“DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow” Exhibition 2022-23

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to those who were planning to view "DOMANI Tomorrow Exhibition” 2022-23 at Special Exhibition Gallery 2E, between 10-12 am on Sunday, November 27.
Refunds will be issued upon request to those who were scheduled to view the exhibition during closure. Please see here for refunds (in Japanese only).

Overview

Over half a century has passed since Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs launched the Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists (OSP) in 1967. The aim of the program is to nurture new talent and thus help ensure the future success of the Japanese arts sector, by supporting young artists to study and train at overseas institutions. The “Domani: The Art of Tomorrow” exhibitions showcasing the subsequent output of these artists were in turn launched in 1998, making this exhibition the twenty-fifth. Since the eleventh Domani, in 2008, the exhibition has been held in the spacious, light-filled setting of the National Art Center, Tokyo, which opened in the capital’s Roppongi district the previous year, as an exciting large-scale group show and follow-up OSP program presenting OSP alumni to the Japanese art scene.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic the previous (24th) Domani was unable to be staged in Tokyo, however the OSP network was employed to stage exhibitions in five locations around Japan. 2022 also saw publication of the book Domani: The Art of Tomorrow 1998–2021 documenting the first through 23rd Domani exhibitions.

Marking twenty-five years of Domani shows, this Domani opening in autumn 2022, the first to be held at the National Art Center, Tokyo for two years, will include three prolific practitioners whose work it has not been possible to showcase fully at previous NACT Domani shows, plus offerings from six fresh young artists completing their OSP studies relatively recently, and a contribution by guest artist Kondoh Akino, in the first display of her work at a Domani exhibition, and second at the National Art Center, Tokyo. The subtitle for this year’s Domani is “A century back, a century forward,” and this show a century after the Japanese capital was struck by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 will ponder the nurturing of the next, post-pandemic generation of talent, and the state of the wider art world, from the perspective of “shaking/shifting ground, systems, values.”
Also bringing to the fore ideas that emerged when artists previously accustomed to traveling and presenting work internationally, found themselves for an extended period in a more stifled art scene, Domani 2022–23 is sure to have much to fascinate and inspire.

Artist Profile

OSAKI Nobuyuki　contemporary art
1975 Born in Osaka, Japan
2021 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Stuttgart, Germany), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Aichi and Osaka, Japan

To perceive the world with his own existence at the core, Osaki Nobuyuki gives visual expression to the uncertain nature of reality and to ambiguous sensations, employing the unconventional technique of making paintings that then dissolve. Delving deeper into thoughts and sensations prompted by the phrase "images disappearing," Osaki's practice involves making works that contemplate motifs such as memory and time, and the existence of images.

TANINAKA Yuske　sculpture, performance
1988 Born in Osaka, Japan
2019-2022 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Berlin, Germany), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Berlin

Known primarily for his sculptures and performance work, Taninaka expresses sculpture's way of being, for example its symbiotic connection with the other, and relation to permanence and ongoing moments in time, via the relationship between sculpture and body.
His aim is to utilize being sculptural and being performative, the relationship between sculpture and body, within the motion of this ecological system, as if they were mutually mediating actions, and he presents the changing tension between the two in performance works.

KURODA Daisuke　sculpture
1982 Born in Kyoto, Japan
2019-2020 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Texas, Fort Worth, USA), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Kansai, Japan

Seeing a bronze of General McArthur in Incheon's Freedom Park in 2017 prompted Kuroda Daisuke to reflect on the "sculpture" forming the foundation of his own practice, and embark on research and artmaking around the topic of exchange students who studied sculpture at the Tokyo Fine Arts School (now part of the Tokyo University of the Arts) in the 1930s. Employing performance and other unique means, he sheds light on the connection between art and public, and on modern sculptural concepts.

IKEZAKI Takuya　contemporary art
1981 Born in Kagoshima, Japan
2017-2018 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(New York, USA), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Living and Work in New York and Tokyo

Armed with an interest in the natural features of his native island of Tokunoshima, a part of Japan where the influence of the continent to the west is particularly evident, and the culture of China, Ikezaki takes the everyday household items and scenes, cultures and contexts around him, and makes works that seem to explore his own identity by using these as signposts leading to himself.

ISHIZUKA Gentaro　photograph
1977 Born in Tokyo
2010-11 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(New York, USA), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
2021 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Special short-term) (Kemijärvi, Finland), Agency for
Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Tokyo

Photographing pipelines, glaciers, gold rushes and other highly specific motifs at locations around the world, Ishizuka Gentaro presents unconventional images that straddle the boundary of documentary and art.
Recent years have seen him seeking new possibilities in contemporary photography via a variety of expressive approaches, including sculptural works constructed from photographic paper exposed in the darkroom, mosaics made by weaving photographic paper in multiple layers, and installations comparing his own works to works of modern painting.

KONDOH Akino　comic, contemporary art
1980 Born in Chiba, Japan
2008-2009 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(New York, USA), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in New York

Kondoh Akino is a prolific international artist whose myriad intriguing offerings include surreal animations with morphing motifs depicting the inner lives of young girls; oils and drawings notable for making a striking impact with the most delicate of lines; and manga that include an essay comic with true-to-life snapshots of life in New York.

KITAGAWA Taro　sculpture
1976 Born in Hyogo, Japan
2007-2010 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Cusco, Peru), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Okayama, Japan

Kitagawa's sculptures, painstakingly crafted in stone with chisel, hammer, and a steadfast commitment to working by hand, are primitive in aesthetic and brimming with vitality; their spontaneous, artless appearance summoning hitherto unknown sensations. In recent years Kitagawa has participated in numerous exhibitions sounding a warning to today's world, taking different approaches to demonstrating the innate appeal of stone as a material.

KOGANEZAWA　Takehito　installation
1974 Born in Tokyo
2001-2004 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Berlin, Germany), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Tokyo

First presenting works on video as a student, Koganezawa has since cultivated a diverse, complex practice that also mingles elements of drawing, performance, and installation. Focusing on "motion" for its simultaneous addressing of space and time, the fascinating universe of this artist's works has attracted favorable reviews both in Japan and further afield.

MARUYAMA Naofumi　painting
1964 Born in Niigata, Japan
1996-1997 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Berlin, Germany), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Tokyo

Maruyama's idiosyncratic paintings, rendered in a figurative yet abstract style in which free-form blotting resembling the surface of water generates imagery that is both ambiguous and exuberant, are painted using a staining technique that involves pouring water on the bare canvas and allowing the pigment to soak in and spread. This exhibition will include a group of his drawings on display for the first time as part of a comprehensive overview of a practice that explores "the possibilities of spaces that are only generated within a painting."

ITO Makoto　sculpture
1955 Born in Aichi, Japan
1996-1997 Program of the Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists
(Ireland), Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Currently Lives and works in Tokyo

Ito Makoto takes familiar materials of the kind found in modern living spaces, such as FRP (fiber-reinforced plastic), rubber, stainless steel, and iron, and uses these to craft strangely humorous spaces from things never before seen, or indeed, nowhere to be found. Recent years have seen him exploring a number of new avenues in sculpture, including wearable sculpture, and performance.