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Takeshi Abe “Dead Pan”
Art Front Gallery
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Artists
Takeshi Abe
Approaching a seemingly limitless picture plane, the viewer discerns a field of wooden cubes. Takeshi Abe photographs landscapes and human figures, then computerises their decomposition in pixels. He colours the cubes and sets them according to the mapped out pixelations. Abe constructs fuzzy images of memories by adding certain colours that are not found in the original photographs. Viewers will recognise the works as containing aspects of their own pasts.
Since graduating from Tohoku University of Art and Design over 15 years ago, this has been Abe’s method, working on a variety of picture planes. Motifs vary from standing figures, foreign boys and girls, or passengers sitting in trains, or else sunshine filtering through foliage, or cityscapes with famous landmarks. Although his work seems to deal with casual everyday scenes, only a restricted amount of information is given to the viewer, meaning they must deploy their own memories to fully appreciate the work.
Abe says not every subject is appropriate for him. He once stated that he wanted to avoid falling into habit, or mere design process, pixelating just any photographed object. Instead he wanted to take the structure of memory itself, and explore it through the process of memory formation via concrete pictorial images. He also mentioned that it is easier to use three dimensions and installations to initiate this process. One example is “Deadpan,” exhibited in a public space in Roppongi last autumn. A multi-layered brass grid comes out from the whole, with lines increasingly approximating to curves. The object grows into a shape that seems only possible in a living organism. A continuous grid making up the mass of the object appears like some cellular form with an internal space. The viewer sees a familiar landscape through the floating skull, suggestive of a quietly nestled pale image of death. This is shown in reverse irradiation through a filter of death. Such is the appearance of the work, but the message seems to be that death may be unexpectedly close. This thought or experience of the artist, positioned in front of us, quietly but powerfully, sits amid the hustle and bustle of urban life, or in the gallery space. One senses enormous possibilities in the artistic processes of Abe’s decomposition and reconstruction of objects. The gallery hopes you will enjoy the challenge he presents now, after a four-year interim, returning to show how his work has developed.
Since graduating from Tohoku University of Art and Design over 15 years ago, this has been Abe’s method, working on a variety of picture planes. Motifs vary from standing figures, foreign boys and girls, or passengers sitting in trains, or else sunshine filtering through foliage, or cityscapes with famous landmarks. Although his work seems to deal with casual everyday scenes, only a restricted amount of information is given to the viewer, meaning they must deploy their own memories to fully appreciate the work.
Abe says not every subject is appropriate for him. He once stated that he wanted to avoid falling into habit, or mere design process, pixelating just any photographed object. Instead he wanted to take the structure of memory itself, and explore it through the process of memory formation via concrete pictorial images. He also mentioned that it is easier to use three dimensions and installations to initiate this process. One example is “Deadpan,” exhibited in a public space in Roppongi last autumn. A multi-layered brass grid comes out from the whole, with lines increasingly approximating to curves. The object grows into a shape that seems only possible in a living organism. A continuous grid making up the mass of the object appears like some cellular form with an internal space. The viewer sees a familiar landscape through the floating skull, suggestive of a quietly nestled pale image of death. This is shown in reverse irradiation through a filter of death. Such is the appearance of the work, but the message seems to be that death may be unexpectedly close. This thought or experience of the artist, positioned in front of us, quietly but powerfully, sits amid the hustle and bustle of urban life, or in the gallery space. One senses enormous possibilities in the artistic processes of Abe’s decomposition and reconstruction of objects. The gallery hopes you will enjoy the challenge he presents now, after a four-year interim, returning to show how his work has developed.
Schedule | Jan 8 (Fri) 2016-Jan 31 (Sun) 2016 Opening Hours Information
Opening Reception Jan 8 (Fri) 2016 18:00 - 20:00 | ||||
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | http://artfrontgallery.com/en/exhibition/archive/2016_01/1516.html | ||||
| Venue | Art Front Gallery http://www.artfrontgallery.com/ | ||||
| Location | Hillside Terrace A, 29-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033 | ||||
| Access | 3 minute walk from Daikanyama Station on the Tokyu Toyoko line, 11 minute walk from the West exit of Ebisu Station on the JR Yamanote and Saikyo lines, 8 minute walk from exit 4 at Ebisu Station on the Hibiya line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-3476-4869 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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