Whilst still best known as an architect, in recent years John Pawson’s photographic work has been garnering growing international recognition. This trajectory of interest originated in the publication just over a decade ago of A Visual Inventory (Phaidon Press), followed five years later by Spectrum (Phaidon Press), which was transposed by curator Carrie Scott from the pages of a book into an immersive architectural installation in an iconic brutalist building — 180 Strand — in central London. In 2021 John Pawson – A Point of View was then mounted at the Casa Dei Tre Oci, during the Venice Art Biennale and in 2022 John Pawson, Looking for Light, comprising sixteen new print works, formed one of the inaugural exhibitions at the Bastian Gallery in Berlin.
 
This new exhibition at The Mass, Tokyo — the first solo exhibition of Pawson’s work in Japan — provides visitors with an intimate opportunity to experience Pawson’s unique perspective on the world — his point of view — as its focus shifts from tiny details of colour, texture and formal composition to evocations of light, atmosphere and emotion:
 
The exhibition programme is divided between the three gallery spaces of The Mass and an outdoor area in the neighbouring StandBy. Two galleries offer a visual encounter with sequences of chromatically ordered images drawn from Spectrum, while the third space debuts Pawson’s series Home, where the subject of the artist’s lens is his own domestic environments. Set in counterpoint to this photographic inventory is a contemplative installation, commissioned for The Mass and constructed in proximity to Harajuku’s Cat Street within the installation space, StandBy. Across more than four decades of practice, Pawson has been consistent in his view that his work is architecture not art, but with Lunula — titled Lunula for its crescent geometry — he consciously pushes closer to the very threshold of such distinctions, with the creation of a charged, inhabitable form in which space, surface, light and the burning of incense are experienced as a resonantly seamless totality.
 
The exhibition is a sort of homecoming for Pawson, who spent a number of years in his mid-twenties teaching English in Nagoya, before moving to Tokyo where he frequented the studio of renowned architect and designer Shiro Kuramata. His experiences in Japan and his encounter with Kuramata left a lasting impression on the young Pawson, leading to his multifaceted career that encompasses architecture, photography and design.
 
To coincide with the opening of the exhibition, The Mass will host an artist talk event between John Pawson and Japanese artist, Hiroshi Sugimoto. The talk will be moderated by the exhibition curator, Carrie Scott, and will provide an opportunity for the two figures to discuss each other’s life and work in a variety of fields. The event will take place on the evening of Friday April 14th and will be free and open to the public, with limited seats available by reservation. Further details on the talk, start time and how to make a reservation will be shared via The Mass’ website and social media.
 
John Pawson
John Pawson CBE, RDI, born in Halifax, Yorkshire in 1949
Following a period of employment in the family textile business, Pawson lived and worked in Japan for four years in his mid-twenties, before returning to London to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He established his architectural practice in 1981, designing spaces with clean lines, oriented in precise details devoid of excess ornamentation. This minimalist aesthetic has lent itself to the design of homes, stores, hotels, monasteries, ballet sets and art galleries. Notable projects include the Design Museum in London, Bastian Gallery in Berlin, the Abbey of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr in the Czech Republic, the Calvin Klein Collections Store in New York and the Jil Sander flagship store on Omotesando.
 
John Pawson, Home, 2019, Courtesy of the artist
Photograph: Keishin Horikoshi / SS
 
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The Mass presents ‘Summer Hours’, a solo exhibition by Hiroya Kurata, taking place from August 27th to September 25th, 2022. The exhibition will be Kurata’s first exhibition in Japan for three years, presenting 18 new works on canvas.
 
Kurata’s paintings depict familiar scenes from everyday life, providing vignettes of fleeting moments permeated in pure light that capture “what can only be depicted now”, thereby communicating his inner feelings that cannot be expressed exclusively in words.
As the title of the exhibition “Summer Hours” suggests, the subject matter of Kurata’s paintings convey an atmospheric impression of the season, with landscapes bathed in bright and dazzling sunshine, dappled light streaming through the trees, frolicking children, reflections of the clear skies on the surface of water, and the light of a full moon softly illuminating the night sky. The figures in Kurata’s paintings are deliberately simplified, depicted in a free-form manner that is charmingly distorted, and with a sense of familiarity that invites us into the humorous world spread across his canvases.
 
 
After the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, like many people, Kurata began to spend more time with his family and in nature and began to draw and create works based on his own photographs and experiences from his daily surroundings. At first glance, his often cartoon-like compositions and the richly coloured style of his works appear to be painted with watercolours or crayons. However, closer inspection reveals Kurata’s use of oil paint and through the careful strokes of his brush, he is able to project various scenes from his daily life in New York onto the canvas, as if he were keeping a diary.
 
For the past 23 years, Kurata has been living in New York and has been working in a painting restoration studio alongside his own practice since 2007, acquiring various painting techniques along his 15 year career in restoration. For Kurata, New York offers a convenient location in which to work, and his unique position has allowed him to be a member of the international community of artists and art world figures that reside there, as well as witness firsthand the changes in the American art scene. Kurata’s free and individual style is evidence of his flexible approach to painting, unrestricted by a fixed concept or context, thereby giving him the freedom to paint the subjects that he wants to paint. Though his painting style has changed significantly over the past few years, there is a consistency in his power of observation and the unique interpretation of his surroundings, as well as an innate charm and rich sensibility that lies in opposition to mass media and popular culture, creating a continuous thread throughout his work.
 
 
Hiroya Kurata
Born in 1980 in Osaka, Kurata graduated from Parsons School of Design in 2003 and has been based in New York for the past 23 years. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Ross + Kramer Gallery (New York, 2018), Monya Rowe Gallery (New York, 2019), Over The Influence (Hong Kong, 2021), and SPRING/BREAK Art Show ( (New York, 2019). In Japan, he has participated in a two-person show with Koichi Sato at Destroy Your Habits (Tokyo, 2021) and a group show at PARCEL (Tokyo, 2021). This will be his first solo exhibition in 3 years since his solo exhibition at KOKI ARTS (Tokyo, 2019).
 
Image: Bridge Fishing 2, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 152.5 x 122 x 4.5cm
 
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The Mass presents Room Service, a solo exhibition by Sam Friedman, curated and produced in collaboration with the Detroit-based gallery, Library Street Collective, and US-based creative agency and artist management firm, ICNCLST. The exhibition marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in Japan and will present all new canvas works from his ongoing ‘Cave Paintings’ series.
 
With their flowing lines and subtle colour gradations, Friedman’s works are a harmony of abstract forms that ripple across the surface of the canvas. Taking a formalist approach to painting, Friedman’s canvases are an exercise in abstraction that echo organic elements and textures found in nature. Finding inspiration in the natural landscape of his surroundings in upstate New York, his paintings are an attempt to put the images in his mind to canvas, whilst constantly adapting and changing his approach as the work unfolds. Often working on numerous canvases simultaneously, he creates iterations and sequences of works that share similar ideas, with each work becoming a unique manifestation of a concept that he can return to and examine in perpetuity.
 
Much like his painting process, Friedman resists concept of time and linear narratives. The seeds of his ‘Cave Paintings’ series began to emerge in his earlier representational landscape works, continuing and flowing through abstraction and repetition. With each subsequent exhibition, the series fluidly evolves and shows the subtle shifts in Friedman’s process. Due to the continuous nature of his practice, these changes move back and forth between abstraction and representation in a cyclical manner that is both methodical and repetitive, yet unrestricted and spontaneous. Speaking of this process, Friedman stated that his works start at a point from which he builds and adjusts as the idea grows, but oftentimes ‘the painting takes control [and] becomes its own boss.’ For Friedman it is the acceptance of this process and allowing the work to find its own direction that enables him to create images full of intrigue and limitless possibilities.
 
Friedman’s works follow in the tradition of American Abstract Expressionist painters such as Clyfford Still and Barnett Newman, however, his points of reference are far more wide-reaching, looking also towards representational artists, landscapes and Japanese woodblock prints. Closer inspection of Friedman’s works reveal that the colour gradations are formed from demarcated lines that seamlessly shift into one another. The lines and forms of the painted surface are reminiscent of the contour lines on a map, or the rippling raked lines of a ‘karesansui’ (Japanese Zen garden), both stylised representations of nature that have been unified into a graphic delineation. Indeed there are certain parallels between ‘karesansui’ and Friedman’s paintings as both, in effect, capture the essence of the natural landscape around them and create a meditative space wherein the repetitive act of painting can be equated to the act of raking gravel within a stone garden. The cycle of repetition and building layers of colour allows for the action of painting to become second nature and instinctual. This creates a sense of sacrosanct purity, with the dedication to his craft and the need to recreate the images within his mind almost becoming an act of spiritual devotion.
 
This exhibition will show a number of large scale works including a large- scale tondo and, much like the cyclical nature of his painting practice, the exhibition welcomes a return to creating small-scale continuous works painted across multiple canvases. We hope you will take this opportunity to visit the exhibition and experience the serenity and complexity of the works on display.
 
SAM FRIEDMAN
Born in Oneonta, New York in 1984.
Lives and works in Pleasant Valley, Upstate New York.
Friedman studied illustration and typography at the Pratt Art Institute in New York.
After graduating, Friedman worked various jobs before landing a position as studio manager for the artist KAWS. After several years in this position, he embarked on his solo career and has presented exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia.
 
 
Courtesy of the Artist and Library Street Collective

 
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Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Monday and Tuesday
Free Admission
 
The Mass presents INDEX #5, a solo exhibition by Yukari Nishi, from Saturday 5th February to Sunday 27th February 2022. 

Nishi’s acrylic paintings are created from visual materials collected by the artist including personal photographs, old magazine clippings and found images from the internet. These images are placed together to form digital collages that serve as a sketch from which she paints onto canvas. Through painting, Nishi’s works present a contemporary re-interpretation of collage. Her unique process can be seen as an almost psychotherapeutic act of creation, allowing for her to go back and forth between her inner world and projected self, with the works serving as a record of these actions. 

The exhibition will feature all new works, including large-scale canvas paintings that mark a career-first for the artist. Nishi’s works transcend the world of collage to create bold compositions of endless skies, lush green meadows, lawns, and unidentified creatures with no name or identity.
 
 By placing these disparate images of various resolutions together, there is a sense of unease and underlying darkness that undercuts the brightly coloured setting. However, the dissonant textures of different media such as collage and film are beautifully fused and expressed through her painting technique. The humorous yet disturbing world depicted in Nishi’s paintings are derived from science fiction and horror movies from the 1980’s, with the primitive creatures and bizarre monsters featured in these films providing a rich source of inspiration for Nishi. These are then reimagined within visual narratives that are based on her own personal experiences to form scenes of uncanny familiarity that question everyday life. Many of the works featured in the exhibition are a reflection of current times, with the works drawing subconscious observations from Nishi’s days spent quietly indoors with her family amidst the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. For example, a hamburger, something usually eaten by hand is placed next to a bottle of disinfectant, or a young girl wearing a helmet to protect herself from the outside air. 
 
This sense of unease that is characteristic to Nishi’s work is further accentuated by curious directions of light and recurring motifs such as faceless figures, stuffed toys with no emotion, and inanimate animals. These absurd compositions interweave fiction with reality and depict distortions of the ordinary world in a unique way that deeply appeals to the viewer’s sense of meaning. Her works utilise the intrinsic properties of collage to allow for a multitude of interpretations, with each individual component providing limitless possibilities, transformed into an embodiment of Nishi’s individual pictorial expression. The exhibition will also include an installation and film in Room 02 of The Mass, recreating Nishi’s world on a life-size scale.  


After graduating from the design department of the Kyoto University of Art and Design, Yukari taught herself painting, and made use of the compositional techniques and knowledge from her studies to nurture and develop her current style. She continues to produce works and has received recognition both in Japan and abroad. Her work was most recently exhibited in 2021 at ‘VIEWING’, a group exhibition at SAI in Tokyo. 
 
 
Yukari Nishi
 
Born 1978 in Kagawa Prefecture.
Nishi lives and works in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.
After graduating from Kyoto University of Arts (formerly Kyoto University of Art and Design), Nishi has been exhibiting her paintings and mixed media works at galleries and art fairs in Japan and abroad since 2004. The surrealist expression found in Nishi’s acrylic paintings depict a strange and fantastic world with a depth of knowledge and visual narratives, veiled with an air of nostalgia. Nishi is also a popular muse within the Japanese music scene, collaborating with artists and musicians on CD cover designs, posters, tour merchandise, music videos, and video productions.

 
Untitled Scene: F, 2021 Acrylic on Canvas 1,620 × 1,303 x 37mm @Yukari Nishi, The Mass

 
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Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Free Admission
 
Curated by The Mass x Matt Black
 
The Mass presents ‘I Care Because You Do’, a group exhibition of 15 international artists co-curated by The Mass and New York based curator Matt Black. The exhibition will explore the ways in which various artists from the end of the 20th century to the present day have elaborated, reacted and disrupted the narratives of Minimalism, Conceptualism and Post-Abstract Expressionism to create works that reflect the city environment in all its complexity.
 
©︎Courtesy of the artist and Tennis Elbow at The Journal Gallery, New York, New York.
 
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Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Monday and Tuesday
Free Admission
 
The Mass presents BLOOM, a solo exhibition by Tokyo based artist TIDE. 
The exhibition will present all new works, including the most recent paintings from his ongoing CAT series, as well as the debut of a new painting series titled Life is Flat, and a three-dimensional installation that signifies a new chapter in his artistic practice. 

 BLOOM marks the second solo exhibition for the artist after his DEBUT exhibition at Gallery COMMON in 2020, both created in collaboration with HENKYO. The title of the exhibition is both a reference to the floral imagery that is present throughout his works, but also serves as a metaphor for TIDE’s developing identity as an artist. Within a short period of time, TIDE’s painting technique has progressed exponentially, with his style evolving into one full of layered complexity and detail. The title therefore serves as a personal challenge for the artist to grow in the pursuit of greater artistic challenges.
 
TIDE began his CAT series in 2019, and his feline character has evolved alongside his burgeoning career. Exploring themes of childhood, memory and nostalgia, TIDE’s works can be defined as an exercise in opposing juxtapositions. Set in eternal nightfall within an enigmatic domestic space, his works convey an uncanny sense of familiarity; simultaneously inviting and unsettling, alluring yet ominous. The central cat figure is like a children’s soft toy come to life, fulfilling our collective childhood fantasies by playing make-believe within an imaginary world. The backgrounds of the paintings feature soft furnishings, and a recurring motif of windows and billowing curtains that symbolise the intermediary between the inner and the outer world. Adopting the artistic trope of a window to represent spaces that are both real and fantastical; TIDE depicts his own mental landscape. The paintings draw from the artist’s personal memories, in particular recollections of his childhood bedroom at night, and capture the feelings and emotions of his past and present. This sense of sentimentality paired with ambiguity is a visual representation of the artist’s introspection, and the backgrounds can be interpreted as traces of memories constructed into a dream-like space.
 The monochrome universe depicted in the paintings are deceptively simple, with closer inspection revealing the complex layering of techniques and painterly styles that differentiate between background and foreground. The background uses a combination of acrylic and spray to render a three-dimensional interior, whilst living characters in the foreground are rendered in contrasting two-dimensions, affirming the boundary between animate and inanimate, real and fantasy, two and three dimensions. TIDE furthers his exploration of the interplay between dimensions with the inclusion of three new large-scale works that feature a shaped cat canvas, returning the flat cartoon-like image into a sculptural form that can be moved in and out of the context of the painting.
 
The exhibition will also present a new series of paintings, Life is Flat; a continuation of TIDE’s unique, monochromatic style and technique that exists in the same world as the CAT series. The series can be seen as a reinterpretation of the still life genre, with each work depicting a different bouquet of flowers in a vessel or vase. The paintings follow the rules of TIDE’s painted universe, with the living objects, flowers, rendered in two-dimensions, whilst the inanimate vases exist in three dimensions, subverting the typical mimesis of the still life genre. The flowers are also placed in vases in the shape of recognisable figures such as The Hulk and E.T, juxtaposing delicate floral images with monstrous and alien motifs. The use of these characters from movies and TV from the 1980’s, further expand on these themes of childhood and nostalgia, bringing universal elements of popular culture into our collective consciousness.
 
PROFILE 

TIDE was born in 1984 in Shizuoka, Japan, and currently lives and works in Tokyo. The self-taught artist first began painting while traveling abroad in Australia in his early 20s, returning to Tokyo and starting a career as an artist in 2009. TIDE was heavily inspired by the work of manga artist and historian Shigeru Mizuki, as well as old Hollywood movies and animations from the 30s to 50s, and began creating small scale and intricate pencil drawings in a pointillist style. He then began to explore various painting techniques, including watercolour and acrylic, and realised that these allowed for greater creative expression in both speed and scale. Continuous experimentation has led to his current multi-layered painting style that makes full use of these accumulated techniques, and his works draw upon universal themes of childhood and nostalgia to create a unique monochrome universe. TIDE has exhibited in Japan as well as internationally, having recently participated in group shows in Korea, Hong Kong, and the U.K., and exhibitions in New York and London set to take place in the near future.
 
VOYAGE, 2021 Acrylic on Canvas 2,273×1,818mm ©︎TIDE, The Mass
 
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Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Free Admission
 
ささやかな叫び A Modest Scream
 
soh souen ‘A Modest Scream’
Dates: Saturday 21st November 2020 – Sunday 27th December 2020
Venue: The Mass (5-11-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo)
 
The Mass presents ‘A Modest Scream’, a solo exhibition by artist soh souen from Saturday 21st November to Sunday 27th December. Having previously worked under the name of Hajime Kuwazono, this exhibition will be the artist’s first exhibition since adopting the name of soh souen. The exhibition will present a variety of works including ‘tie’, the most recent pieces from the ongoing portrait series the artist has been producing since 2019. The exhibition will also debut souen’s abstract pastel works from the series ‘etude’ and ‘caress and hug’, as well as a three-dimensional installation titled ‘ my body, your smell, and ours’.
 
 
I, others, pain (as close to pleasure as possible) body, healing
 
These are the words I wrote in my notebook when this exhibition was decided.

I don’t want these phrases to lead the viewer into a predetermined view of the works, however, As the word ‘healing’ implies, my thoughts all revolved around the idea of hope.

While feeling the body’s recovery, feeling the intensity that the work of healing holds
And painting each picture, I feel as if I have touched something that carefully cherishes the fragile folds and hollows of existence.
 
A faint, delicate light, that overflows 

Its brilliance and texture a testament to the fact that it is alive Drawing; the body’s blessing
Something that should never be let go until the end.
 
soh souen (Excerpt from artist’s statement, October 2020)
 
The ‘tie’ series presents pixelated portraits of the artist’s acquaintances, using an ID photograph of the subject, the image is then abstracted to form a collection of oil painted dots. Within each individual 6mm square dot it is possible to see the delicacy of the painting technique and the precision of the grid composition; these are a result of Souen’s unique approach to the canvas, a process that express the words and thoughts that are derived from the significance of souen’s existence and relationship with others. The contrast between the soft tones and the margins allow the viewer’s eye to connect the images, simultaneously showing the fragility and strength of the works themselves.
 
An exhibition catalogue will be published to coincide with the exhibition.
 
soh souen was born in 1995 in Fukuoka, Japan. Since graduating from university, souen has
consistently continued his pursuit for modern painting production as an entity with the body. His
previous series ‘body to body’ centered on the identities of the body, myself, and others. He has since
expanded his range of expression to include ‘tie’ and ‘caress and hug’. The exhibition will be souen’s
first solo exhibition at The Mass since participating in the 2018 group exhibition ‘PORTRAIT’.

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Free Admission
 
from COMMAND Z to GENERATION Z
 
at the time of the COMMAND Z exhibition almost (20) years ago it was the dawn of the new millennium. at that time, GENERATION Z was arriving. I feel it is important to reflect on my past, as well as look to the future. McGurr explains. “Graffiti was a way for me to exist. I wanted the world to know my name. I wanted to be somebody…you just need to keep moving. don’t stop. just keep moving.”
 
The exhibition will showcase 4 different kinds of sculptures and 27 specially-commissioned canvas works–created exclusively during a residency in Japan in 2019.
 
Futura:
A pioneer when Graffiti met the formal gallery ecosystem, artist Futura 2000 (born Leonard Hilton McGurr) was known as early as the 1970s for his radical approach in the street, introducing abstraction to what was an entirely letter-based discipline. His work on canvas caught attention in the 1980’s, and established him as a leading voice within a wider art movement that included the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf. Entirely self-taught in what he calls “the subway school”, Futura has been compared to Wassily Kandinsky for his mastery of color, geometric composition and line—and is celebrated alongside his friends Dondi White and Rammellzee for his progressiveness and of-the-moment dynamism.
 
© Futura, PASMO, 2019
(181.8 × 227.3 × 3.8 cm)

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Free Admission
 
The Mass is pleased to present Seb Janiak’s first solo exhibition in Japan.
 
In a photographic career spanning over 30 years, Seb Janiak has explored a remarkably diverse range of areas. From his matte paintings with their revolutionary new techniques and unique perspectives, Janiak has successfully preserved a sense of cohesion while covering the full range of possibilities offered by photography. Janiak started out as a young freelance graphic designer without specific aspirations to be an artist, who wanted above all to give free rein to his curiosity and to experiment with a piece of equipment which he discovered by chance and which opened up the possibility of creating stunning images.
 
In 1987, images could be created and digitally enhanced using Quantel Paintbox. Janiak was one of the very first people to extend its use beyond the TV and film applications for which it was originally designed in order to produce photographic images for exhibition. In these photographs, scenes of unbridled fantasy were reconstructed with a hitherto unprecedented degree of realism. This marked the dawn of a new photographic esthetic. A variety of different shots taken all over the world could be assembled digitally into large- format images conjuring up a sci-fi world suffused with the staggering transparency of photography. This new style of image would become the staple fare of the next two decades, but Janiak’s achievement lay in being the first to create them.
 
Seb Janiak is a pioneer, spurred on by a restless desire to observe the world, challenge it and apply his artistic skills to reshaping it. He has an unquenchable thirst for everything that supplements our understanding of reality, opens up new perspectives and creates meaning. Whether he is dealing with institutionalized phenomena (religion, science, and astrophysics in particular) or niche areas (esotericism, ufology) his imagination draws on humanity in all its boundless diversity, transcending time and place. An overview of his work is instructive in this respect.
 
The success of his early digital photos was followed by a meteoric rise in the world of advertising in 1995. He made a seamless transition from still images to video and the most influential musicians quickly approached him to direct their music videos, including Daft Punk, Janet Jackson, and Robbie Williams.
 
In 2005, after ten years of frenetic activity, major health problems forced Janiak to make radical lifestyle changes. At the height of his artistic powers, he resumed his experiments with photography, free from the constraints of commissioned work. Drawing inspiration for his work from a variety of sources over the years such as traditional oriental texts including the Tibetan Book of the Dead or the history of Western art, Janiak created strikingly powerful ensembles in which human figures were replaced by nature and ideas.
 
Since 2009, Janiak has set new parameters on this research by restricting himself to the techniques of analog photography, namely double exposure, superimposition and photomontage.
 
—Paul Frèches, former gallerist and curator, currently cultural attaché at the Consulate general of France in Shanghai.
 
 
The Kingdom, (2009-2017)
 
The Kingdom is inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bardo Thödol, where the soul deprived of its mortal envelope has to face its repressed desires, its angers, traces of its passing through the matter on earth. During the 49 days of the Bardo, the conscience of the soul has to understand that all these sometimes diabolical visions are not but fantasies, an illusion created by fear and that only then the true light gets the upper hand and will guide the soul towards the one and only light of the creative God.
 
This project, which Seb Janiak began in 2009, constituted a key stage in this protracted process. These large photographs of turbulent skies, vehicles for the primal energy revealed by the transformation of clouds. The breath-taking quality of these works was followed by equally striking series in which the artist depicted the normally invisible forces which shape and alter reality. This constituted both a personal quest and a game for this artist driven by the desire to look beyond surface appearances. Ever alert and tirelessly challenging the world, Janiak outlined responses and suggestions through the medium of images. This fictitious world which under our eyes gets organized as it pleases, with the remains of the real world, reveals the most specific essence of a soul.
 
For Janiak, the light stops being the clearness which highlights what is: she is an emanation, a divine irradiation, a silent power that talks to souls. It is necessary to break the visible to reach the invisible. All these images of the physical world are not more than the announcement of another one: the spiritual world. Their richness, their magnificences, of which the artist does not disdain to get the brightness, do not appear more than the avant-garde of a splendor of a different order, obsessing presence of which they inform us. This language of the spiritual depths wide opens for us the heavy doors of an unknown we hold in ourselves.
 
In creating his works, Janiak has opened a window on his soul.
 
Technical Note: There are no changes made to the colors, no retouching or special effects applied to the image in post-production. As of 2009, Janiak has set new parameters on this research by restricting himself to the techniques of analog photography used since 1850, namely double exposure, superimposition and photomontage inspired by pioneers of photography such as Henry Peach Robinson, Édouard Baldus and Gustave Le Gray.
 
©︎Seb Janiak, The Kingdom, Bardo Thödol, 2010

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Admission: Free
 
The Mass is pleased to present Toluca Éditions.
 
Time Capsules of Photography
 
The professional photography studios that proliferated in Japan in the 1860s initially produced portraits, in the form of daguerreotypes and then ambrotypes. Ten years after the introduction in 1848 of the camera into Japan by Shimazu Nariakira, who would later become the feudal lord of Satsuma, the opening up of foreign concessions in the country’s principal port cities provided Japan with Western technologies, including photography. Although the use to which it was put ―mainly portraiture and landscapes― was similar to its country of origin, the practices that developed in Japan around this remarkable, recently imported invention differed. Unlike in the West, where the glass plates were generally set off within a gilt frame, photographs were stored unframed in boxes of Japanese cypress wood, conceived in the manner of the tomobako, the boxes to be found accompanying any work of traditional craftsmanship. These boxes would generally include a mention, written in ink, of the date the image was captured and the identity of the subject. This traditional practice of preserving portraits, and the call inherent in it to a more private contemplation of the images, has since been lost in Japan, owing to the generalized use of photographic prints (on either albumen or gelatin silver print paper), which created the more lasting format of the photographic album. And the development of photographic printing techniques has in turn replaced this more personal practice by the photobook, whose crucial role in the place of photography at the heart of twentieth-century visual culture is well known. The integration of photography into publishing, in book form, has rendered its connection with text, and therefore with literature and theory, inseparable. Today, in an age of dematerialized photography and digitalized portfolios, the idea of photographs on glass plates in an ornamented box has something of the air of a fossil.
 
Nevertheless, a sumptuous and uncompromising approach to publication has made the photographic object endure by renewing it. Halfway between the boxed set and the photobook ―itself threatened by the digital dissemination of images―, Toluca Éditions has been creating unique photographic objects for fifteen years now. The principle is simple but unprecedented: an original case contains a combination of sheets bearing unpublished texts and original photographic prints. A photographer, a writer, and a designer submit individually the component parts of a work which is then put together and published by Toluca Éditions.
 
The publications of Toluca Éditions have maintained the text element of the photobook. This is still more striking in that the texts are not analyses (as in a monograph) nor accounts written by the photographers themselves (as in the works of Chris Marker or even of Nobuyoshi Araki), but constitute rather a work in themselves, with a supple yet intimate relation to the visual world of each series of photographs. Toluca’s publications have also preserved and developed the photobook’s relation to twentieth-century cultural production techniques, through the incorporation of three practices of the multiple: photography, text, and design. These three creative disciplines are based on a technical infrastructure that implies serial production. In this sense, each one of the publications of Toluca Éditions is a contemporary cultural object par excellence.
 
In an art of the multiple ―as is thrice the case here―, the very principle of the limited edition is an arbitrary decision, often motivated by commercial calculations: why limit the run of a photograph or a print ―which is multiple by nature― to just a few dozen copies, on the economic model of a sculpture? At Toluca Éditions, it is precisely the sculptural quality of the design applied to the production of each title that justifies the publication of small runs: the box contains a total work at the intersection of design, literature, and photography. An essential component in the appreciation of any one of the publications of Toluca Éditions is precisely its texture. Not only the grain of the photographs (and Toluca Éditions displays on this point a versatile taste, from the cleanly defined images of Candida Höfer to the supersaturated images of Tokyo produced by Daidō Moriyama), but also the search for the most appropriate paper (a constant also of quality photobooks), as well as a container which, in its material and its form, will crystalize the themes of the photographic and literary world it encloses.
 
More fundamentally, the uniqueness of Toluca’s productions resides in their complexification of the temporality proper to photography. Each photograph has its own temporality, marked initially by the moment at which it is captured, and by the semantic references of the image, which are then modulated by its intersection with a text. This ensemble, once it has been acquired by a collector, undergoes a slow aging process, protected from the elements, in its custom case. Every copy of Toluca’s limited editions is therefore a time capsule.
 
When it is opened, the case provides a space appropriate for a non-linear publication. The choices provided by a number of unbound sheets allow the photographs and texts to be explored as in an exhibition, reminiscent of the paradigm of Marcel Duchamp’s La Boîte-en-valise. Instead of a binding, one may find some folded sheets. The folds create not only a compartmentalized space and a new dimension, but also endows the reading of them with a different timeframe. The fold is a non-verbal frontier.
 
Let us imagine now the little universe formed by the forty-two titles published by Toluca Éditions, side by side in the same place, like so many microcosms, each one containing its own timeframe and a unique vantage point on reality. Photography lovers can only await with impatience the editions to come, which will continue to infuse new life into this complex, unique, and effervescent publishing venture.
 
Kei Osawa
Associate researcher, Intermediatheque, University Museum, University of Tokyo.
 
 
Toluca Éditions is an extraordinary publishing house based in Paris, founded in 2003 by Alexis Fabry and Olivier Andreotti. Each project is the result of a close collaboration between an artist using photography, a writer, and a designer, who contributes a custom-made slipcase. The ‘artist’s book’ as it had been understood since the early twentieth century, has given way to a hybrid art object, which occupies a novel position in the field.
 
Olivier Andreotti is a graphic designer and artistic director. He works in a range of different fields, including regular publications, limited editions, exhibition catalogues, corporate identity, signalling systems, and exhibition design (at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the Jeu de Paume, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City, among others venues), as well as on special projects for various prestigious brands, including Louis Vuitton, Veuve Clicquot, Hennessy, and Van Cleef & Arpels.
 
Alexis Fabry is the curator of the Leticia & Stanislas Poniatowski and the Anna Gamazo de Abelló photography collections. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including Urbes Mutantes (International Center of Photography, New York, 2014), Latin Fire (CentroCentro, Madrid, 2015), Daido Moriyama, Daido Tokyo (Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 2016), Transiciones (Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, 2016), and Géométries Sud (Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 2018). He works as a consultant for private collections and is deputy artistic director of Hermès Maison.
 
VOL. 28 • Daido Moriyama, Olivier Andreotti, Color, 2013 © Toluca Éditions

Hours 12:00 – 19:00

Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Admission: Free

The Mass is pleased to present Nick Knight’s first solo exhibition in Japan.

For the past four decades Nick Knight has consistently challenged the standards of beauty and, as a result, is celebrated as one of the world’s most influential and visionary photographers working today. His groundbreaking creative collaborations with leading designers including Yohji Yamamoto, John Galliano, Gareth Pugh and Alexander McQueen, alongside his vanguard advertising campaigns for prestigious clients such as Dior, Shiseido, Tom Ford, McQueen or Nike have secured him as a major figure in fine art and fashion.

Alongside his successful commercial career, Knight has a rather more personal side of his practice that is demonstrative of a constant desire to experiment and challenge himself. In ‘Still’, Knight brings this somewhat more private work to Tokyo, in three distinct bodies of work: ‘Flora’, ‘Roses, Photo Paintings’ and ‘Roses From My Garden’ which are all exceptional examples of Knight’s restless journey with aesthetic margins. Unlike the images of flowers we are used to seeing, Knight’s compositions are balanced, harmonious compositions that move us to think about the innate power of nature and its fleeting beauty.

In contrast to his paired back ‘Flora’ compositions, Knight’s ‘Roses, Photo Paintings’ series is positively opulent. This body of work, while taking its roots from 16th century still life painting, is a true hybrid; literally part photograph, part painting. To create them, Knight introduces heat and water during the printing process to make the color run. It’s a dynamic, physical process that took him and master-printer Allan Finamore ten years to perfect. These wonderfully balanced and seductive, large-scale still lives have a stunning romanticism as major washes of color rip though traditional compositions that are anchored by antique vases, of the formal trappings of flower paintings. Stunning, joyous highlights push against the deep angst of darker areas. Knight pulls on the history of vanitas painting, encapsulating the fragility of a rose’s life cycle both in the composition and the medium; the roses are dying, the paint is dripping. He is documenting a moment slipping from our grasp.

As the first show outside of the UK to exhibit these bodies of work together, ‘Still’ lends insight into Knight’s relentless desire to find and capture new versions of beauty and new visions of the familiar.

Nick Knight OBE (b. 1958) is a British fashion photographer who is also founder and director of SHOWstudio.com. He is an honorary professor at University of the Arts, London and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the same university. For the last forty years, Nick has shot award-winning images for commercial and editorial purposes. His groundbreaking creative collaborations with leading designers including Yohji Yamamoto, John Galliano, Gareth Pugh and Alexander McQueen, alongside his vanguard advertising campaigns for prestigious clients such as Dior, Lancôme, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein or Yves Saint Laurent have helped to make him a household name in both fine art and fashion.

His stories in British Vogue, Paris Vogue, Dazed & Confused, Another, Another Man, i-D and W magazine have all pushed the industry past the classic parameters of fashion photography, while his award winning music videos for Björk, Lady Gaga and Kanye West have firmly established Knight as an eminent Director and Image Maker. His first book of photographs ‘Skinheads’ was published in 1982, winning a D&AD award in 1996. He then went on to published ‘Nicknight’, a twelve year retrospective of his work, and ‘Flora’, a series of inimitable still lives, both published by Schirmer/Mosel. His latest book, entitled ‘Nick Knight’, was published by HarperCollins in 2009. His work has been exhibited at such international art institutions as the Tate Modern, Victoria & Albert Museum, Saatchi Gallery, the Photographers’ Gallery, Hayward Gallery, the Daelim Museum, and the Gagosian Gallery.
 

© Nick Knight, Rose VI, 2012

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Admission: ¥500 (free for students)
 
The Mass is pleased to present PORTRAIT curated by Seika University Culture Club (*S.U.C.C.)
 
Taking the theme of portrait, this exhibition will draw connections between manifold artists of different ages and genres, providing an opportunity to see works with distinct expressions all in one space.
 
*S.U.C.C. is a group of popular culture studies (creation and PR) formed by Hiroshi Fujiwara who is currently a visiting professor at the Kyoto Seika University.
 
© Julian Opie, Hannah, school girl. 2, 2006

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Admission: Free
 
The Mass is pleased to present ‘War and Flowers’. Curated by AMKK led by flower artist Makoto Azuma and The Mass; this exhibition includes a selection of photographs relating to war and flowers that Azuma and his team have collected intermittently over the past eight years forming the foundations for the exhibition, which brings together images that reflect on the subject of war from various aspects, compiled with the cooperation of international photo agencies: Magnum Photos, Asahi Shimbun and Kyodo News.
 
From birth to death, flowers occupy a familiar place in people’s lives; as gifts of celebration and encouragement, or in moments of mourning and prayer. From long ago people have offered flowers, investing their radiant appearance and transient existence with the role of conveying feelings, desires, and tenderness that sometimes cannot be expressed in words. Such actions can even be glimpsed within the darkest events of human history like war. The world has seen dramatic developments in science and technology over the last few centuries, together with a diversification of conflicts. We wish that through these photographs bringing together and connecting in one lens the seemingly contradictory elements of “war” and “flowers”, the negative historical facts of humankind are faced squarely in the hope that many visitors, and especially younger generations, will be given the opportunity to think deeply about peace.
 
AMKK
 
Azuma Makoto and Shiinoki Shunsuke were born in Fukuoka, Japan. Together they opened the on-demand ‘haute couture’ flower shop “JARDINS des FLEURS” in Ginza district in 2002. The shop is currently located in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo. Around 2005 they launched a second line of operations when Azuma invented the genre ‘botanical sculpture’ and Shiinoki captured those creations in his photographs. Following a solo exhibition in New York, their audacious works have been repeatedly shown in Europe. They set up the experimental botanical lab Azuma Makoto Kaju Kenkyujo (AMKK) in 2009, they went on to exhibit their works at art museums, galleries and public spaces all over the world. In recent years, they have been focusing on projects that explore the connections between human beings and flowers.
 
AZUMA MAKOTO • Flower Artist
 
Azuma Makoto has been in the flower business since 2002, and is the owner of the ‘haute couture’ floral shop, “JARDINS des FLEURS” in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo. In addition to the flower shop business, Azuma began to explore the expressive potential of plants in 2005. He invented the genre of the ‘Botanical sculpture’, creating works for which he soon received orders also from outside Japan. Following a solo exhibition in New York, his audacious works have been repeatedly shown in Europe. While launching the experimental botanical lab Azuma Makoto Kaju Kenkyujo (AMKK) in 2009, he went on to exhibit his works at art museums, galleries and public spaces all over the world. Every activity of Azuma Makoto focuses on elevating value of flowers and plants by finding unique and mysterious forms that they posses. Respecting the existence of nature and keeping its dignity, he converts and expresses these beautiful elements to aesthetic level of artwork.
 
The gallery will exceptionally open on August 14th and 15th, 2018
 
© Bernie Boston / The Washington Post / Getty Images / Kyodo News

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Admission: Free
 
The Mass is pleased to present Marefumi Komura’ solo exhibition Big Ship.
 
In his new “subtraction” series, instead of building up layers of paint, Komura takes away thin washes of colour down to lines and scrapes in an attempt to express fragility, impermanence and imperfection.
 
The title Big Ship, a metaphor for the beleaguered state of Japan adrift on the sea of globalisation or even a symbol of the chaotic course of the cosmos, came to Komura in an intuitive flash after the death of his grandmother.
 
The word ship, or scip in Old English, derives from the Indo-European skep, meaning “cut” or “trim”, yet partakes of the notion of skipan “shaping” that suffixes such compounds as friendship or relationship — hence it somehow reflects elements of Komura’s method of “shaping by removing”. His images hint at lost senses, evoking hidden landscapes, reawakening primal memories.
 
© Marefumi Komura, Subtract (Stem), 2018

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Admission: Free
 
The Mass is pleased to present ‘ECAL Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship’, a selection of student projects of ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne from their Master of Advanced Studies in Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship.
 
The exhibition highlights some of the many collaborations undertaken with international brands from the fields of luxury and craftsmanship. In addition to the exhibited prototypes, a selection of mock-ups and sketches illustrates the students’ creative process.
 
ECAL / University of Art and Design Lausanne (Switzerland)
 
As a school of international renown in the fields of design, photography, graphic design, cinema, new technologies and art, ECAL has been constantly ranked among the top 5 art and design schools. Since 2011, ECAL has been headed by Alexis Georgacopoulos and it has grown and established itself as a leader in the creative world. This could not have been achieved without the involvement of skilled practitioners, artists and designers of global renown or the many collaborations and commissions for cultural companies and institutions. As a consequence, ECAL students acquire a sound knowledge and benefit from a challenging practice-oriented education.
 
The Master of Advanced Studies in Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship (MAS DLC)
 
This unique course is specifically aimed at Bachelor and Master graduates who wish to further their design education in areas of excellence as varied as ne watchmaking, tableware, fashion, gastronomy, ‘Métiers d’Art’ or who wish to learn particular techniques with regards to the use of noble materials. The students (fifteen or so each year from all over the world) are able to work in collaboration with high-profile companies, which can draw on a heritage of a hundred years or more, and to gather skills from workshops organized by major players from the international design scene.
 
©︎ ECAL, Aurélie Matthieu, Brick, Baccarat, 2012

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Admission: Free

ARTIST TALK on November 25th from 14:00 to 15:00.

Takeshi Masada × Tomoaki Ishihara (Guest Artist)

Entrance: Free

The Mass is pleased to present Takeshi Masada first solo exhibition in five years.

Basing his work on a story of “Madness” and “Purification”, Masada once again awakens a unique expressive style taking three-dimensional forms, creating both sculptural works made using Cray-pas oil pastels in unconventional ways and oil paintings rendered on large canvases.

A selection of collaborations produced by Takeshi Masada × fragmentdesign × NOMA t.d. will be available in our store during the exhibition.
 
© Takeshi Masada, Fukigen na Yamabiko、Kiregimi no Yamabiko、Sore ha A-ko no Kokoromoyou, 2017

Hours 12:00 – 19:00

Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Admission: Free
 
The Mass is pleased to present a SHOWstudio takeover.
 
Kate Moss is one of SHOWstudio’s most prolific and valued contributors. The Mass will introduce some of her many collaborations with Nick Knight and SHOWstudio, including early works from 2000 (the year SHOWstudio began) and her more modern and contemporary projects with Knight, showcasing Moss’ ability to surprise and transform before the camera. To celebrate her magnetism on the runway, as well as on the screen, thirty of the world’s best fashion illustrators interpreted her most iconic catwalk looks, each hand selected by Kate Moss.
 
Kate Moss says: ‘It was such a pleasure to have the chance to look back on the incredible clothes I have worn on the catwalks and to see how these have inspired SHOWstudio’s amazing selection of fashion illustrators – it brings back many memories and feels like a fitting tribute to the wonderful designers I have worked with.’
 
Nick Knight says: ‘I asked 30 of the world’s best fashion illustrators to draw Kate’s most iconic catwalk looks, all chosen specially by her, for the amazing designers she has worked with including McQueen, Galliano and Westwood. The result is a uniquely beautiful exhibition that shows the many exciting ways each artists sees the model who has come to symbolise what fashion means for a whole generation and someone who has been a consistent inspiration for me over the many times she and I have worked together. Fashion Illustration is one of the most artistic mediums to portray fashion and I am thrilled to bring this show to The Mass, one of Tokyo’s most exciting new galleries.’
 
©︎ SHOWstudio, Bex Cassie, Alexander McQueen S/S 98, 2017

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday
Admission: ¥1,000 (free for students)
 
This exhibition explores movements such as music, art and fashion that were created during 1971 and 1984.
 

71-84 Book fully illustrated in nine volumes boxed with in a slipcase, 1,468 pages. Designed by mo’des book.

Hours 12:00 – 19:00
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Admission: Free

We are happy to present Henry Leutwyler’s first solo exhibition in Japan. Document, an exhibit chronicling a twelve-years project.
Henry Leutwyler was born in Switzerland in 1961. He lived and worked in Paris for a decade before finding his way to New York City in 1995, where he established his reputation as portrait and still life photographer.

Steidl published Leutwyler’s first book Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson, in 2010. The first edition of Ballet was published in 2012, the second edition in 2015. The images from Ballet and Neverland Lost have been exhibited in solo shows in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Moscow, Madrid and Zurich. His work has graced the pages of numerous magazines around the world and has earned him countless honors and awards.

A glove worn by Michael Jackson, James Dean’s door at the Iroquois Hotel symbolize the only stability in the nomadic existence of a young actor whose career was skyrocketing, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s hip Issey Miyake sunglasses, James Gandolfini’s Cadillac – his favorite possession, Astronaut and Apollo 14 crew member Alan Shepard’s golf club used to play golf on the moon, to name a few.
Leutwyler says “The people I was really interested in died before I could photograph them, so I thought, Let me make a list of my heroes and some villains and research what they owned.” (ARTE FUSE, 2016)

We will exhibit a selection of 45 photographs from Document which features the issues of American History over 100 years.
 
©︎ Henry Leutwyler, The Charter Arms .38 caliber revolver used to shoot and kill John Lennon, 2016

Hours 12:00 – 19:00

Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Admission: Free

The Mass is pleased to present 12×12 ART×MUSIC – Contemporary Art meets Music on 12 inch square − produced with Seika University Culture Club *(S.U.C.C.).
 
In this exhibition, we are featuring about 80 record jackets designed by artists such as Richard Prince, Damien Hirst, Banksy to name a few.
 
12×12 ART×MUSIC catalog will be available in our store during the exhibition. Edition of 2000
 
*S.U.C.C. is a group of popular culture studies (creation and PR) students formed by Hiroshi Fujiwara who is currently a visiting professor at the Kyoto Seika University.