Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present “For want of a nail”, an exhibition of works by artist duo Nerhol from June 6^th to July 13^th, 2019.

In the summer of 2018, Nerhol participated in the artist in residence program “KASHIMA,” held in Beppu, Oita Prefecture. During their residency, Nerhol had spent time researching the history of Beppu leading up to the present, centering on its evolvement into one of Japan’s leading hot spring resorts since the early Meiji period and through the two World Wars, all the while experiencing the comings and goings of diverse people and goods. Engaging with the various cultural aspects that had been cultivated amidst the valuable local resource of the hot spring and the natural environment, they also worked to compile an oral history of the people living in Beppu. Conceived as a result were a total of 13 works that were presented in locations throughout the city including Aoi House where they resided during their stay, as well as Beppu Park and the walls of different commercial facilities.

In some elements devised as Tokyo tour of the above project, the exhibition also introduces works that were not featured in the Beppu venue, along with a series of new works that derive from their residency research.

Since the “Strange Attractor” exhibition in 2016 (venue: Yutaka Kikutake Gallery), Nerhol has focused on the diversity of the generative processes inherent in natural environments, animals and plants, as well as manmade artifacts, continuing their attempt to question and reinterpret existing definitions through their works. In our world that finds itself in constant flux, Nerhol’s works, while intimately engaging with their respective motifs, in a broader sense appear to provide us with clues for living within contemporary times.

Nerhol

Nerhol is an artist duo created in 2007 and composed of Yoshihisa Tanaka and Ryuta Iida. Its members previously worked independently, but decided to work as a unit when they found a shared interest in raising questions relevant to the contemporary period and communicating them to an audience. Nerhol has participated in exhibitions in museums and galleries in Japan and abroad and consistently produced works that sharply criticize the perennial cycle of consumption, creation, and obsolescence produced by contemporary economic activities. Their major solo exhibitions include, “Interview, Portrait, House and Room”, Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art,Korea(2017),“Promenade”,21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa(2016),“Index”,Foam Museum, Amsterdam(2015).

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, Musashino Art University in 2004.

Iida was born in 1981 in Shizuoka Prefecture. He graduated from the Program in Sculpture, Department of Fine Arts, Nihon University College of Art, in 2004 and is currently based in Tokyo.