Opening expo "The shape of things: three visions of contemporary Japan"

On Wednesday, December 10, Corals Gallery presents "The Shape of Things: Three Visions of Contemporary Japan," curated by Greta Zuccali, featuring artists Ohgita Katsuya, Ohsumi Hideo, and Takeo Ikegami. The exhibition offers a compelling exploration of contemporary Japan through the sensibilities of three masters invited to engage with the horizon of the European West.

Drawing inspiration from the thought of Suzuki Daisetsu, an eminent scholar of Zen Buddhism, the exhibition is structured around the four fundamental principles of harmony (wa), reverence (kei), purity (sei), and tranquility (jaku), essential elements for understanding the relationship between spirit and form, between interiority and material manifestation. As Daisetsu reminds us, Zen teaches us to grasp the spirit and transcend form, yet at the same time "never ceases to remind us that spirit expresses itself only through forms."

It is from this awareness that the dialogue among the works of the three artists begins.

Ohsumi Hideo entrusts the wind with the role of co-creator in his installations. With a weighted stabilizing mechanism at the center, Ohsumi Hideo's installations create an aesthetic of balance that unfolds gracefully in a dance when activated by the natural force of a gust of wind. The works "move with the wind," revealing the fragile harmony of nature and embodying the concept of 間 (ma), the suspended space of waiting, breathing, and pause that simultaneously unites and separates. In the gentle oscillation of his structures, Ohsumi captures the imperceptible, offering viewers the poetics of the instant and of becoming.

Ohgita Katsuya, on the other hand, constructs a dialogue with light through the medium of glass. His transparent and vibrant works reflect and absorb natural luminosity in an interplay of reflections that transfigures the everyday landscape he observes—houses, mountains, rain, sea, stars- into a contemplative dimension. His works become visual thresholds where light expands, evoking a sense of quietude and harmony that envelops the exhibition space.

On the pictorial plane, Takeo Ikegami translates the same tension toward natural equilibrium into the language of ink. His painting emerges from the encounter between spontaneous gesture and compositional rigor, exploring that subtle line between control and chance. Through the tarashikomi technique and the calibrated use of grayscale, Ikegami constructs images in which time is deposited in successive layers, a true stratification of the inevitable, where the unexpected becomes an integral part of form. His works, suspended between ancient symbolism and contemporary irony, restore to the viewer the meditative depth of the mark.

Three visions, three languages, one breath: the exhibition thus becomes a meeting place between East and West, between matter and spirit, between gesture and the silence that precedes it. The presence of artist Takeo Ikegami has been made possible through the collaboration of art consultant Andrea Zardin.