2024.9.14sat - 10.20 sun

TOYAMAKANAZAWA

ARTISTS

Kakinuma Koji

  • EXHIBITION
  • EVENT

01/3

[Past work] Installation view from Now is Everything! A Challenge from Calligrapher Koji Kakinuma part II at Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum, Tokyo, 2021–2022. Photo: Gunji Masato, courtesy of Office Kakinuma, Inc.

[Past work] Installation view from Now is Everything! A Challenge from Calligrapher Koji Kakinuma part II at Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum, Tokyo, 2021–2022. Photo: Gunji Masato, courtesy of Office Kakinuma, Inc.

[Past work] Installation view from Now is Everything! A Challenge from Calligrapher Koji Kakinuma part II at Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum, Tokyo, 2021–2022. Photo: Gunji Masato, courtesy of Office Kakinuma, Inc.

Kakinuma’s art is a fusion of traditional calligraphy and contemporary art. He is known for producing sweeping works of over 10 meters (33 ft.) in size, as well as “trancework,” in which the same phrase is repeated, and more recently “tapework.” Speed is the key to all these techniques, which Kakinuma renders by moving his body in a musical rhythm. Calligraphy requires physical movement to produce a single, non-repeatable work. For Kakinuma, speed is his means of unlocking that moment. At Go for Kogei, he is presenting a rapid version of tapework, a performance in which he tears off pieces of masking tape of varying thicknesses and uses them to make characters. It is a form of calligraphy intentionally divorced from the nuances of a genre traditionally defined by brush and ink.

EXHIBITION

IWASE AREA

I-4|Saseki Sake Bar

EVENT

Sake Tasting with Original Go for Kogei Sake Cups

I-4|Saseki Sake Bar

PROFILE

Photo: Hamanoi Masa

Kakinuma Koji

b. 1970 in Tochigi Prefecture. Kakinuma studied calligraphy under his father Kakinuma Suiryu, Teshima Yukei and Uematsu Ichijo. He received a BFA in calligraphy from Tokyo Gakugei University. In 2007, Kakinuma was a visiting scholar at Princeton University. He produced the official poster for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and his calligraphy has been featured in several other high-profile projects, including the main title of the NHK Taiga drama television series Furin Kazan, the official plaque of Kyushu University, and the main titles for the films Kubi and Achilles and the Tortoise directed by Kitano Takeshi. His first solo exhibition as a calligrapher was held at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, which houses his works in its permanent collection. He has held many other exhibitions and performances domestically and internationally, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Past awards include the Teshima Yukei Award, the Dokuritsu Shojindan Foundation 50th Anniversary Grand Prize, and the Mainichi Award at the Mainichi Calligraphy Exhibition.