Kanji Hasegawa Solo Exhibition
“Two Temporalities”
▼OPENING RECEPTION
October 25th (Saturday), 2025 17:00-18:00
■Period
October 25th (Saturday), 2025 - November 22nd (Saturday), 2025
Wednesdays through Saturdays, 13:00 - 18:00
(closed on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and National Holidays)
*Irregular Open Hours:
Nov. 5-6 [Art Week Tokyo VIP DAY] 11:00-18:00 *invitation only
Nov. 7-9 [Art Week Tokyo Public Days] 10:00-18:00
■Venue
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
4-7-6 Shirakawa, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0021 JAPAN
*car parking available in front of the gallery
2025 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, copper leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 500 × 300 × 100 mm | © Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
2025 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, copper leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 500 × 300 × 100 mm | © Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
decay, remains (2025.9.16-09:55)
2025 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, copper leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 500 × 300 × 150 mm
© Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to announce Kanji Hasegawa’s solo exhibition “Two Temporalities,” opening on Saturday, October 25th, 2025.
Hasegawa deepened his interest in Buddhism while studying sculpture at the Tokyo University of the Arts, seeing it as a connection to the punk rock culture he had embraced since his student days and to the creative process of contemporary art, which translates concepts into form. After training at Eiheiji Temple, the head temple of the Soto Zen sect, he became a monk. In recent years, he has returned to lay life to focus entirely on his artistic practice. His works reflect his philosophy and way of life, and he is an artist gaining attention both domestically and internationally, with notable exhibition participations at the Okura Museum of Art and the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, among others.
This exhibition, the artist’s first solo show at our gallery in two years, centers on a core idea in Hasegawa’s work: the “two distinct senses of time.” His sculptures will be showcased as a medium that can perceive time in a multiple-layer manner.
What exactly does Hasegawa mean by “two distinct senses of time”?
 decay, remains (2025.9.16-08:42)2025 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, silver leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 400 × 200 × 100 mm | © Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  decay, remains (2025.9.16-09:12)2025 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, silver leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 400 × 200 × 100 mm | © Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
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The first is “bodily sense of time (a hunter-gatherer society's sense of time).” During the hunter-gatherer era, which covers most of human history, people perceived the physical distance to prey and the natural environment, linking it to bodily sensations related to energy expenditure. This sense of distance goes beyond just spatial awareness; it also influences how we anticipate and plan future actions and events.
The second is the “Buddhist sense of time.” In Buddhism, time is not perceived as a linear flow from past to present to future, but rather as a continuous succession of “here and now”—that is, as moment-to-moment change. Fundamental concepts such as “Mujo (impermanence),” “Engi (dependent origination),” and “Ku (emptiness)” are all deeply connected to this non-linear understanding of time.
Buddhist scholar Yasuaki Nara likens the process of training toward enlightenment in Buddhism to quitting smoking, stating, “The moment you decide to quit smoking, you are already a non-smoker.” Quitting smoking isn’t about aiming for some point in the future; it exists in a paradoxical sense of time where “this very moment” is already complete in its entirety. Similarly, Masatoshi Mashima of the rock band The Cro-Magnons says the moment he became a rock star was “the instant I first strummed a C chord in front of a mirror.”
Both the story of quitting smoking and the guitar story resonate in how the intensity of “now” changes perceptions of the past and future. These likely share a common ground with the Buddhist idea of time as a “continuum of now”—a view where the past and future are not separate, but “now” includes everything, existing in a layered, overlapping way.
2024 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 1200 × 800 × 350 mm | © Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
2024 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 1200 × 800 × 350 mm | © Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
decay, remains (2024.9.9-14:24) (detail)
2024 | mixed media (bayberry wood, gold leaf, copper wire, UV print on panel) | 1200 × 800 × 350 mm
© Kanji Hasegawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
Hasegawa highlights that “bodily sense of time (a hunter-gatherer society’s sense of time)” and “Buddhist sense of time” are distinct temporal perceptions that coexist in a multilayered way within the body. He also highlights that sculpture, as a medium, uniquely enables individuals to physically experience this dual structure.
A sculpture stands before us. It is a work created by a sculptor over an immense time, and one that has endured through the years since it was finished. Hasegawa, both sculptor and viewer, says he feels a fleeting awe at the weight of time incarnated in the piece.
Hasegawa’s series decay, remains, vividly presents this dual temporal structure inherent in sculpture, combining panels adorned with silver and copper foil together with a wooden sculpture. The silver and copper foiled panels feature the shadow of the sculpture on the day it was completed, recorded using cyanotype (a classical photographic technique where paper coated with iron salts and developer is exposed to sunlight to fix a blue image) and fixed with UV printing (a specialized photographic technique using ultraviolet light to instantly cure ink). These time-embedded sculptures embody a multi-layered timeline that encompasses classical techniques, the latest technologies, and manual craftsmanship. Simultaneously, the silver and copper foils will continue to undergo aging changes in the future through oxidation.
Viewers experience “physical time” through perspective and movement, while at the same time recalling past time “here and now” through the textures and traces of creation. A physical communication that goes beyond time is built between the viewer and the work, sharing a layered temporal experience of past, present, and future.
We cordially invite you to look forward to Hasegawa’s latest work, which he enthusiastically pursues as “communication transcending time.”
Artist Statement
Ku and Fu-Ku
—On Their Meaning and Relation to Temporality—
“矩 (Ku)” originally referred to a tool for measuring right angles,
and from there came to symbolize ‘order’ and ‘norms.’
“不矩 (Fu-Ku)” means a state of deviation, of not conforming to it.
I borrow this pair as a metaphor for the sense of time.
“矩 (Ku)” aligns with a perspectival worldview.
Time flows unidirectionally from past to present to future, accumulating causally.
“不矩 (Fu-Ku)” is its opposite—a directionless, nonlinear sense of time
containing stagnation, repetition, and deviation, with no clear beginning or end.
These two times are not in opposition but exist in layers within the body.
Just as the inner process of creation opens itself to dialogue with others,
these differing senses of time intertwine, shaping time and becoming a body of work.
Kanji Hasegawa
Artist Profile
Kanji Hasegawa was born in 1990 in Mie Prefecture, Japan. He received a B.F.A. at Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Sculpture in 2014 and an M.F.A. at Tokyo University of the Arts, the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Department of Sculpture in 2016. The same year, he completed his training at Daihonzan Eiheiji, one of the main temples of the Soto sect of Buddhism, and became a monk.
His major solo exhibitions include “decay, remains” (2023, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), “My Sútra” (2019, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), “ALLDAY TODAY” (2018, Gallery HIROUMI, Tokyo), and “RESEARCH & DESTROY” (2015, CC4441, Tokyo).
Group exhibitions include “AMATEUR vol.3” (2024, H BEAUTY&YOUTH, Kyoto), “Visionaries: Making Another Perspective” (2023, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art), “Têmporas KUROOBIANACONDA #4” (2022, Sokyo Lisbon Gallery, Portugal), “Some Kinda Freedom” (2021, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), and “CC NIGHT -PLAY ANARCHY-” (2015, CC4441, Tokyo).
Hasegawa was shortlisted for “sanwacompany Art Award / Art in The House 2019” and received the Yuji Akimoto Prize at “Maebashi Art Compe Live 2012.”
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