Takanao Kaneko solo show : Black Noise

Takanao Kaneko, born 1977 in Saitama Prefecture, draws monster characters suggestive of the vague sense of insecurity that dominates today’s daily life. He says that monsters are a transformation of human beings, and he refers also to Japanese legends of animistic creatures such as tsukumogami, or spirits said to reside in old tools and equipment, and which trick people. He refers further to the surplus, unprocessable data that overflows from our information society.

At this first solo show at Art Front Gallery, Kaneko will exhibit works using old gadgets, such as radio controls for toy cars, typewriters and computer keyboards as supporting media. Until now he has mostly worked in two dimensions, mainly using illustration, though he has sometimes combined objects retrieved from routine situations. Now, he places more emphasis on conceptualisations, and for the first time creates installations to visualize the ubiquitous, unseen anxiety of daily life. He takes gadgets intended to manipulate information, but uses them to suggest the intermittent and vague sense of unease found within information itself. Kaneko’s work derives from two themes: erased information and inerasable information. People have always thought and created with their hands, but tools may accelerate on their own. This may be the corollary of the losing control ourselves. He will render this tragicomic situation in a cool and detached manner.