Contemporary Art Gallery

Takehiro Iikawa: Gathering Matters and Mediations

Takehiro Iikawa attends to the relativity of time and fluctuations in perception, creating works that draw our awareness to the uncertainty of human recognition and to presences often overlooked in society through his careful observation of ordinary scenes and familiar things. His Decorator Crab series, inspired by reflection on the act of recording and the things that inevitably slip through our grasp, freely combines sculpture, painting, photography, and video to create works that reveal the characteristics of their surrounding space—for instance, an enormous pink cat that suddenly appears in the middle of a city, or objects installed indoors and outdoors that shift and transform in response to viewers.
This exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of Iikawa’s practice to date, alongside new participatory installations that embrace the ambiguity of information and the imperfection of perception as sources of new possibilities. The response these works elicit recalls the behavior of people so absorbed in play that they lose all sense of time. Perhaps it is beyond such “play,” in a realm that transcends time and space, that someone someday may encounter a vision unlike the familiar sights of everyday life. But when we stumble upon something so completely unexpected—a strikingly vivid experience that leaves us raw with emotion—how can we convey those feelings to others who have not shared them? This exhibition is an invitation to think together about the (im)possibility of transmission.