nca | nichido contemporary art

Masahito Koshinaka "individuals"

Venue: nca | nichido contemporary art
Date: 2011. April 15th – May 21st
Hours: Tue – Sat 11:00 – 19:00 /　Closed on Sun., Mon. and National Holidays
Reception: April 15th 18:00 – 20:00
(Special artist talk with art critic Mr. Kentaro Ichihara will take place on April 15th 18:00 – 19:00)

nca | nichido contemporary art is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Masahito Koshinaka titled “individuals”. The exhibition features a new series of 14 works and a video work. The artist has been working on the relationships between “group” and “individual” as his central theme. In this exhibition he has chosen two motifs (fire and stars), seeking the meaning of individual and its relationship to a group in which individuals gather of their own accord.
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　Masahito Koshinaka’s work stands out by the variety of his series which themselves are characterized by his curiosity for vibrant urban environment he lives in. He uses photography to search reality in order to capture images in a split second for the future, thereby giving them a new life and at the same time keeping them alive for the eternity. In 2004 Masahito Koshinaka started his first series titled “those who go with me”. It documented his intense fascination about individuals in the group. The series investigated whether the crowd is formed by the individuals or whether the individuals are forming the crowd. He observed groups of people over a long period of time and only then did he begin with his sensitive photography to portrait the fragile relationship between individuals and groups of individuals. The series demonstrate that not everyone views reality in the same way because no two people are exactly the same which means their view of reality will always be subject to their interpretation of reality. The result is an endless interpretation of reality of which Masahito is only offering one version.
　He further developed this theme in his second series ‘the window is the door’ were he took a closer look at two people in a crowd, the individual and his/her neighbor; followed by the 3rd series ‘a view from the view’ in 2006 and ‘echoes’ in 2007 all centered on the interaction between the individual and the group. With this outstanding series he won the UBS Young Art Award for Asia in 2008.
　He continued his artistic career with the same purposeful sensitivity and curiosity. However this time his aim was to investigate and subsequently incorporate the concept of ‘time’ into a new series. Titled ‘double world’ he turned his photographic eye to nature and there to the development of a series about flowers. Each of the works in this series was created using different motifs and techniques, all of them to express the unfolding of time, a phenomenon that accompanies the existence of everything and everybody in the world.
　With his recent photographic series called ‘fire and star’ he again demonstrates his unique ability to identify new themes within the concept of time. Again he plays with the viewer’s perception of time by introducing a parallel reality which distorts the dimensions space and time. Both, the stars in the far horizon form lights which are recognized at being present in the same space and moment as the fire flickering in front of your eyes. The one dimension a billion light years away and the other one close to the eyes of the beholder and within reach but will be lost and possibly forgotten after the artist has captured in a one dimensional photograph. This is a new and unique approach of two nature elements.
– Dr. Petra Arends-Paltzer

Born in Osaka, 1979.
Solo Exhibitions: “double word” nca | nichido contemporary art (2008), “echoes” Gallery RAKU (2008), “a view from the view” VOICE GALLERY (2006), “Those who goes with me” VOICE GALLERY (2004) Selected Group Exhibitions: “double word” Fukutake House, Echigo-tsumari Art Triennial 2009 (2009), “visible and invisible” MATSUO MEGUMI + VOICE GALLERY pfs/w (2009), “Identity IV” nca | nichido contemporary art (2008), “UBS Young Art” G27, Switzerland (2007) Scholarship：“UBS Young Art” THE UBS ART COLLECTION, Zurich, Switzerland (selected as Asian representative, 2006)

< Dr. Petra Arends-Paltzer> Born in Germany and lives in Switzerland.
Upon obtaining her PhD (‘Dr. iur.) in 1990 she has worked in Germany, USA and Switzerland for Dresdner Bank, Citibank and UBS. In 2002 she became Deputy Head of the UBS’ Art Banking Team in Switzerland. In 2004 she was promoted to Executive Director and became responsible for all marketing activities involving the ‘UBS Art Collection’. In this position she organised exhibitions, events and marketing seminars around the world, including US, UK, Switzerland, Japan, China and various other countries in Asia. Petra Arends-Paltzer has a longstanding working relationship with many internationally well-known art institutions (MoMA NYC; Tate Modern London; NAMOC Beijing; Shanghai Art Museum, Mori Art Museum Tokyo etc.); principals of art academies, museum directors and curators. She has lived and worked in Asia and consequently maintains an extensive network within the new and up-coming art scenes in Asia. In 2010 she founded Art-Today http://art-today.webs.com/ an online museum with integrated art services to continue and further develop the world-wide management and consulting work she had already done for many years in the art and culture scene.

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Kentaro Ichihara (Art Critic)
He has contributed to many exhibition catalogue, news papers and art magazine.
Publication include; "Gerhard Richter - The painting of Schein " (published by Wako Works of Art, 2002),
"After The Reality & After" (Published byhiromiyoshii, 2008), " The Encyclopedia of Modern and Contemporary Art"
(published by Bijutsu Shippan-Sha, 2009)
Also He curated exhibition such as "Identity iV" (nca, 2008), "Reality / Illusion" (Berlin, 2010) and so on.