Keio Museum Commons (KeMCo) commissions artworks by Enrico Isamu Oyama
September 29, 2020
Keio Museum Commons (KeMCo) is a new university museum set to open in the Spring of 2021. Commissioned works by Enrico Isamu Oyama, “FFIGURATI #314,” will be installed at KeMCo’s cutting edge on-site creative studio: “KeMCo StudI/O.”
Photo: Mural by Enrico Isamu Oyama, Keio Shiki Boys Senior High School (2003) Photo © Shu Nakagawa
KeMCo serves as a hub connecting the collections of cultural assets across various disciplines which have been accumulated over the 160-year-plus history of Keio University, including education and research activities behind the scenes. KeMCo endeavors to connect the various collections and activity spheres at Keio by means of providing a stage for exhibitions, and preparing educational and research programs which reconcile the real (analog) and the digital.
KeMCo StudI/O is a unique studio facility to support KeMCo’s activities, equipped with the latest digital imaging and measurement apparatus as well as devices for digital fabrication. At the studio, you can interact with and learn about the relationship between digital creations and the actual artworks, while getting a close up look at the practical aspects of putting on exhibitions and keeping collections at the museum. It will also facilitate opportunities to develop mixed media creative works.
Enrico Isamu Oyama, himself a graduate of Keio University, is an artist who gives expression to his works in mixed media, based on his unique “Quick Turn Structure” motif, which took its initial cues from street art. With the overlap between Mr. Oyama’s interests and the KeMCo concept of bridging the digital and the analog, he accepted our request to take on the task of creating artwork which would symbolize the KeMCo StudI/O and even KeMCo itself.
Production on the work started on site from September 25, marking the completion of construction work on the new facility. Enrico Isamu Oyama’s artwork will be shared publicly at a KeMCo preview event starting October 26.
*For further information, please refer to the PDF file.
Related events
Enrico Isamu Oyama talk event
October 28 (Wed.), 2020 18:30–20:30
Enrico Isamu Oyama & Yohko Watanabe (KeMCo Vice Director/KUAC professor)
Hosted on Zoom webinar. Pre-registration is required.
Public showing of artwork at the KeMCo preview event
October 26 (Mon.) – October 30 (Friday), 2020
Online presentation
*Please refer to the KeMCo website for more event details.
“FFIGURATI #314”
The term FFIGURATI is an original coinage combining the word graffiti and the Italian expression figùrati (literally translated as “figure it out yourself”).
In contrast to the “Quick Turn Structure” motifs which Enrico Isamu Oyama consistently uses in his artworks, “FFIGURATI” are individual pieces with unique mediums and techniques, numbered in the order of their creation. In #314 installed in the KeMCo studio, Enrico Isamu Oyama takes on the challenge of working in a new medium.
Enrico Isamu Oyama
Born in Tokyo in 1983. Graduated from the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University in 2007, and the Graduate School of Art, Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai), with a specialization in Inter-media Art in 2009.
He gives expression to his works in mixed media from his departure point of “Quick Turn Structure” motifs, a re-appropriation of aerosol writing that is attracting attention in the sphere of modern art.
Fascinated by aerosol writing from when he was in senior high school, he began to draw three-dimensional black and white patterns using repeated, flowing lines, influenced by this culture centered on New York in the 70s and 80s. Subsequently he christened this motif “Quick Turn Structure,” and continues to express himself on the borderline between modern art and this street culture.
His major exhibitions include Kairosphere (Pola Museum of Art, Hakone), 2019; Viral (Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, Kobuchizawa), 2019; Inside Out (Tower 49 Gallery, New York), 2019; and Ubiquitous: Enrico Isamu Oyama (Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas), 2017. His published works include: The Semantics of Aerosols: Post-pandemic Thought and Art (Seidosha, 2020); The True Face of Street Art ― New York Aerosol Writing Culture (Seidosha, 2020); Art of the Street ― From Twombly to Banksy (Kodansha, Senshomechie, 2020); Against Literacy: On Graffiti Culture (LIXIL Publishing, 2015); and, SIGNALS! Imagination of Aerosol Writing Resonating (Author, editor, Bijutsu Techo, issue Jun., 2017; Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha Co., Ltd.) He is also active on multiple other fronts including collaborations with Comme des Garçons and Shu Uemura Cosmetics.
Enrico Isamu Oyama exhibition “Noctilucent Cloud”
December 14, 2020 – January 23, 2021, Kanagawa Kenmin Hall Gallery
https://yakouun.net/
