Speak Spindle つむ・くち
A solo exhibition by Yutaka Inagawa
Delve into the realm of interconnected realities as Yutaka Inagawa metamorphoses Comma Space into a multilayered mixed-media installation. Bridging personal narratives, AI-generated digital realities, and a diverse range of immaterial worlds, this exhibition immerses you in a mesmerizing exploration of the intricate web of existence.
15 – 23 July, 2023 Free admission
OPENING: 15 July – 3-6pm with refreshment
Opening hours : Sat and Sun 1-6pm (close on public holiday)
Tue to Fri by appointments only [email protected]
ARTIST TOURS: 16 July (3-4pm) BOOK here
Media Partner: Glass Magazine
“Speak Spindle つむ・くち” presents a sensory labyrinth traversing the physical and transmaterial realms. Inagawa’s work interlaces the tangible world with numerous immaterial domains – the digital, the cerebral, the spiritual, and realms of ‘otherness’.
The exhibition showcases visual timestamps from his tangible reality, captured through Inagawa’s lens – personal digital photographs from his Singapore trip in 2017. The collective consciousness of the AI tool ‘Mid Journey’ transfigures his personal photos into blended images, generating an ethereal photographic reality that is reflective of both the artist’s physical constraints as a shooter and the technological limits of the time. This collaboration results in a peculiarly but smoothly fused photographic reality underscored by an invisible digital logic.
From a reservoir of more than 2500 AI-generated images, Inagawa curates a careful selection for his series of satin prints, thereby creating complex, multi-dimensional landscapes of mesmerizing diversity. “Speak Spindle” binds various elements beyond the satin prints. It features soft sculptures, a personal item – a small body bag – and its semi-abstract replica, swathed in satin skin, alongside graphically enhanced short wordings. Each element carries traces of Inagawa’s personal narrative, composing a puzzling aesthetic experience and acting as multiple gateways into an intricate web of interconnectedness.
Inagawa’s exploration of the interplay of language, emotion, and visual language takes a new stride from his collaborative online project with curator Ying Kwok, titled ‘Say to Day’ (2020). He presents visually structured mural phrases extracted from the digital cacophony, including Twitter and personal WhatsApp messages, and translated multiple times from Japanese to English. This process invites a dialogic relationship between language, emotions, and visual representation.
“Speak Spindle つむ・くち” offers a glimpse into the intricate fabric of shared experiences and nonsensicality where a blend of words, images, and objects dances across the boundary between physical and transmaterial ontology. The exhibition promises a captivating encounter between these realms that will undoubtedly resonate with viewers.”
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Yutaka Inagawa (b.1974 in Tokyo, currently lives and works in Onomichi, Japan) received MA in Fine Art from the Chelsea College of Arts in 2004, and his BA in Painting from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1997. A contemporary Japanese artist and artist-curator, Inagawa delves into the complex relationships between digital and immaterial realms, remapping timestamps and constructing holistic landscapes in his work. By demonstrating an immaterial logic, Inagawa weaves together cultural misinterpretations and multiple logics, embracing a multi-core, porous structure in rhizome.
The concept of the rhizome, as introduced by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in the art context, refers to a non-hierarchical, interconnected network that allows for multiple entry and exit points. In art, rhizomatic thinking breaks away from linear narratives and rigid structures, fostering experimentation, collaboration, and dynamic interrelations.
Inagawa’s digital configurations and satin prints create a space where the tangible and intangible coexist, reflecting his ongoing transformation of digital entities and personal experiences. He captures moments from his life through photography, repurposing and uniting images to create new timelines within the digital medium.
Inagawa’s installations, often composed of everyday materials like leftover ice lolly bars and used furniture, bridge the gap between the tangible and the immaterial while offering a glimpse into his personal life and the conditions of the city he inhabits. These elements, intertwined with the artist’s nonlinear approach to curation and creative writing, provide an experimental space for ideas and reality to merge.
As an artist-curator, Inagawa has organized various experimental exhibitions, using the exhibition format as a collaborative space that reflects his intentions, those of other artists, and the material and spatial reality. By incorporating elements of illogicality, he challenges conventional understandings of our reality and encourages us to reevaluate our connections to the ever-changing fabric of existence.
Yutaka Inagawa’s practice, rooted in the exploration of digital and immaterial dimensions, as well as curatorial experiments, embraces the interconnectedness of our constantly evolving world. Through the remapping of timelines and the celebration of rhizomatic connections, Inagawa invites us to discover the extraordinary within the ordinary and rethink the boundaries of reality.
Inagawa is a founding director of ONLY CONNECT (2015-) and Floating Urban Slime/Sublime (2017-); both are mini-labs which use experimentation as a driving force for international art projects. Selected exhibitions and projects include Fluxosphere at UUH OOH, Hong Kong (2023, solo exhibition), Say to Day, an online collaboration with curator Ying Kwok (2020-2021), eASY mECHAISM ｜符と思う (solo show) at MOU Onomichi City University Museum, Onomichi, Japan (2022), Another Pair of Eyes (artist-curator) at Duddell’s, Hong Kong
(2019), ONLY CONNECT OSAKA (artist-curator) at Creative Center Osaka, Osaka (2019), I say Yesterday, You Hear Tomorrow. Vision from Japan (group show) at Gallerie delle Prigioni, Treviso, Italy (2018), Collaboration with Glass Magazine for “belief” issue (2015), and Sensory Cocktails (solo show) at Gallery Zandari, Seoul (2009). He is also an Associate Professor in the Art and Design Department at Onomichi City University.
https://www.yutakainagawa.net/ IG: yutaka_inagawa_artwork
