Past Solo Exhibition
Teppei Kaneuji: Endless, Nameless (Constructions) 20.09.2014 — 25.10.2014
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Event has ended
20 September - 25 October 2014
About The Exhibition
Teppei Kaneuji’s artistic practice of collage and sculpture blends familiarity with the unexpected, negotiating real and unreal spaces. His creations are known for their disparate parts, amassed and reconstructed to form striking statement pieces that provoke the imagination and tease the mind.
Building upon a fascination with the complexities and pluralities of objects, Kaneuji toys with our notions of reality and fiction with new works created at STPI. The multi-varied series titled Games, Dance and the Constructions reflect his explorations in the relationship between the ‘formless’ image and the ‘tangible’ object, crossing dimensions and contexts by giving form and substance to ready-made, two-dimensional manga illustrations rendered in plywood, mirrors, handmade paper, and most strikingly—stuffed soft sculptures.
Works such as Ghost Building and The Eternal continue Kaneuji’s practice of transforming everyday materials by collapsing their boundaries and restructuring the seemingly superfluous into elements for surface play, while the patterned acrylic surfaces in Model of Something induces optical illusions and depth.
Unique to this body of work is the Singapore-inspired series Games, Dance and the Constructions (Singapore) that reveal the city’s influence on the artist. Drawn to the chaos and order of the multicultural landscape, Kaneuji captures his residency experience by layering fiction and patterns with images of Haw Par Villa, HDB and durians—reflecting the city that was to him, a collage in itself.
Kaneuji has exhibited in major cities around the world including Shanghai, Sydney, St Petersburg, New York, Los Angeles and Gwangju, and has participated in the 2011 Singapore Biennale. Public art collections include the Yokohama Museum of Art, Mori Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. He is represented by ShugoArts (Tokyo), Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (Sydney), Lombard Freid Gallery (New York) and Eslite Gallery (Taipei).
About the artist
Teppei Kaneuji
Residency in 2013
Teppei Kaneuji (1978, born and based in Kyoto, Japan) uses found images and materials from his surroundings to examine questions of value, accumulation and waste in Japan’s post-war culture of commodification. Through collaging and assemblages, he combines these unrelated objects to form two- and three-dimensional works, injecting them with new visual characteristics to disrupt our immediate perception of them.
In his renowned series White Discharge (2002–ongoing), sculptural forms made from unexpected combinations of objects—toy figurines, traffic cones, plastic food and hangers—are partially coated in white resin, with visible drip lines. Their appearance sits between liquid and solid, drawing viewers into an uncanny visual experience. Over the years, these compositions have ranged from singular wall hangings to fantastical landscapes of monumental scale. In his Ghost Buildings (2016–ongoing) series, Kaneuji reworks leftover outlines of children’s sticker sheets into freestanding folding screens and collage-paintings. This body of work evokes a sense of familiarity, while retaining a sense of elusiveness.
Kaneuji obtained his BFA and MFA in Sculpture from Kyoto City University of the Arts in 2001 and 2003 respectively. His work can be found in major collections including Yokohama Museum of Art; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Takamatsu City Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris.
Notable recent exhibitions include A Personal View of Japanese Contemporary Art (2024), The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; Collection Highlights + Collection Relations (2023), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Zhang Ding & Teppei Kaneuji (2023), HOW Art Museum, Shanghai; The Cuteness Factor (2023), Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest; S.F. (Something Falling/Floating) (2022), Ichihara Lakeside Museum; En/trance (2020), The Japan Society, New York; Eraser Forest (2020), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Traveling with Glasses (2018), Aomori Museum of Art; and Playtime (2018), Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.
The artist has also participated in major international festivals including 6th Yanbaru Art Festival (2023), Okinawa; 5th Setouchi Triennale (2022), Okayama; 2nd Oku-Noto Triennale (2021), Suzu; Restoration of the Sea (2019), 4th Setouchi Triennale, Aichi; 7th Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (2018), Niigata; 6th OpenART Biennial (2017), Örebro, Sweden; Artist Making Movement (2015), 5th Asian Art Biennial, Taichung; Little Water (2013), 3rd Dojima River Biennale, Osaka; and Open House (2011), 3rd Singapore Biennale.
Kaneuji had his residency at the STPI Workshop in 2013, resulting in the exhibition Endless, Nameless (Constructions) (2014).
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