Kasetsu and Takahiro Miyahara Duo Exhibition "xyz+" Announcement

Since modern times, art has historically been heavily utilized as a means of national governance and promoting national prestige, and sculpture and calligraphy were no exception. This exhibition does not simply deny such historical circumstances but rather attempts to embrace them and return to the origins of expressive styles inherent in sculpture and calligraphy, such as material invariance and high symbolism.
Traditional techniques like "carving" and "writing" require long training, and similarly, "seeing" also inherently requires training. The two artists' endeavors visualize the transformation of space, body, and time through these techniques, thereby questioning the essence of expression and the nature of ownership, and attempting to reconstruct the possibilities of form and language.
Kasetsu, who began calligraphy in childhood, has explored the origins of characters through the writings of Chinese literature scholar Shizuka Shirakawa and continues to create based on meticulous research. In this exhibition, in response to the increasingly chaotic global situation, she presents new works focusing on the characters "口" (mouth) and "鳥" (bird).
Kasetsu quotes linguist Katsuhiko Tanaka's discourse that "humans are positioned within two axes, body and language, from the moment they are born, and cannot exit them" (*1), while also pointing out that "writing a single kanji character can be seen as a form of wordplay," finding the blank spaces and possibilities that exist within linguistic structures. This can be called a kind of conviction, backed by her continuous practice of workshops targeting diverse audiences both domestically and internationally. Kasetsu states, "Japanese kanji, which have multiple readings and meanings, encourage individual interpretations. There is no single correct answer, and this 'lack of correctness' leads to play. However, a 'question' always exists at its root." Kasetsu's calligraphy, by unraveling the complex language and history of Japanese and deconstructing fixed perspectives, will encourage a "play" that re-examines ourselves and the diverse ways of being in the world.
And Takahiro Miyahara also draws on the ideas of historian Johan Huizinga, who defined humanity as "playing man," "thinking man," and "making man" (*2), finding commonalities with sculpture. Miyahara, who states, "The beginning of sculpture is said to be when humans played by drilling holes in stones. Later, the club held by 'making man' (Homo Faber) turned into a weapon. All three of these elements also apply to sculpture," learned special effects makeup techniques before studying modern sculpture, Mono-ha, and Minimal Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. While confronting the purity of matter, he also pursues the question of "how sculpture transforms if information and action are treated as mediums," and has previously presented many works that challenge the uncertainty of vision using silicone oil and matte black paint.
In this exhibition, Miyahara focuses on "silicon," which is inherent in all matter from humans to semiconductors and connects matter to matter, in an installation that shakes modern boundaries such as organic and inorganic, human and machine, self and other. In this process, he advocates "silicon queer," attempting to deconstruct existing human views from a sculptural perspective and redefine existence as something rewritten through technological evolution. Furthermore, for the first time in this exhibition, he invites sculptor and performer Tamao Otsuka to attempt a performative installation that reproduces the sculptor's bodily movements while showing images through goggles. In an era where AI and technological evolution have integrated the real world into the digital, making "logging out" difficult, this exhibition explores how our cognition and social structures are changing, and to what extent we recognize the space that defines our thoughts and actions. Please come and see the works of both artists, which traverse ancient, modern, and future time axes and spaces.
(*1) "Kotoba to Kokka" (Language and the State) by Katsuhiko Tanaka (Iwanami Shinsho)
(*2) "Homo Ludens" by Johan Huizinga (Chuko Bunko)

Text: Toko Suzuki

[Exhibition Outline]
Exhibition Title: xyz+
Artists: Kasetsu, Takahiro Miyahara
Dates: 2026.5.9 sat. – 6.7 sun.
Open: 13:00-19:00 Thu-Sun
Opening Reception: 5.9 sat. 18:00-20:00

Planning: island JAPAN
www.islandjapan.com
info@islandjapan.com

6-12-9-2F BLOCK HOUSE Jingumae Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001 JAPAN
www.blockhouse.jp

HARUKAITO

Photo by KABO

Kasetsu

Born in Kyoto Prefecture in 1975. Resides in Tokyo. Graduated from Ritsumeikan University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Philosophy, Psychology. Began solo exhibitions focusing on single-character calligraphy in 1992. In childhood, when she started learning calligraphy, she encountered a Chinese-Japanese dictionary by Shizuka Shirakawa, a researcher of East Asian character culture, and has since explored Chinese characters.