Kyoto
Exhibition: La petite voix by Takao Inoue
井上隆夫「小さなヴォア」展
22 October – 14 November 2021

Broken Tulip, Apr. 25, 2018, t/16 (detail）
2018
Acrylic, tulip
H 20 x 15 x 13.5 cm

Artist visits the venue are: 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of November.
Contact:  info@wamonoart.com   /   Tel: +81 80 8053 3865
* Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check this website for the latest information before visiting.

作家在会場予定日: 11月4日(木)、11月5日 (金)、11月6日(土)、11月7日(日)
お問合せ： info@wamonoart.com   /   Tel: 080 8053 3865
* COVID-19の感染拡大により変更となる場合がございます。ご来場前に最新情報をこのHPでご確認下さい。

wamono art contemporary and node hotel are please to present an exhibition
La petite voix by Takao Inoue from 22 October to 14 November, 2021. 
In the exhibition, we will introduce about 30 works composed of the Broken tulip series
and the Untitled dandelion series, which will be exhibited for the first time.

La petite voix by Takao Inoue 

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, tulips with mottled petals were a prized rarity selling for as much as 1 million dollar each in today’s value, and triggering the first ever global economic bubble, starting in Holland. When in the twentieth century this variation was found to be caused by a virus, in a complete reversal, trading of the flowers was prohibited. Any discovered were discarded, dubbed “broken” tulips, that even if they did exist in the world, could no longer.

Whenever some movement flows inordinately far in one direction, an opposing force will arise, in an attempt to rectify the situation. Since 2014, three years after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, believing that this correction occurs equally in the case of geographical movements such as typhoons and earthquakes; the expression, film and fashion produced by people living in different communities, and plants, Inoue has been sealing objects in acrylic. In the process, with a frequency impossible to ignore he has encountered in Tokyo misshapen dandelions, an experience that has prompted him to collect plants that have been thrown away, and flowers with an obvious will to survive, channeling Rachel Carson in Silent Spring, or the researchers who reported on deformities in flora and fauna around Chernobyl.

Will things that disappear – left behind, ignored by the world’s larger, more dramatic movements – be accepted and permitted to exist as art that endures, that does not disappear in short order? From works capturing a 360-degree perspective, Inoue endeavors to disentangle the cramped confines of existence itself in multidimensional ways.

Takao Inoue:
Born in 1970, raised in Fukuoka, worked as a cinematographer from the 1990s. Influenced by the humanity of Shiro Kuramata. From a young age, for Inoue the world in the mirror felt like a film with a hole in it, leading him to search for ways to express, unaltered, presences outside the visible world. Since 2004 he has been scrupulously researching when flowers bloom in different locations to collect dandelions and seal them in acrylic. Inoue took part in Japonismes 2020 by wamono art – Contemporary Interpretation of Japonismes,  HART Hall, Hong Kong in 2020. His interest lies in those things outside the oversight of conventional values and systems. 

この度、wamono art contemporaryとアートコレクターの住まいをコンセプトに数多くのアート作品を展示するnode hotel は共催で、井上 隆夫「小さなヴォア」の個展を開催致します。

これまで映像、他、商業的分野で活動をしながらタンポポをアクリル封入するシリーズを制作してきた井上は、近年、東日本大震災以降の2014年から相次いで奇形のタンポポと遭遇したことから、世の中の大きな動きの中で取り残されながらも存在し続けるものにも何か理由があるのでないかと考え、360度全ての視点を封入させることで、存在そのもののを多次元的に解放させようと作品制作を続けています。

今回の出展作の１つであるアクリル封入されたブロークン・チューリップもまた、16世紀 – 17世紀当時、斑模様の花弁を持つチューリップとして希少性が高く、1億円相当の価値がつくほどにまで高騰し、オランダを起点に世界初のバブル経済を引き起こした花ですが、その模様はウイルスが原因だと判明した20世紀からは廃棄処分され、この世では存在することを認められぬ存在となりました。そういった移り行く時代と共に変化する価値観の中で無視され、消えてゆく「小さなヴォア」( ＝小さな声 ) へと、井上が耳を澄ますかのように採取し制作した未発表作、新作を含む作品約30点を、今回まとまった形で初めて発表いたします。

井上 隆夫
1970年生まれ。福岡育ち。1990年代からシネマトグラファーとして活動。倉俣史朗の人間性から影響を受ける。幼い頃から鏡の奥に見える世界が、穴の開いた映像のように感じていたことから、可視化されている世界とは別の存在をそのままに表現できる方法を模索。2004年以降、花が咲く時期を綿密に調べ各地でタンポポを採取し、アクリルへと封入する作品制作を始める。2020年「Japonismes 2020 by wamono art – Contemporary Interpretation of Japonismes 展」( HART Hall / 香港 )へ参加。既存の価値観や体制の管理外にあるものへと目を向けている。

Press:

Tokyo Art Beat – 欲望や不安を内に秘めた、美しき異形の花。井上隆夫インタビューhttps://www.tokyoartbeat.com/articles/-/takao_inoue_node_hotel
English translation of Takao Inoue’s interview article by @tokyoartbeat

artnet news – Spotlight: In a Kyoto Exhibition, Artist Takao Inoue Contemplates the Complex History of the Dutch Tulip Trade
https://news.artnet.com/buyers-guide/spotlight-takao-inoue-wanmono-art-2029992