Artists: Alex Ito and Masami Kubo
Exhibition title: Bouquet Complex
Venue: Kimberly-Klark, New York, US
Date: April 16 – May 22, 2016
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Kimberly-Klark, New York
Somewhere within an aloof horizon, there is a menagerie of unraveling objects. Exhausted by the infinite parading of sentiment, rarely do the objects tell much of themselves. Upon realizing the irony of their circumstances, the objects collapse and the menagerie blushes; a bouquet of sorts.
Kimberly-Klark is pleased to present Bouquet Complex, a two-person exhibition by Alex Ito and Masami Kubo.
Bouquet Complex presents a series of artifacts and familial ephemera that navigate the materialization of trauma and sentiment. Framed by architectural installation, Ito and Kubo design a platform for performance and sculpture that investigates the entanglement between images, power and personal history. In doing so, they shed light on narratives that would otherwise be obscured by rapid transformations within the contemporary technopolitical climate.
Kubo’s Figure 02: A History of Two Chairs is the second part of an ongoing series of slideshow presentations and sculptural installations investigating a relationship between technology, image culture, and belief systems. The slideshow depicts Kubo’s upbringing under the religious movement Unificationism, in dialogue with pop culture and art history. The motif of chairs throughout Kubo’s slideshow bridges commodified sacred spaces within the Unification Church to various popular representations of chairs throughout time. By exploring a disjointed history of chairs, Kubo demystifies and recontextualizes the complexes of belief, beginning with the Unification Church and broadening the conversation.
Ito’s 9066(Hideyuki/Sueko) continues the artist’s investigation of the relationship between intimacy and violence in consumer culture. The work comprises of a commercial vitrine housing propaganda cartoons by Dr. Seuss during World War II, portraits of Ito’s family after World War II and plastic replicas of carvings made by Ito’s grandfather during his imprisonment at a Japanese internment camp. The commodifying display of the vitrine creates a mechanism that abstracts and flattens Ito’s materials into a singular image, obscuring and assaulting the original references. Ito’s mechanism illustrates the dilution of cultural narratives by pop-culture and state power.
Alex Ito (b.1991 Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Ito has recently exhibited at Galerie Jeanroch Dard, Brussels; Franz Josefs Kai 3, Vienna; The Still House Group, New York; Et Al, San Francisco; Johannes Vogt Gallery, NY; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle; and Sade, Los Angeles. Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at AALA, Los Angeles and Springsteen, Baltimore.
Masami Kubo (b. 1990, Seattle, WA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Kubo has exhibited in various projects at Formerly Gallery, Brooklyn; Recess Arts, New York; Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York; and The Lubalin Center, New York. Upcoming projects include the release of her online based project, Moonscraper, set for 2016.
Masami Kubo, Figure 02: A History of Two Chairs, 2016
Masami Kubo, Figure 02: A History of Two Chairs, 2016
Alex Ito, I/ You Left Behind, 2016
Alex Ito, I/ You Left Behind, 2016
Alex Ito, Hideyuki/Sueko (9066), 2016
Alex Ito, Hideyuki/Sueko (9066), 2016
Alex Ito, Hideyuki/Sueko (9066), 2016
