non/(division)
Ryo Kikuchi Solo Show
2017.3.31. (FRI) - 4.02. (SUN)
Frantic Gallery, Tokyo
Things exist in their outlines, in the lines that separate them from other things while bringing them out (in) front from an indistinguishable oneness in their background that knows no differences, no oppositions, no division. What we perceive – a shape that is already a concept – is structured by language that constitutes the field in which our own place is providently marked. A glimpse of this unifying/unified “Nothing” re-emerges in categories of Buddhism (“無/Mu”) or Lacanian psychoanalysis (“The Real”) and is explored during meditation, philosophical insight, or poetic exaltation. Ryo Kikuchi chooses the visual form of artistic practice to engage in the plot of reality in an attempt to shift its premises, shake the distinguishability of perception and point to the unimaginable metaphysical backdrop of “no distinction.”
Three series of works (“Umbilical”, “Void” and “Idea”) presented at the “non/(division)” exhibition generate a fluctuation in the visible, where one becomes many, a presence becomes a “vanishing”, and the outline presents the shape but then dissolves it into the background. This show is an invitation to experience the plasticity of the world: “You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle,” as an expression that is intrinsic to martial arts – and to any other practice that strives to gain shapelessness through the work on form – puts it. This is the first solo show at the beginning of this young artist’s path that tries to turn “entity” into “phenomenon” and “substance” into alternating differences while opening a passage to the illuminating effects of blinding “non/(division)”.
