Dai-ichi Life Gallery × M5 Gallery

Venue: Dai-ichi Life Gallery
Dai-ichi Life Hibiya First, 1-13-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku

M5 Gallery
1F Shin-Yurakucho Bldg, 1-12-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku

Closed: Saturday, Sunday and national holidays

Overview

From their earliest work, the art duo Nerhol has won acclaim for their ambitious practice between various concepts and disciplines: nature and the artificial, language and iconography, photography and sculpture. They source narratives from the people and places they encounter in their lives. Nerhol’s pieces reveal the accumulation of time while affectionately scrutinizing the particulars of the world around them.

Both exhibitions will be held at Dai-ichi Life Gallery and M5 Gallery. This exhibition is based on the room used by General Douglas MacArthur during the Allied Occupation of Japan, which still exists in the Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company building in Tokyo.  The exhibition forms an attempt to loosely connect distant times and places and seemingly incompatible realities.

Artist Statement
The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company’s head office was built in 1938 and requisitioned by the Allied Occupation forces for six years and ten months, during which it hosted countless historic events. From MacArthur’s office, its interior and furnishings were preserved just as they were during the Occupation (to the VIP and large conference room, where the Occupation authorities supposedly drafted what would become Japan’s Constitution). Eight decades later, we can still sense the important roles this place has played. With the help of the many records and materials from the Asahi Shimbun Photo Archive, we will attempt to tease out the essence that lies behind stories that stretch from the past to the present.

Rooftop (Dai-Ichi Life Bldg.), 2023, Inkjet print, 1940 x 1440 mm, Photo courtesy to Asahi Shimbun (left), Windowsill (MacArthur Room), 2023, Inkjet print, 900 x 560 mm (right)

About

Nerhol is an artist duo created in 2007, composed of Yoshihisa Tanaka and Ryuta Iida. They have previously worked independently but formed a unit once they found a shared interest in raising questions relevant to the contemporary period and communicating them to an audience. Their exploration started with the dissimilation of books, characters and fixed icons around the world.

Since 2011, they have continued to develop their oeuvre by carving stacks of over 200 different photographs of portraits. The images appear to distort the very time axis of the subjects themselves. They have since taken part in exhibitions at museums and galleries both in Japan and abroad, producing works based on organic subjects and image data and recorded footage. Such pieces work to unveil the multilayered manner of existence which tends to be overlooked in our daily lives.

Their major solo exhibitions include “Interview, Portrait, House and Room”, Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (2017), “Promenade”, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa (2016), “Index”, Foam Museum, Amsterdam (2015). Their works are held in several collections including Foam Museum, Amsterdam and Amana photo collection, Tokyo.

Iida was born in 1981 in Shizuoka Prefecture. After receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Nihon University College of Art in 2004, he received his Master’s degree from the Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Intermedia Art. He is currently based in Tokyo.
Tanaka was born in 1980 in Shizuoka Prefecture and has been based in Tokyo since graduating from the Department of Scenography, Display and Fashion Design, at Musashino Art University in 2004.

M5 Gallery

Dai-ichi Life Gallery

Dai-ichi Life has opened a gallery on the first floor of its Hibiya headquarters.

As part of our corporate philanthropic activities, we own VOCA Award-winning works from the contemporary art exhibition “The Vision of Contemporary Art – Artists of New Planes”.

In addition, several times a year, we hold solo exhibitions of award-winning VOCA exhibition artists, providing a place for them to make presentations and a place for the general public to enjoy art at no charge.

M5 Gallery

Since its founding in 2005, Tokyo has participated in the planning and operation of Japan’s largest art fair Tokyo. “M5 GALLERY”, which opened in the fall of 2022, will collaborate with other industries and art and disseminate information by people involved in the arts. They will provide a place to interact with and contribute to the revitalization of the Japanese art market. In addition to planning, organizing and managing exhibitions, they also provide seminars and talks.

Information

Start: Jun 23rd 2023 at 12:00pm

End: Jul 14th 2023 at 5:00pm