Hans Andersson, 《untitled》, 2020, Mixed media on found paper, 49.5 × 42 cm ©️Hans Andersson

LOKO GALLERY is pleased to present “Repetitions” from December 18, 2020, until January 22, 2021. The exhibition is co-curated by Stockholm-based artist Hans Andersson, who had a solo exhibition at LOKO GALLERY in 2017, and Tokyo/Berlin-based art dealer and curator Kazuhide Miyashita. Seven artists from Sweden and Japan will present works created through repeating/iterative actions, or works that are in themselves repetition.

Hans Andersson (1979- ) and Ylva Carlgren (1984- ), who have lived and worked in Japan, have been inspired by the attitudes rooted in Japanese life. Christine Ödlund (1963- ) works in various media such as painting, sculpture, video, sound, and music; here she brings image-based work on the hidden phenomena on plants and insects. Russian-born Alina Chaiderov (1984- ), who currently lives and works in Sweden, presents sculptures that combine objects to reconstruct fragments of personal memories.

Artists from Japan include Yutaka Matsuzawa (1922- 2006), who is widely known abroad as a pioneer of conceptual art and has been re-evaluated in Japan in recent years, as well as Tomoharu Murakami (1938- ), who continues to work in solitude with his unique abstract expression, and Hiroshige Utagawa (1797-1858), an ukiyo-e artist who has influenced the history of Western painting. This exhibition will present a group of works that transcend existing styles and frameworks in art history.

These works based on repetition and iteration create various cycles filling the three-dimensional space of the LOKO GALLERY, as the artists capture the passing moments.

Participating Artists（alphabetical order）
Alina Chaiderov
Christine Ödlund
Hans Andersson
Hiroshige Utagawa
Tomoharu Murakami
Ylva Carlgren
Yutaka Matsuzawa

Hiroshige Utagawa《Plum Garden at Kameido, from the Series One Hundred Scenic Spots of Edo》1857, Color woodblock print on paper, 36.8×25.0cm

 

Yutaka Matsuzawa《Psi Corpse from The Whole Works》1964, Offset printing, 38.4 x 26.0 cm ©️Yutaka Matsuzawa

In Lecture on Nothing (1950), John Cage used repetition to make his listeners aware of their own part of creating the work. He states that listeners commonly view a work of music as being presented for them and tend to forget their own role as participants in its creation. Although repetition is usually associated with being opposed to uniqueness and creativity, there are certainly other sides to it.

In the hermeneutic tradition of interpretation, every new encounter with the already common is given a chance of a new understanding and a new opportunity to view the familiar differently. For Nietzsche, repetition was associated with the eternal return, which Deleuze and Guattari explained as – the power of beginning and beginning again.

”I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

The exhibition spans different media, such as painting, sculpture, and video. Within these various expressions, a group of artists is presenting ways of working with repetitions.Either it may be a deconstruction of language or a way of beginning again.

Hans Andersson / Artist

They do repeat. Existence and non-existence, action and non-action, yin and yang, zero and one.
Activities that are repeated along the same time axis.
Not all events are exactly the same as previous ones, even if they wish for it, but still they do repeat.
Or what we call “repetition” may not really be repetitive.

In the first place, the heart keeps beating even before I was born.
Countless meals and following excretions.
Blinking has already exceeded hundreds of millions of times.
If I live for a while, I wonder how many times I will repeat it until the end.
And what we call repetition comes to an end.
The repetitions become one mass, and it will be repeated further and further.

Kazuhide Miyashita / Dealer/Curator

Cooperated by Yutaka Matsuzawa Psi Room Foundation (Nagano), Ciaccia Levi (Paris)

LOKO GALLERY will be closed from December 28, 2020 [mon] to 2021.1.7 [thu]. Please feel free to contact us by email (info@lokogallery.com) during this period. Thank you for your cooperation.

ARTIST PROFILE: Hans Andersson