KOKI TANAKA

b. 1975, Japan

Koki Tanaka Biography

The artist mainly produces video and installation, many of which are developed site-specifically. He often deals with everyday commodities and surroundings, and recently has put more focus on everyday people’s behavior with his conceptual approach and subtle control, in order to create a visual sphere that challenges the mundane and the rational embedded in the minds of the viewers. In doing so, he lets the work entice them into a spontaneous aesthetic experience.

Tanaka was honored by being chosen to represent Japan at the 2013 Venice Biennale, where he plans to use elements of the March 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami as a theme for the installation.

Koki Tanaka Pricing / Available Works

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Explore Koki Tanaka's Exhibitions

Contemporary art exhibition Koki Tanaka Mobility And Extinction at UCCA UCCA Beijing China

Koki Tanaka Mobility And Extinction UCCA 27 September 2025–4 January 2026
UCCA Beijing

Contemporary art exhibition Group Exhibition Scoring the Words at Seoul Museum of Art SeMA South Korea

Group Exhibition Scoring the Words Seoul Museum of Art | SeMA 1 September–20 November 2022
Seoul Museum of Art

Representative Artworks

Koki Tanaka and Host:2568 Collective, Activating Archive: Eating an Apple While Lucid Dreaming 2568 (2025). Exhibition view: Ghost2568: Wish We Were Here, Asvin Cultural and Contemporary Art Space, Bangkok (15 October–16 November 2025). Courtesy the artist and Ghost Foundation.
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Koki Tanaka, Abstracted / Family (2019). Exhibition view: Taming Y/Our Passion, Aichi Triennale 2019, Aichi Prefecture (1 August–14 October 2019). Courtesy the artist.
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Koki Tanaka in Ocula Magazine

Spotlight A Haunted Night Bus Ride Through Bangkok with Koki Tanaka Zian Chen The artist’s dreamlike installation for the latest edition of the Ghost triennial revisits his 2022 bus journey through the city’s symbolic centres of power to confront how we engage with political history.

Spotlight Aichi Triennale Grapples with History and Censorship Stephanie Bailey Stephanie Bailey reports on the 2019 Aichi Triennale (1 August–14 October 2019), where the mediation of polarised conditions has ‘revealed conflict, resistance, and outright refusal among its audience’.

Conversation Koki Tanaka Stephanie Bailey One of an artist’s roles is documenting the complicated world as it is, at the same time organising platforms to invite people to consider it together, not in isolation.

Conversation Alan Lau on Collecting and Letting Go Anna Dickie The Hong Kong collector discusses conceptual art, stewardship, and why some works only come alive when they leave his hands.

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