Galleri Golsa is proud to present a photographic installation by Motoko Ishibashi, Urara Tsuchiya, and Yuto Kudo for the photo festival, Oslo Negativ, at the old Deichman Library in Oslo (1933-2019). This series of works was first exhibited at V.O Curations in London, under the exhibition title “Assholes”, a solo exhibition by Motoko Ishibashi. Created in Tokyo and during her three-month residency at V.O, presenting a group of new paintings alongside a series of photographs made collaboratively with the artist, Urara Tsuchiya, and fashion photographer, Yuto Kudo.
They have created a multimedia installation comprising a series of photographs displayed unframed directly to the original walls of the back off house library. Created together with Tsuchiya and Kudo during the pandemic in Japan, the series of photos, ⾦泉湯 (Kin Sen Yu), takes the Japanese communal bathhouse, or sentō, as its focus. Dressed in mesh bodysuits and wearing wigs and face paint, Ishibashi and Tsuchiya are photographed performing various acts that defy conventional bathhouse etiquette. With the assistance of props such as fruits, vegetables, sake, and laptop computers, the two artists eat, imbibe, play, and role play. The photographs employ humor and drama as a way to both celebrate and destabilize the bathhouse as a traditional symbol of Japanese culture.
Motoko Ishibashi’s (b. 1987, Nagasaki, Japan) practice amalgamates Western and Japanese visual languages through painting, performance, installation, video, photography, and printmaking. Engaging with mass consumer culture as well as digital subcultures, her work considers relations of power, gender, the body, and selfhood within a technologically mediated society.
Motoko Ishibashi received her MFA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (2015), her BFA in Painting at Slade School of Fine Art, London (2013), and a BA in Aesthetics and Science of Arts: Philosophy at Keio University, Tokyo (2010). Ishibashi’s work has been featured at V.O Curations, London (2021), Courtyard Hiroo, Tokyo (2020), Lady Helen, London (2019), Pact, Paris (2019), Polansky Gallery, Prague (2018), and Fig, Tokyo (2018). Forthcoming exhibitions include a two-person show with Gray Wielebinski at Quench Gallery, Margate (2021), and a solo project in Tokyo (2021).
Urara Tsuchiya's (b. 1979, Japan) practice explores the disconcertion that can be found between the personal and social worlds. Her work includes ceramics, performances, and videos. Her performances often incorporate costumes, installations, poetry, sound, and home cooking. These function as props in an alternate environment that make space for different behavior. She works with the boundaries of, for example, animal/human and adult/baby to strange and humorous effects. She is interested in challenging the viewer to negotiate his or her own personal and physical boundaries. Best known for her hand-painted ceramic bowls with explicit motifs, Urara also explores more complex and surrealistic ceramic sculptures. The sculptures present realistic objects such as suitcases, underwear, or toothbrushes, but with an explicit scenario such as a lamp that looks like a three with animals and naked humans climbing on it or a sauna with humans in sexual and intimate positions.
Tsuchiya Tsuchiya did an MFA at Glasgow School of Art and studied fine art at Goldsmiths University, London. Previous exhibitions include Paos GDL, Guadalajara (2021), Ada Project, Rome (2020), Galleri Golsa, Oslo (2020), Frieze, London (2019), Glasgow International, Glasgow (2018/2021), Trade Gallery, Nottingham (2017) and Union Pacific, London (2016).
Yuto Kudo
(b. 1983, Japan) works with fashion photography and editorials. He graduated from Nihon University College of Art, Department of Photography, and studied under photographer Hiroko Matsubara.
We would like to thank OCA (Office of Contemporary Art), Norway for generous support.
