We are pleased to announce that Gallery NAO MASAKI will hold an exhibition ALIVE, featuring two artists, Mitsugu Sato and Sadaharu Horio. Their works were set to be unveiled at Art Fair Tokyo 2020 in March, which was canceled due to coronavirus.
We are facing sweeping changes as a result of the virus. Under these circumstances we will no longer have the freedom to simply pursue the benefits that we humans have always enjoyed. Amid this drastic turmoil, we are now inevitably being linked with all tangible and intangible things in our entire ecosystem. Everything we observe at this moment seems to be an important message for our future.
Mitsugu Sato reaches out to things that are overlooked and abandoned in society. Sato brings life to what he picks up, building up his works while reflecting on happenings in this world and his own mental landscape. "Chaotic problems in the world also inhabit my mind, such as wars and radiation contamination." Sato said in an interview conducted for a gateway exhibition of contemporary art, Position 2012, held at Nagoya City Art Museum in 2012. His inner conflicts take shape through the series called 108 Crosses. Each work in this series is composed of 108 cross-shaped objects, as Sato has continued to work on this motif in recent years.
The late artist Sadaharu Horio, who devoted himself to the post-war avant-garde art and Gutai art movements, lived up to his ideals until his death in 2018. Putting all his time and chaotic energy, body and soul into his work. Horio expressed his passion in a wide range of forms, including installation and performance, involving people around him. This exhibition will show one-of-a-kind art pieces selected from over a thousand two-dimensional works which Horio painted on discarded construction panels in 2016.
This exhibition will present their great works, which embody these two artists' ways of life. In these times of crises and uncertainty, we are grateful to have opportunities to introduce these works by Mitsugu Sato and Sadaharu Horio, hoping that their art works will bring some inspiration to the audience.
Press release courtesy Gallery NAO MASAKI.
