EXHIBITION

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Hands-on Visionamusement shakes our visual world


In 2020, I saw Takashi Hinoda’s solo exhibition Howling Hands-on Visionamusement that was held at Galleria Finarte in Nagoya. This exhibition was announced as a follow-up to the solo exhibition at Imura Art Gallery the previous year, and one piece was shown at both venues so as to link them. At the time, I wrote that that was Hinoda’s distinctive style, in which he creates a new world to allow the works he created separately to jive with the exhibition space, rather than to demonstrate narrative continuity in line with chronological timing. Now, following the opportunity to read the artist’s notes for the current show, I would like to revisit that thought.

In recent years, there has been a string of exhibitions questioning what crafts (kogei) are, with a focus on a young generation that is actively incorporating new aesthetics and new methods while returning attention to materials and using the techniques of the so-called traditional crafts as a starting point. However, Hinoda’s work seems to be based on a slightly different kind of thinking.

For Hinoda, color is one of the reasons for using ceramic art techniques. In his notes, he describes achieving an ‘incarnation’ of color in his art using coloring and substantiality only achievable through ceramic art—weight and texture produced using the mineral pigments employed in ceramic art, durability achieved after firing, and a distinctive darkness that is like shadow or shade not seen with other materials. However, the artist states that he uses clearly drawn lines, influenced by genres such as manga and ukiyo-e, because to him they convey a far stronger sense of psychological reality. When you stand in an exhibition space in which these works have been arranged, the pieces seen with your eyes also appeal to your tactile and auditory senses by way of your vision. You get the feeling that Hinoda chose the ideal materials and techniques in order to create this visual world.

The titles and themes of individual works reflect misgivings and a sense of crisis about modern-day society, but Hinoda asserts that it is the motifs that function as the motivation for his works. It is difficult to guess how Expanding Hands-on Visionamusement will stir our physical senses. It engenders anticipation like the excitement that builds on the way to a live gig.

(Nodoka Murayama, curator, Mosaic Tile Museum, Tajimi)

Installation view, solo exhibition "Howling Hands on Visionamusement"  
Galleria Finarte,Nagoya 2020
Photo by Sakae Fukuoka




Notes on the Expanding Hands-on Visionamusement exhibition

Takashi Hinoda

I used the term Hands-on Visionamusement (Shushikikeigaku) for the first time in public when I held the solo exhibition Hands and Visionamusement at Imura Art Gallery in Kyoto in 2019. I coined the term to create a new framework that doesn’t really fit fully within what is understood in Japan by terms typically used here to describe art, such as bijutsu rendered in pictographic characters, the katakana phonetics for the English word “art,” or “art” spelled out in English. Hands-on Visionamusement refers to the creation of art using colors and shapes based on a physical medium, that is to say, something subjected to manual or physical intervention. It’s an approach that applies to many of my past works. It’s the act of creating three-dimensional art within the spatial and temporal constraints imposed by the nature of one’s own body, without indiscriminately expanding scale. It always takes a moderate, human-sized approach.

Hands-on Visionamusement references Orphism in art history, graffiti culture, and the coherence of the harmonies, melodies, and rhythms in the music of Ornette Coleman. The reason for bringing up the music metaphor is to create a solid form that can’t be easily reclaimed by concepts or linguistic systems. While color and form each convey a certain impression independently, what truly has an impact on the human mind is when they are combined with other elements, producing complex relationships and flows. In other words, rather than savoring specific sounds, colors, and forms, viewers are actually appreciating the spatial and temporal transformations occurring between sounds, colors, and forms, and compositions with contrasting strengths of sounds, colors, and forms.

There is one important point about color. Scientifically speaking, the mind perceives color based on the wavelengths of light reflected by matter. However, I feel that there is more weight and texture with mineral pigments used in ceramic art. Through firing, they gain semipermanent durability, a disposition not found with other materials, and a distinctive darkness that is like shadow or shade. This darkness cannot be found in video works and similar creations that are based on light. These colors are firmly linked with the texture and gravity-bound weight of the works. Producing them is an important part of my practice. I think of it as the incarnation of color.

Form is also the element that guides the simulated experience of space. Seeking a direction to go in, the viewer’s gaze glides over the surfaces and around the profile of the work, as if caressing it. It’s not just a visual experience using the retinas, but also a tactile act of tracing through three-dimensional space. People experience the form in a similar way to how they move their feet to follow a rhythm.

As a student, I was taught about incorporating techniques that were invented during the Renaissance in Western art to represent perspective and shading—which gave me a lot of trouble during my studies. But personally, when it comes to methods of dealing with color and form, I feel a far stronger sense of psychological reality in three-dimensional art bordered with clear outlines as seen in anonymous illustrations and manga, ukiyo-e, and Otsu-e folk art. In this context, I have been particularly influenced since the mid-2000s by works of American illustrator Jim Flora from the 1940s and 1950s.

In line with the term’s origins, I think of a motif (or motive) as the impetus or motivation for beginning a work, rather than being the content or subject contained within the artwork. That’s because the content of the work is nothing but colors and forms. However, it goes without saying that, as someone living in this age, I have a strong interest in the world and society. The timing of my life on Earth determines the character of my life. Nevertheless, whatever the motivation, the Hands-on Visionamusement works derived from it are eventually sublimated into different forms.

In this exhibition, rather than show my work in a way that the viewer would likely attach too much importance to thinking about, I attempt to create a three-dimensional presentation that resonates with the physical senses, using adhesive vinyl markings to create grooves in a form that links the painted ceramic sculptures, and by extension the gallery space.

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日野田崇 個展「膨らむ手色形楽」by imura art gallery | 会場:CADAN有楽町(東京都千代田区有楽町1-10-1 有楽町ビル1F)

2021年7月27日(火)~8月15日(日)

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