Press Release
Tomohiro Kano, Yoshiaki Kojiro Joint Exhibitio
January 21 (sat) –February 18 (sat), 2017
Tokyo Gallery + BTAP | Tokyo
7F, 8-10-5, Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061
TEL: 03-3571-1808 / FAX: 03-3571-7689
Tokyo Gallery + BTAP is pleased to present the work of Tomohiro Kano, Yoshiaki Kojiro starting
January 21.
Tomohiro Kano was born in Tokyo in 1958. After graduating from the Wako University’s Department
of Fine Arts in Nihonga painting, he worked in a television commercial production company. He
began creating glass works in 1986, and in 1995 he established the Kano Glass Studio in
Yamanashi, Japan. Since then, he has been experimenting with unique glass manufacturing
techniques. His series “Kuuki (Air)” combines glassblowing and casting techniques, and has been
acquired by the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. For this exhibition we will be showing works
that use the techniques used in previous works in a new way, which cast a combination of glass,
bricks, and iron. Kano’s work is always conscious of nature. For example, by incorporating organic
materials such as earth, stone, and sand, he creates cracks in the glass and incorporates those
results as a part of the fabrication process. Kano’s works are also part of the collections at the
Shanghai Museum of Glass, and Real Fábrica de Cristales de la Granja in Spain.
Yoshiaki Kojiro was born in Chiba in 1968. He received his Bachelor of Engineering in architecture in
1992 and a Master’s degree from the Tokyo University of Science in 1994. He worked in an
architecture firm initially, but after becoming fascinated by the process of glassblowing he pursued a
career as a glass artist. Using a technique called kiln work, in which glass is fired an electric kiln, he
began creating foam glass works. Kojiro has stated that he “wants to follow through and create a
structure that is born from material, heat, and gravity,” all the while being aware of the effects of the
firing process. His work is an attempt at relating the world to himself. Currently he maintains a studio
in Gifu, Japan, and exhibits his work in museums and galleries in Japan and around the world.
The similarity between Kano and Kojiro, who both do not have a traditional background in craft,
thereby not being constrained by its ideals of “beautility” that craft practices impose, is the way they
use glass as a material. By observing the characteristics of glass in its the liquid state, and the
medium’s expansion and shrinkage according to heat in the environment, both artists acknowledge
that they themselves are also materials that change according to the environment. What lies at the
core of both their practices is an understanding of the pre-modern Japanese perspective of nature.
They aim to question the artist’s relationship to materiality, which transcends the divisions between
painting, sculpture, and craft that modern art has engendered.
For press inquiries: Kayo Suzuki
e-mail: kayo.suzuki@tokyo-gallery.com / website: www.tokyo-gallery.com
In Beijing | LI DI / Criss-Cross
December 20 (tue) – February 28 (tue)
Ceramics Third Street, 798 Art zone E02, 4Jiu Xian Qiao Rd., Chao
Yang District, Beijing, 100015 CHINA
Tokyo Gallery+BTAP|Tokyo
〒
104-0061 7/F, 8-10-5 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
TEL: 03-3571-1808 / FAX: 03-3571-7689
www.tokyo-gallery.com
Opening Hours|(Tues-Fri) 11:00-19:00
(Sat) 11:00-17:00
Closed|Sun, Mon, Holidays
Tomohiro Kano “physis” (2016) glass, stone, sand, iron, calcium sulfate, 14x15x15cm
Yoshiaki Kojiro “remaining composition B01” (2016) glass, aluminium oxide, 49x16x14.5cm