[About Exhibition]

We are delighted to host our first exhibition as the Open Creation of Art project at WHAT MUSEUM. The project invites artists to develop new works in a gallery setting, which functions as an open studio and displays their recent pieces. For the first installment, we welcome Masayoshi Nojo, who draws inspiration from natural phenomena and attempts to create various visual experiences by incorporating serendipitous and phenomenological elements into his work. In this Open Creation of Art, the artist will create his new “Links” series, which evokes the growth rings of a tree and wriggling cells. We will also display his notable silver and aluminum leaf-covered “Mirage” series with new additions exclusively produced for this exhibition. We will probe into the artist’s inner world and methods through interviews and videos showing his creative process which was filmed for this exhibition.

Opening a venue for visitors to meet artists means providing an opportunity to gain new insights, allowing them to see the artmaking process that is often inaccessible and nurture a deeper understanding of the artists’ work and thoughts behind it. With the launch of this project, we wish to provide artists with an opportunity to immerse themselves in an unusual setting and studio space while communicating with the public and discovering inspirations for new artistic endeavors. The visitors will be able to relish the changing scenery of work in progress on every visit and communicate with the artists and their works which can only be met here. To introduce a diverse range of artists to the public, we will continue to hold Open Creation of Art in the future.
Workshops and talks will be held as related events in addition to the sale of pieces created during this exhibition.

[Artist creation schedule] (Tentative)

April 29th (Sat)

May 3rd (Wed), 6th (Sat), 10th (Wed), 13th (Sat), 17th (Wed), 20th (Sat), 24th (Wed), 27th (Sat), 31st (Wed)

June 3rd (Sat), 7th (Wed), 10th (Sat), 14th (Wed), 17th (Sat), 21st (Wed), 24th (Sat), 28th (Wed)

July 5th (Wed) and 7th (Fri)

* The artist will stay at the venue daily from 1:00 PM until 5:00 PM.

* The schedule may vary depending on circumstances. Please check the WHAT MUSEUM official social media before your visit.

* The creation will be scheduled for completion early in July, and the completed works will be exhibited at the venue after that.

[About Masayoshi Nojo]

Masayoshi Nojo, born in 1989, completed his MA in Japanese Paintings in 2015. He fuses contemporary visual languages with Japanese aesthetics to explore themes of memory and the passage of time. During his studies, he became interested in collective memory. His exploration of time and memory is achieved using an innovative variety of mixed media and other techniques. He selects mixed media, including photography, to eliminate the arbitrariness of creation. He abstracts form and colors from photographs as the minimum constituent elements of image in memories. By disassembling and reconstructing his photographs with metal foils, the photographs, affected by both light and space transform into forms of faint existence, abstracting the factuality of photography. With this unique process, he conjures a sense of deja-vu in the viewer, evoking their memories from deep within subconscious. (YUKIKO MIZUTANI)

▼Concurrent Exhibition

“ART de Cha Cha Cha − Exploring the DNA of Japanese Contemporary Art −” from the Takahashi Ryutaro Collection at SPACE1, 1st floor and 2nd floor at WHAT MUSEUM