DAICHI TAKAGI
Daichi Takagi was born in 1982 in Gifu, Japan. He graduated from the Oil Painting Course, Department of Painting, and then completed the Master’s Degree Program, Graduate School of Art and Design, both at Tama Art University, Tokyo. He received Japanese Government Oversea Research Program Grant, Agency for Cultural Affairs and lived and worked in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from September, 2018. Currectly, Lives and works in Kanagawa.
Takagi has been painting between the concepts of “abstraction” and “figurative”, changing the degree of these concepts as he went along. At first, he was working on paintings with abstracted still life and landscapes, using morphological expressions as an opening, then he developed into shaped-canvas works and grid-structured works in recent years. Since his residency in the Netherlands in 2018, he has been working on the act of painting by focusing more on his intuition of seeing and painting than on his previous theories and methods. Motifs are selected from specific objects that exist around the artist such as trees, rain, water surface, windows, the moon, and birds, and space and textures that the artist has actually experienced are confirmed one by one as he works with various paints and brushes to complete his paintings.
Recently, Takagi presented his work in “DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow 2021” at The National Art Center / Tokyo, 2021, “Daichi Takagi, Lucia Vidales, Hiroka Yamashita” at Taka Ishii Gallery / Tokyo, 2020, Solo show “Intuition” at TIME & STYLE Amsterdam / Netherlands, 2019, Solo show”aspect” at KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, 2018, “Contemporary Art Experimental Exhibition -Perspectives (1)” at Intermediatheque, Tokyo, 2017, Solo show “Periphery” at Foundation B.a.d, Rotterdam, 2016, “Footprints” at Museum Haus Kasuya, Kanagawa, 2016, “COOL INVITATIONS 2” at XYZ Collective, Tokyo, 2015, “The Way of Painting” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2014, “DAI CHU SHOW” recent abstract” at Fuchu art museum citizen’s gallery and LOOPHOLE, Tokyo, 2013, “The fertile land” at akibatamabi21, Tokyo, 2011, “SSS-expand painting” at MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo, 2010.
2019
oil on canvas
30 × 22 cm
2020
oil on canvas
35×27cm
2020
oil on canvas
60 × 46 cm
2019
oil on canvas
33.3 × 24.2 cm
2019
oil on board
27.3 × 22 cm
2020
oil on canvas
41×31.8cm
2020
oil on canvas
60.6 × 50 cm
2019
oil on board
27.3 × 22 cm
2019
oil on canvas
22 × 30 cm
HIKARU SUZUKI
Hikaru Suzuki was born in Fukushima in 1984. Currently lives and works in Tokyo. After studying Sculpture and Video Art at Musashino Art University in 2008, Film focused on Cinéma vérité at Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) in 2011, he received a grants for Overseas Study for Young Artists from Pola Art Foundation in 2013 and lived in Berlin from 2012 to 2018. He studied Montage at Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF until 2015 and earned his Master’s degree in the film class of Thomas Arslan and the art class of Nina Fischer at Berlin University of the Arts (Institute of time-based Media) in 2018.
Suzuki’s video artwork, in which reality and fiction constantly interact, is based on his self-documentary which is shot in places such as Fukushima prefecture, where he was born and raised, and Berlin, where he currently resides. The video depicts the lives of his close friends and families while these private images are designed to communicate with each other. In many cases, Suzuki’s artwork inscribes truth and falsehood concerning narrative by use of repetition of shots from different viewpoints and of interviews, such as “Mr. S & Doraemon” (2012). The video is played in a way everyday scenes shot like a diary are rewound to the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake, March 11, while connected with fragments from the animated TV series “Doraemon.” Another example is “GOD AND FATHER AND ME” (2008), a family portrait which depicts the relationship between an artist and his father who is a person of religion.
His work “Anrakuto” won the independent film grand prize at CINE DRIVE 2012 in Osaka. He presented his video work “Garden” in New Film Japan Program at Image Forum Festival 2017. His film and video works have been shown in art spaces and film festivals, among them WRO art center, Poland (2016), Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa (2015), Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions -See You on the Planet- at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2015), KAMERA JAPAN FESTIVAL Rotterdam(2015), Japan Film Festival in Naxoshalle Kino, Frankfurt, Germany (2015), HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Germany (2014), Kreuzberg Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2014), etc. He participated in the collaboration project, BETWEEN YESTERDAY & TOMORROW Omnibus 2011-2012 for FUKUSHIMA and the work was screened in New Docs Japan section at Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2011.
A Video letter project between Fukushima and Buenos Aires
Hikaru Suzuki & Franca Malfatti
This video letter project was made within the framework of an exchange between the Documentary Film Program at University of Fine Arts Hamburg dictated by Nele Wohlatz and the Film Program of the Art Department at University Torcuato Di Tella dictated by Andrés Di tella between April and August 2020. The project is still ongoing now.
Franca Malfatti is a filmmaker and audiovisual editor, who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Hikaru Suzuki is a filmmaker and an artist, who lives in Fukushima and Yokohama, Japan.
This video letter project started in reference to “Correspondencia” between Jonas Mekas and José Luis Guerín, and the documentary, fiction, expression and art in this show were made after the outbreak of coronavirus in this global society.
Franca and Hikaru, two complete strangers living on opposite sides of the world, exchanged video letters between April and August 2020. In a moment as unusual as the one we are living, with a pandemic that affects and modifies our ways of relating to each other and to the world, this exchange meant for Hikaru and Franca an opening in the possible horizons of communication and expression.
2020
video
22:44
Mr. S & Doraemon
Hikaru Suzuki
Since the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 3.11.2011 happend, I have filmed my daily life until june 2011. There is my old work constructed with only houses of main charactor of Japanese typical anime ‘Doraemon’. This video art work is that two materials were mixed.