Venue
Address

T:
W:
Opening Hours
Director
Contact Person

>> See map

Sadaharu Horio
Axel Vervoordt Gallery
Hong Kong
Untitled, 3 June 2018 in Kanaal (Antwerp, Belgium), golden pigment on Echizen Washi paper, 136 x 67cm

Untitled, 3 June 2018 in Kanaal (Antwerp, Belgium), golden pigment on Echizen Washi paper, 136 x 67cm

Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Gutai artist Sadaharu Horio in Hong Kong. The exhibition includes the new works on Echizen washi paper that the artist created in June this year, during his stay in Belgium on the occasion of the recent solo exhibition at the gallery’s Kanaal location.

Sadaharu Horio was born in 1939 in Hyogo, Japan and became one of the youngest Gutai artists. Horio showed his work for the first time in 1965 in the 15th Gutai Art Exhibition and officially joined the Gutai Art Association the following year, he remained with the group until its dissolution in 1972.

Ever since, and up until today, Horio has been continually expanding on Gutai’s avant-garde spirit with an impressive body of experimental work, spanning different mediums. He is a pioneer in modern Kobe performance art and he has a significant influence on Japan’s contemporary art scene. He is involved in over one hundred projects annually — including solo and group exhibitions and performances.

The relationship between art and everyday life is key to understanding Horio’s practice. He sees beauty in everyday life and turns our gaze to the ordinary through his works. The artist’s creative process is an extension of his everyday living. Each and every moment is singular and novel, and every waking moment is a performance, a unique creation. He undertakes life and art as ever-repeating and ever-intertwined rituals.

Horio’s medium resides in the ordinary and is encountered often unexpectedly. He scavenges for objects to imprint, while folding, pressing, crumpling and wrinkling large sheets of paper. He paints on surfaces which he finds in his surroundings, everything from scraps of metal to pieces of wood and even discarded material.

Much like his previous works, the paintings were created spontaneously within a short but intense timeframe, emphasizing on the quantity and speed of art production. He also eliminates any possibility of consciousness intervening in the work process, and even avoids choosing colours, and instead sticks to the sequence of colours in the paint box. By doing so, he attempts to erase the confinements of traditional art. On the occasion of the exhibition opening, there will be a performance by the artist, in which viewers are invited to observe his work process first-hand.

Horio’s work is both performance and painting, and his focus is on the act of creation itself. He has been influenced by children’s paintings, and in his work process attempts to strip away one’s natural tendencies towards consciousness. But rather than insensitivity, his work shows genuine emotion in its rawest form, completely devoid of intellectual packaging. His works are nota bout the understanding of any existing element, but rather, about the creation of something new.

Axel Vervoordt Gallery plays a crucial role in presenting artwork from the Zero and Gutai art movements, throughout the exhibition of its principal artists to Europe. Axel Vervoordt Gallery is enhancing its vision to strongly support artists beyond the boundaries of space and time. The Hong Kong space opened in 2014 as a platform to consolidate the dialogue with the East, which has consistently been a central mission. In 2017, the Belgian gallery site relocated to the Kanaal in Wijnegem (Antwerp), a former industrial malting distillery, with a strong accent to site-specific project.

  • Untitled, 3 June 2018 in Kanaal (Antwerp, Belgium), golden pigment on Echizen Washi paper, 136 x 67cm

    Untitled, 3 June 2018 in Kanaal (Antwerp, Belgium), golden pigment on Echizen Washi paper, 136 x 67cm