perception and experience of the city by graffiti writers and street artists, which include works that traverse the gallery and the city, altering the appearance of the city by drawing and collaging the information on maps, along with sculptures that create maps from crates used for distribution. These works take a break from the map as practical data, allowing us to view it as a medium to see the city based on our instincts, inspiring us to create new behaviors and ideas as we live in urban environments.  

– EVERYDAY HOLIDAY SQUAD

EVERYDAY HOLIDAY SQUAD

Anonymous artist group active since 2015. Intervening in urban and public spaces from the perspective of street culture, they develop playful projects that present unexpected ways of seeing places and landscapes. Their style is characterized by site-specific expression using a wide range of media from video sound to painting, mural painting, sculpture, installation, as well as developing long-term research projects. Some of their representative works include “rode work” (2017-2018), a series in which skaters in work uniforms create a skate park that resembles a construction site, and “towering wind” (2021), a work with the theme of space ventilation during the pandemic, in which huge ventilators are stacked and operated in the exhibition space. Major exhibitions include “Ripples of Water” (2021, Watari-Um Museum of Art), “under pressure” (International Art Center Aomori, 2021), and “ALTERNATIVE KYOTO” (2021, Kyoto).

2022/7/16 ~ 8/12

せ
箕浦 建太郎 | Kentaro Minoura

at: parcel
東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-14 まるかビル2階
Maruka bldg 2F, 2-2-14 Nihonbashi-Bakurocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Open :
Wed ~ Sun 14:00-19:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

parcel is pleased to announce Kentaro Minoura’s solo exhibition “Se”, his first solo exhibition in two years since his solo exhibition “Ki” at PARCEL in January 2020.
Since his childhood, Minoura has been exposed to various cultures such as manga, anime, video games, movies, and music, and has continued to express himself beyond the boundaries of these genres, focusing mainly on painting and music. Through these experiences, Minoura’s work has been refined, culminating in his current style in which he depicts a form of life. Though it is not clear what these creatures actually are, they stand with an ambiguous expression that is difficult to describe, amidst the complex layers of paints. His ceramic works, which he has been working on vigorously in recent years, also have a primitive expression, with the unique presence that suggests that they may have been used as objects of worship in ancient times.
Through both his paintings and sculptures, Minoura’s works share a primitive sense of being as a life-form. Rather than a sense of harmony within the composition as a painting, or the impression of organized and refined modeling beauty, Minoura’s work is closer to the physical and primitive feeling that humans have within themselves from the times before we gave names and words to things and feelings. The depicted motifs in his paintings are sometimes an unbalanced figure of something that has a life of its own, while embodying the mass and texture of brushes, paints, and clay.

箕浦 建太郎 | Kentaro Minoura

Born 1978 in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka pref. and raised in Asakusa, Tokyo. He is currently based and works in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Since his childhood, Minoura has always been drawing. His works, currently focused on paintings, have been exhibited in various formats, including exhibitions, books, records, and on the Internet. In Minoura’s current paintings, organic beings surface in the layers of various paints. In recent years, he has been actively producing three-dimensional works such as ceramic sculptures. His publications include “未完成大陸(Unfinished Continent)” and “Decapitron 3” (SHOBOSHOBO-BOOKS), “Myojo” (co-published with photographer Kotori Kawashima), “Toriko” (Tokyo News Press), “Hello, Good” and “TOURS”.

2022.5.21.Sat - 6.19.Sun

even a worm will turn
横手 太紀 | Taiki Yokote Solo Exhibition

at: parcel
東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-14 まるかビル2階
Maruka bldg 2F, 2-2-14 Nihonbashi-Bakurocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Open :
Wed / Thu / Sun 14:00-19:00
Fri / Sat 14:00 - 20:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

parcel is pleased to present “even a worm will turn,” very first solo exhibition of Taiki Yokote starting May 21.

While a student at the Masters course of the Department of Sculpture of the Tokyo University of the Arts, Taiki Yokote creates sculptures and installations using ready-made objects in motion. Yokote focuses on familiar objects such as plastic bags, rubble, stones found on the street, and blue tarps, which are not usually paid attention to. His ideas are centered on rather than looking at the original functions or symbolic meanings of familiar objects, but to focus on their pure form and movement, and perceives each object as a unique entity. By giving unexpected movements and perspectives to inorganic objects, such as dust, dirt, and rubble that may have been part of a building, the artist gives us a sense of discomfort, while broadening our imagination about the unique flow of time and various phenomena that can be found in all objects and that we do not fully recognize.
This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition, in which he will present new video works, sculptures of various sizes, and an installation.

I found a pile of rubble on my usual path to the station. I wondered for a while what kind of building it was, but I couldn’t remember. Tomorrow, I may not even remember that I had forgotten. When I think about the fact that we live our lives forgetting things day after day, without even noticing the things that do not even remain in our memories, it seems that things that are forgotten or overlooked have their own stories to tell, just like us.
I have heard that the dust in our homes is made up of fibers from our clothes and bedding, sand from outside, etc. When I imagine that the dust in my home may also come from the rubble I saw earlier, I feel as if it is there after a long journey, and I cannot clean it. It is similar to the feeling of wanting to leave my sculptures as they are without restoring them to their original state, even if they move selfishly in unpredictable directions or change due to friction or deterioration.

Every day we are exposed to countless amounts of information, and most of what is not relevant to our daily lives, just passing by. I feel that sculptures help us to look at and imagine the daily lives of such beings.

— Taiki Yokote

横手 太紀 | Taiki Yokote Solo Exhibition
Born in Zushi City, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1998.
Currently studying at the Tokyo University of the Arts, sculpture department.
Yokote focuses on objects that are rarely paid attention to and brings out their “wild side” through a sculptural approach and gimmicks that use the motion of ready-made products. Mainly focusing on sculptures and installations with motion, recently expanding the range of his expression such as using video works.

2022.5.21.Sat - 6.26.Sun

B-BOY REVENGE 2022
小畑 多丘 | Taku Obata Solo Exhibition

at: PARCEL
東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-1-1F
1F, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuoku, Tokyo

Open :
Wed / Thu / Sun 14:00-19:00
Fri / Sat 14:00 - 20:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

PARCEL is pleased to present “B-BOY REVENGE 2022,” a solo exhibition by Taku Obata. The exhibition will feature Obata’s large scale sculpture as well as a mixture of past and present works.

The work “Takuspe B-Boy 2012,” unveiled 10 years ago was first shown at the Nakamura Keith Haring Museum in Yamanashi, which has a collection of works by Keith Haring, who had a great influence on B-BOY culture, which is also the origin of Obata’s artwork. This is Obata’s largest sculpture to date, and his second lying posture, including a smaller scaled version. This work was later exhibited in the group exhibition “Tokyo Street” in Singapore in 2013, and in a solo exhibition at Jonathan LeVine Gallery (Chelsea, NY) in 2014, which drew attention from the international b-boy/hip-hop scene. Now, 10 years after its completion, it will be exhibited again in Tokyo. The exhibition will also include a collection of maquettes, sketches, and other materials related to “Takuspe B-Boy 2012,” which the artist considers to be one of his most important works.

In addition, two other works painted on plexi-glass panels will be exhibited. One of the past work which will be exhibited is a live painting done in collaboration with NikeLab (https://vimeo.com/206369902) in 2017. The motifs of this work were ” figures,” which Obata regularly sketches, and basketball, which he was as passionate about as dance during his middle and high school years. While there is a sense of improvisation that is similar to his current series of paintings, the composition of this work resembles his drawings. A new work in the same medium will be shown along with this piece.

For Obata, who values sculpture, dance, other sports including basketball, the relationship between body movement and the earth, and gravity, all of his activities are for the purpose of creating sculpture, and for the purpose of being applied to sculpture.

Although his paintings have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, this exhibition will provide viewers with an opportunity to understand why and where Taku Obata is presently standing. This exhibition will showcase his sculpture, which is his core, and his works on plexi-glass, which can be considered to fall between his current series of canvas paintings and sculptures.

Taku Obata
1980 Born in Saitama pref. Japan
1999 starts HIPHOP group UNITY SELECTIONS
2006 BFA sculpture, Tokyo University of the Arts
2007 Starts Hip-hop performance group BBOYGER
2008 MFA sculpture, Tokyo University of the Arts

Since 2011, Okubo has been widely known for his numerous animation music videos, though in recent years he has returned to his distinct style of artistic expression, focusing on a series of sequential art (works in an animation-like sequense), as well as paintings, drawings, and games.
In this exhibition, the artist will present a series of large scale paintings with motifs drawn in fragments, a series of 7 paintings with motifs in continuity, and drawings, all which were created through repeated experimentation from around 2019. The paintings are diverse, including Okubo’s own personal events, distant social phenomena, family scenes, and favorite motifs. Each landscape, apparently unrelated, is connected in such a way that they blend together while maintaining an even distance, and cohabitate on a single canvas. The style of capturing various phenomena and connecting them from a panoramic perspective is a natural expression for an artist who has been creating animation works, thus it is inevitable to raise the theme of “continuity” in his expression.
On the occasion of this exhibition, which consists of all new works that have not yet been exhibited, Okubo will release a book including the works which will be exhibited. This will be Okubo’s first solo exhibition of new works in six years.

オオクボリュウ | Ryu Okubo
Ryu Okubo has been creating animated music videos since 2011. Currently, in pursuit of a wider possibility of expression, he engages in “sequential art = artistic expression with continuity” using various techniques such as drawing, painting, video, and games.
Solo exhibition “Like A Broken iPhone” CALM & PUNK GALLERY, 2016.
His publications include “Mainichi Tanoshii” (2019, Bronze Shinsha, co-authored with KAKATO), and music videos such as “Gen Hoshino / Sarashimono feat. PUNPEE” (2020), “D.A.N. / Sundance” (2018), “Mndsgn / Alluptoyou” (2016), “group_inou / 9” (2012), “PSG / Can’t sleep! ” (2011), etc.

https://ryu-okubo.art
PARCEL

2022.1.8.Sat - 2.27.Sun

“MY SOCIAL LADDER” Solo Exhibition

DIEGO

at: PARCEL
東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-1-1F
1F, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuoku, Tokyo

Open :
Wed / Thu / Sun 14:00-19:00
Fri / Sat 14:00 - 20:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue, Holidays

DIEGO is a graffiti writer who expresses himself on the streets, and at the same time, an artist who creates paintings with spray paint and acrylic paint. By layering his work to resemble the walls of the city, and by painting in such a way as to uncover unexpected shapes and spaces, he expresses the experience of searching for “spots” in the city through his paintings.
This new body of work depicts the complex intertwining of structures that remind us of building materials, such as stepladders and lumber, and expresses the ambiguity of the scrap and build of architecture and urban structures. The reason behind such motifs is that street artists prefer to work in the blind spots of the city, and therefore often use material yards and construction sites as a stage for their expression. In addition to the paintings, there will be an installation that mimics a materials yard, and a video work that documents DIEGO’s performance of intervening in an unmanned construction site.

In recent years, huge redevelopment projects triggered by the Olympics have been taking place all over the city center, and the resulting gentrification has tightened the noose around graffiti. However, no matter how much urban redevelopment is carried out, graffiti will not disappear, just as the cluttered urban landscape of the post-war era continues to exist in Japan. In the film “Sans Soleil,” filmmaker Chris Marker once described Tokyo as “a city that reverts to a collection of villages at night,” but even in our current perception, Tokyo is a city of countless communities with different values, intricately folded on a small piece of land. For DIEGO, graffiti is not a temporary movement, but a communal unit, a spiritual core that defines values and lifestyle. For this reason, DIEGO’s work reflects the values of graffiti in every aspect of expression, from concept to theme, motif to style, material to technique, and reconstructs the meaning of contemporary art from graffiti values. Although the style may seem “pop” at first glance, through the visualization of the resonant and repulsive cross-section of art and street culture, it represents the friction between the diverse values that make up the city, such as nation and community, law and individual values, economy and culture, and majority and minority.

As a member of artist collective SIDE CORE, DIEGO has participated in a number of art projects in 2021, including the Watari-um Art Museum’s “Ripple Across the Water 2021″ art festival and “Alternative Kyoto” organized by Kyoto Prefecture. He also was held a solo exhibition “under pressure” at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre as a member of the the collective. SIDE CORE has also been selected for the PCAF Foundation program thus gaining wide attention. This will be DIEGO’s first solo exhibition with PARCEL. DIEGO is one of the prominent figures in the Japanese street art scene, with his colorful and large scale paintings that look at society from a sharp street perspective.

Artist’s statement
Whether I’m working on a graffiti piece or on something else, I often find myself in a place that looks like a material yard.
Rusted walls are crammed with steel pipes, scaffolds, and lumber, with no sign of human presence.
Normally, one would feel lonely in such a place or want to stay away from it, but I find such places attractive and feel attached to the things that have been abandoned there.
If I had to describe such places and things in one phrase, I would say that they are the ” gaps in the city,” “the time in between,” or “the premonition of a new beginning”. The works in this exhibition are also based on the theme of a materials yard, and I have depicted characters inspired by discarded stepladders and other supplies. The gallery is a clean space that may seem a bit cramped, but if you take a step around the back of the building, you will find a similar materials yard atmosphere, and it is quite easy to find a similar places in the neighborhood. I would like this exhibition to be an opportunity to expand one’ s imagination of such discarded locations, to feel the presence of abandoned objects as if they are moving, and to convey the “charm of the outdoors” as I see it, while being in the gallery.
—DIEGO

PARCEL

2021.10.16.Sat - 11.21.Sun

6 Paintings From 6 Artists

AUTO MOAI / BIEN / Hiroya Kurata / Kentaro Minoura / Taku Obata / Koji Yamaguchi

Opening Reception 10.15 Fri 18:00-20:00

at: PARCEL
1F, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuoku, Tokyo 東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-1-1F

Open :
Wed / Thu / Sun 14:00-19:00
Fri / Sat 14:00 - 20:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

PARCEL is pleased to announce the opening of a group exhibition by six Japanese artists, representing their generations, starting on October 16. This will be an opportunity to show new works in a wide range of styles, from abstract to figurative, as well as one of the largest works by each of the artists.

In 2015, Auto Moai began creating works in monochrome, has been using a lot of color since 2018, and is known for a distinct style in which a highly anonymous “presence” seems to be standing on the canvas. The artist’s style, which is extremely objective but also appears to be a very personal scene, presents us with views and sceneries that can be found through the removal of elements, such as the relationship between people and the relationship between the painting and the viewer.

Born in 1980, Taku Obata is a sculptor known for his series of B-BOY-inspired sculptures based on his roots as a break dancer. More recently, Obata has been exhibiting works on canvas using mainly acrylic paint, reflecting the relationship between modeling and carving in the context of sculpture. By relocating the “scraped” mass from a canvas covered with paint to a different blank canvas and “molding” it, Obata takes a new approach to paintings from a sculptors point of view. The artists has been working on the theme of the movement of the body and mass from his early career, portraying this through various media.

Hiroya Kurata, also born in 1980, currently lives and works in New York. Kurata has created a series of works in the past that were inspired by baseball, both as a pure enjoyment and as a symbol to convey the many messages behind the game. In recent years, the artist has moved away from baseball, and started a series of works focusing on family members. As the COVID pandemic has prevented him from traveling and staying outdoors, his family was what he was closest to, and interacted with every day. Although the works are based on moments that the artist himself actually experienced, they are also vividly depicting the trivial happiness that we, the viewers, feel in our daily lives.

Born in 1993 and currently based in Tokyo, BIEN outlines the shapes of man-made letters, symbols, manga and anime characters with dynamic lines, inheriting and sublimating the various modes of expression of street culture and animation culture, while attempting to deconstruct and reconstruct symbolic meanings. At his solo exhibition at PARCEL in March 2021, he unveiled a series of works in which black lines run inexhaustibly over a combination of panels composed of colored surfaces of light (landscape) captured by a camera, taking on the challenge of a new expression of abstraction on the boundary between fiction and reality.

Koji Yamaguchi is an artist based in Tokyo, Japan since 2018 after working several years in New York. He is known for his oil paintings, which are mainly inspired by the scenery Yamaguchi himself rode passed, while riding his skateboard. The overall blurred look of the screen conveys the sense of speed that Yamaguchi must have experienced. The ambiguously maintained focus of the paintings, which can be referred to as a record of the artist’s behavior, overlaps with common landscapes that give us a sense of déjà vu, making them appear somewhat nostalgic to our eyes.

Kentaro Minoura was born in 1978 and currently lives and works in Tokyo. The accumulation of his own experiences and experiences are mimicked as his mental landscape, and appear on the canvas as a kind of “creature”. The works can be described as a self portrait that reflects Minoura’s own upbringing, where he was introduced to a wide range of cultures, including anime, games, movies, music, and street, without being particularly conscious of the boundaries between them. Minoura uses a wide range of painting materials, from classic oils to spray paint, and the unique combination of these mediums enables him to add depth to his paintings. In recent years, he has been actively producing not only works on canvas but also three-dimensional works on ceramic, expanding the range of his expression.

The exhibition will feature ambitious works on a large scale by six artists who have been actively expanding their activities as an artist. We look forward to seeing you at this exhibition.

2021.07.17.Sat - 08.29.Sun

Upcoming : ４面鏡 / Quad Mirror
(By myself, For myself, to myself & ourselves)

KOM_I / Kawita Vatanajyankur / Lu Yang / Masako Hirano / NTsKi / tomotosi

Opening Reception : 07.16.Fri. 18:00-21:00

at: PARCEL
1F, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuoku, Tokyo 東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-1-1F

Open :
Wed / Thu / Sun 14:00-19:00
Fri / Sat 14:00 - 20:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

Through various social networking services such as Instagram, we are constantly exposed to numerous selfies. When the selfie first appeared on the Internet, it was perceived by many as an image associated with narcissism, and other forms of evanescent self-expression. Today, Instagrammers and other artists of all kinds are using their own selfie more strategically as a tool/means to generate personal and social relationships. The question is: when, with whom, where, and under what circumstances are you photographing yourself? Their followers also decode the messages in the images and reflect them in their own sense of values.
In the past, self-portraits were reserved for special spaces such as museums and galleries. However, in the present day, these have taken on a new role as an expression that connects the perspectives of all small groups (tribes) and points out where these communities are heading.

The six artists participating in this exhibition come from a variety of nationalities and backgrounds, but they all share a common interest in using themselves as a strategic tool for social interaction / communication. The exhibition will explore the redefinition of self-portraits in the age of social networking services (SNS) , from the conventional art of self-portraiture, through the diverse works of the artists, including photographs, videos, 3DCG animations, and an installation.

Notes on ４面鏡/ Quad Mirror（By myself, For myself, to myself & ourselves
1. Infrastructure
Who hasn’t touched their smartphone before seeing this text today? Who hasn’t connected to the Internet or opened a social networking site? In this era, smartphones, the Internet, and social networking sites have become the infrastructure, or lifeline, of our daily lives. We can no longer recollect a time when these inventions were nonexistent, and we are now living in a society that is distinctly different from the one before and after these inventions, in which we currently cohabitate with.

2. Mirror
In retrospect, we have invented many things throughout history that have transformed our lives and society. Starting from primitive things like fire and the wheel, to the steam engine and semiconductors, there is no end to this list. However, the invention of the mirror is worth noting when we consider its importance in art and culture. The glass mirror that uses tin amalgam as a reflective material, which is similar to the glass mirror used today, was invented in Venice around the 14th to 15th century. This invention gave birth to the genre of “self-portrait” in post-Renaissance paintings, which eventually led to the development of the idea of “self” and “self-reflection” leading to the birth of a literature form, the novel, telling the story of one’s inner life, which further led to the establishment of the consciousness of individual human rights (*1). The invention of reflecting one’s own face has transformed not only the world but also oneself.

3. Front Camera and SNS
Just as the invention of the mirror gave birth to the self-portrait, the invention of the camera later gave birth to the self-portrait in the field of photography. It was in the early nineteenth century that the camera was invented as a device using a photosensitive compound to fix the reflected image on a medium, but it was not until the 1960s that this tool came to be used as a kind of artistic expression rather than simply recording the artist’s appearance. (The fact that the self-portrait as an early expression was a representation of the feminist movement and counter-culture may be an extension of the establishment of individual human rights awareness with the invention of the mirror, as mentioned earlier (*2)). Furthermore, in the modern age, with the addition of front cameras mounted on the screens of cell phones, self-portraiture has regained its original function as a mirror. By being able to look back at oneself staring at the screen from almost the same angle as one’s eyes, an image that is almost a mirror image can be projected, and thus the “selfie” as we see it today was born.

4. Division
In “LA CHAMBRE CLAIRE”, Roland Barthes described the experience of portrait photography as “four I’s”. That is, “the person I think I am, the person I want people to think I am, the person the photographer thinks I am, and the person the photographer uses to demonstrate his skills” (3). Is this division possible in the selfie? Perhaps the division presented by Roland Barthes can be reduced almost entirely to the act of one person. However, the selfie does not take place in such a closed self-reference, but is included in the experience of being released into the social network. It is a precondition for being exposed to countless eyes from the other side of the mirror. Manovich’s “aesthetic society” is a place where “social media groups (tribes) maintain themselves through aesthetic choices and experiences (4)”. From the analysis of the number of postings, it is clear that a society that is formed by SNS users posting selfies is already in existence. The experiences surrounding the selfie that occur in this society are the subtitle of this project, “By myself, For myself, to myself & ourselves”.
In self-portraiture, there is a tradition of critical use of self-portraits in society, such as that of Amalia Ullman, continuing from Cindy Sherman. However, “Quad Mirror” gives us the opportunity to think about a series of actions or movements called the “selfie”, which is a self-portrait that has been newly born as a different direction from those, and which is hashtagged, judged by AI, becoming an interface between the individual and society, and being circulated on our timelines.

*1 How We Got To Now /Steven Johnson
*2 Self Portraits of Contemporary Women, Exploring the Unknown Self / Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
*3 LA CHAMBRE CLAIRE / Roland Barthes
*4 Instagram and Contemporary Image / Lev Manovich

Text by Kenta Ishige

2021.05.22.Sat - 06.27.Sun

at: PARCEL
1F, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuoku, Tokyo 東京都中央区日本橋馬喰町 2-2-1-1F

Open :
Wed / Thu / Sun 14:00-19:00
Fri / Sat 14:00 - 20:00
--
Closed : Mon, Tue

Starting from May 22, PARCEL is pleased to present a two-person exhibition by Norwegian artist Gardar Eide Einarsson, who is currently based in Tokyo, and Okinawa born LA based artist Kaz Oshiro.

Einarsson, who was born in 1976, adopts the symbols, signs and codes employed in fields such as political messages and pop culture, transforming and using them as a significant factor in the development of his works. Resulting in various mediums such as paintings, installations, sculptures and collages. Through extreme enlargement, excerpts, repetition, and reproduction of these “symbols”, Einarsson skillfully separates them from their original contexts, while challenging viewers to question the meaning of the complex intertwining social systems and powers.

Oshiro uses three-dimensionally assembled canvases to create his works of art based on objects that are relevant to our everyday lives. His motifs and techniques range from trash cans, document shelves, and amplifiers that are created with a level of precision that could be misidentified as the actual objects, to bent paintings that seem to have collided into the wall or fallen onto the floor. Like Einarsson, Oshiro’s works are interwoven with elements of various cultures including pop-culture, as well as more essential and sociological elements, and are consistently based on his questioning and challenging of the existence of paintings itself. In addition to his representative works of everyday objects, in more recent years Oshiro has also introduced a series of works using steel beams as his motifs, a material that is literally used as the foundation of modern society.

The motif of Einarsson’s painting in this exhibition is from the ticket to the observation deck of the former World Trade Center Building, along with a series of new print works of a siren. Surrounding these are “steel beams” by Oshiro. This exhibition, which will be on view until the end of June, will provide an opportunity for those of us who are accustomed to being given a predetermined “meaning” as members of a society, to stop and reconsider what we see and are told.

April 9-11

Chef Shinichi Sato, the first Japanese chef to win two stars in Paris, and his mentor and apprentice, Chef Tatsuya Noda, will hold a three-day limited collaboration dinner.　

Please enjoy the gastronomic delights prepared by the two chefs after a 10-year interval.

36,000 yen (tax and service charge not included)

Shinichi Sato

He opened "Passage 53" in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, France, and was awarded 2 stars in 2011.

Since then, he has been awarded 2 stars for 8 consecutive years. Currently seeking a new challenge, he plans to open a restaurant in the 16th arrondissement of Paris in 2021.

Tatsuya Noda

He studied under Chef Shinichi Sato at Passage53.

After gaining diverse experience in collaborations with chefs and artists around the world, he now works as a freelance chef in various locations and is also the director of "Kitchen Space nôl" in Bakurocho, Nihonbashi.

He won the RED U-35 2015 and 2019 semi-grand prix.

NEI BAR is a party held once a month in the Bakurocho DDD HOTEL.

The best drinks, relaxing space, and the best music.

We propose a new type of party for adults, with a guest artist each time.

The hotel above the bar, of course, allows guests to stay overnight, providing an experience for families, friends, and of course, one person to stay in Tokyo and get a bird's eye view of the city while living in the city of Tokyo.

-MUSIC
やけのはら
サモハンキンポー
NOOLIO

-EXHIBITION
Hiraparr Wilson

-HOST
Sakura Maya Michiki
KOTARO HOSONO(BAF Studio)