Hideo Anze Solo Exhibition
Sep 3–6, 2025 | Booth F02
 from the series “Stripe (50Hz)” | 2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | Installation view from Hideo Anze Solo Exhibition “Photogenic Drawing” (2022, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY) | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  from the series “RGB” | 2022 | acrylic on canvas | Installation view from Hideo Anze Solo Exhibition “Photogenic Drawing” (2022, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY) | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
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 from the series “Stripe (50Hz)” | 2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | Installation view from Hideo Anze Solo Exhibition “Photogenic Drawing” (2022, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY) | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  from the series “RGB” | 2022 | acrylic on canvas | Installation view from Hideo Anze Solo Exhibition “Photogenic Drawing” (2022, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY) | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Hideo Anze at Frieze Seoul 2025.
Hideo Anze is a Japanese artist known for his conceptual photography. Five works from his Stripe (50Hz) series (2014-) have been acquired by the British Museum. His latest RGB series, which reveals the essence of the contemporary world, has received high acclaim and has been featured in Artnet News, Artsy, and the South China Morning Post, among others. His presentation at Frieze Seoul 2025 will mark the first time he will premiere works originating from the renowned paintings of the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer.
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His representative Stripe (50Hz) series is an iPhone abstraction dominated by perfectly machined verticals of various sizes and widths. Created via combinations of flickered light refraction (at a specific frequency used after the Fukushima accident) and specific color, the images mix hard-edged geometries with softer flares and blurs. Each image is accompanied by a dense compendium of data, including technical information (in both English and Japanese), news headlines from its moment of creation, and GPS information of its exact location, adding a layer of unwieldy context/memory to an otherwise sleek package.
 Stripe(50Hz) 2018/03/11 14:46:18 Shibuya-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | *British Museum Acquisition | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  Stripe(50Hz) 2017/12/09 13:09:37 Shibuya-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | *British Museum Acquisition | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
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 Stripe(50Hz) 2021/12/19 13:08:47 Shibuya-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  SP_202409242014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
 SP_20241104_C2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  Stripe(50Hz) 2023/11/16 20:52:30 Shinjuku-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
 Stripe(50Hz) 2023/12/24 13:05:12 Shibuya-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  Stripe(50Hz) 2024/05/09 19:33:18 Shinjuku-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
 Stripe(50Hz) 2024/05/14 19:44:29 Shinjuku-ku2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  SP_20240514_A2014-2025 | ed. 5 | digital type c print (frontier) | 297 × 210 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
His latest RGB series draws inspiration from William Henry Fox Talbot’s preference for the term “photogenic drawing” (drawing with light) over “photography” to describe his calotype photography technique.
The artist downloads images of masterpieces from the internet and paints their histograms on canvases that match the dimensions of the originals. The paintings by Van Gogh and Vermeer are downloaded from Wikipedia are then exquisitely painted with their histogram patterns, which only become visible when images are converted to RGB data on monitors today.
By painting them on canvases that are the exact dimensions of the originals, Anze poses a simple question: What is contemporary photography?
 Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 465 × 40 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  concept image of the artwork “Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665).jpg” |
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 Vermeer,_Johannes_-_Woman_reading_a_letter_-_ca._1662-1663.jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 465 × 390 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  Johannes_Vermeer_-_The_Astronomer_-_1668.jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 515 × 455 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
 SelbstPortrait VG2.jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2022 | acrylic on canvas | 650 × 540 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  *Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait image from Wikipedia which Anze referred to for the artwork “SelbstPortrait VG2.jpg” |
 Van_Gogh_self-portrait_dedicated_to_Gauguin.jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2022 | acrylic on canvas | 615 × 503 × 43 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  VanGogh-self-portrait-with_bandaged_ear.jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2022 | acrylic on canvas | 600 × 490 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
 Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_102.jpgfrom the series “RGB” | 2022 | acrylic on canvas | 400 × 310 × 43 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
At Frieze Seoul 2025, Hideo Anze will also premiere his RGB [Screenshot] series for the very first time, transforming accumulated images of global incidents that appear on our display monitors every day. The canvas size matches the PC monitor used by the artist, which has documented many moments, including incidents like October 7 in Gaza, as well as the artist’s selfie portraits, placing them side by side as events that shape today.
 “2023/12/12 5:00 Asahi Shimbun (Airstrikes, complete blockade, Gaza civilians unable to evacuate, ‘Prepared to die’ Israeli thorough retaliation)” | from the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 515 × 455 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  “2025/06/22 3:43 The Nikkei (US deploys B2 bombers capable of carrying ‘bunker busters’ to increase pressure on Iran)” | from the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 515 × 455 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
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 “2025/02/23 12:12 Self Portrait” | from the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 515 × 455 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  “2025/08/08 20:14 Self Portrait” | from the series “RGB” | 2025 | acrylic on canvas | 515 × 455 × 45 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
Also featured will be his Framing series, which are photographs of beautiful colour-gradations obtained by the light and shadow inside paper-cuboid boxes, all crafted by himself. When discussing “photographs of real-size paper crafts,” we naturally think of Thomas Demand, but Framing is different from exploring the subtle gaps between truth and fiction. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the founder of the “decisive moment” and a master of street photography, is also known for skillfully cropping his images afterward, showing that photography is a medium defined not only by visual framing but also by timing and context. Therefore, the paper boxes, created in the exact ratio of the camera’s viewfinder, become the purest objects for this purpose. As stated on the artist’s website, Framing encapsulates the idea of “framing this world into rectangles,” clearly illustrating what a photograph fundamentally represents—and demonstrates the most minimal, purest form of photography.
 FRAMING—35m,f16,ISO100,20220726,23:10:202022 | ed. 5 | archival pigment print | 515 × 728 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  FRAMING—24m,f5.6,1/10,ISO100,20130220,1:26:322013 | ed. 5 | archival pigment print | 365 × 515 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
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 FRAMING—24m,f5.6,1/20,ISO100,20130219,23:43:542013 | ed. 5 | archival pigment print | 365 × 515 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |  FRAMING—24m,f6.3,1/10,ISO100,20121101,0:43:422012 | ed. 5 | archival pigment print | 365 × 515 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
 FRAMING—24m,f6.3,1/6,ISO100,20121101,0:55:442012 | ed. 5 | archival pigment print | 365 × 515 mm | © Hideo Anze, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
Artist Profile
Hideo Anze is an artist based in Yokohama and Tokyo. Renowned for conceptual works using photography and contemporary media that he continuously creates daily, his works have been acquired and exhibited in public and private institutions, including the British Museum (London), the Sanders Collection (Haarlem, Netherlands), Kana Kawanishi Gallery (Tokyo), and others.
His major solo exhibitions include “Photogenic Drawing” (2022, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), “Synchronicity” (2019, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), “Forms of Invisible Existence” (2016, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), and “RED 2014 365” (SUNDAY, Tokyo, 2016). Group exhibitions include “One Picture Manifesto” (2022, KANA KAWANISHI PHOTOGRAPHY, Tokyo), “Body Politics: What Defines the Body?” (2018, KANA KAWANISHI PHOTOGRAPHY, Tokyo), “transcripts/memories” (2015, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo), and others. His concept book Red 2014 365 was published by Trademark Publishing (Germany) in 2016.
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