KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of Junya Kataoka + Rie Iwatake’s solo exhibition, “Reification Poem—Exposed Internal Pressure,” from Saturday, January 9th, 2021. The exhibition is organized around the concept “Reification Poem,” which refers to the tentative perception of events and scenes in front of one's eyes, or the attempt to reproduce events and scenes by observing them out of context.

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Junya Kataoka and Rie Iwatake began their activities as an artist unit after a residency in Paris in 2013, and have been presenting series of works that reveal the modest dissimilarities hidden in everyday life in exhibition spaces where Kataoka's kinetic works and Iwatake's two-dimensional works interact with each other.

Kataoka's kinetic works start from an observation of everyday items such as cello tapes and facemasks, and by applying simple physical energy such as rotation, gravity, or wind to the objects, he creates a situation where “something more is happening than what is expected to happen.” On the other hand, Iwatake's two-dimensional works use collage, photography, and printmaking, combining fragments of medical books and postage stamps to create narratives that deal with similarities and associations between events.

In this exhibition, “Reification Poem—Exposed Internal Pressure,” the duo will present kinetic works inspired by face masks and disinfection alcohol, which have become ubiquitous over the world since the spring of 2020, as well as collages that combine the scenes and from old medical books and postcards. The movements of a mouth under a mask, for example, are unconsciously performed every day and are therefore overlooked. Furthermore, as there was no clear distinction between the spiritual and the non-spiritual in the old days, doctors in old medical books who treated the human body were depicted as though they were magicians, and the combinations of those illustrations collaged with the mundane landscapes used in postcards brings out a tasteful gaze that treats the ostentatious and the modest in equal measure.

At a time when it is difficult to see the future and the world is filled with anxiety, their attitude of looking at things in a tentative manner may give us something new to discover. We hope that you will enjoy this exhibition along with the group exhibition “MOT Annual 2020: Invisible Powers,” which is also on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo until February 14, 2021.