The A plus A gallery in Venice inaugurates the solo exhibition of Kensuke Koike, a Japanese artist with a series of new works created for the gallery’s space.

The title “to wolf” is meant to indicate a transformation, for example a transformation “from human to wolf”. From room to room the artworks are taking the visitor from the human sphere “to wolf”, or to something more hybrid, like a werwolf.

Born in 1980, the artist became known in the Italian and international art scene for the painstaking technique with which he reconfigures photographic and video material in his collages, bearing a slow and precise reinterpretation of the image. In this way, the reality produced by existing material then rethought by the artist introduces an irony by which one is able to “think through things inside out,” allowing the viewer to unlock new facets of reality.

His work could be summed up by an emblematic phrase shared by Koike to Marco Tagliafierro during an interview for APT diary:

“I cannot bear something from nothing. I don’t think anybody can, unless they part from real facts. Everything we see and what we are surrounded by is the result of an arrangement. In short, there is always a collage.”

In the history of literature and of art, there is no shortage of illustrative examples in which the image and the word were the subjects of investigation, and subsequently reinterpreted through an ironic lens to put forth a vision still more powerful and intriguing. With respect to the word, Robert Queneau and the more sophisticated Finnegans Wake by James Joyce; with regards to art, the avant-garde of the 60s, featuring artists like Jiří Kolář and Alighiero Boetti, played an important role.

The collage is often a seductive technique for the flavor it contains of a life caught in the cut paper, often lifted from newspapers and magazines or old photos. The temporal significance is two-fold. On one hand, repurposing the image forgets the original, and on the other the distended time of this technique is what gives it meaning. A paradox in a time characterized by haste and a fierce bombardment by the image, Kensuke Koike’s work is all the more valuable. The artist does not only reinstate fragments of reality but goes further, creating a language that opens numerous other readings requiring time and attention on the part of the viewer in order to be decoded and revealed. A sort of initiative journey, a confrontation of Koike’s work requires preparation.

The works created for A plus A begin with an installation in which the dichotomous transformation of material alludes to alchemical processes, manifesting in a sort of “dark forest” of petrified marble that draws the viewer in and subjects him to a sensory journey, dense with visual traps that exercise the viewer’s capacity to read into a multiplicity of meanings. This is followed by a series of new collages and an installation in which the visitor finds himself immersed in a work made of the illusory material of the projected image.

The show is accompanied by a catalog featuring a critical text by Carlo Sala.

Kensuke Koike

Born in Nagoya, Japan in 1980. Lives and works between Venice and Slovenia. After receiving diplomas from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and from the IUAV, Koike participated in numerous solo and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad, exhibiting in several prestigious venues. His works are held in both private and public collections. His work has also been commissioned by companies that have their own collections, among which are De Longhi and the Museo del Profumo di Savigliano (TO).