Observatory 2, mixed media on canvas, 2010 © Kounosuke Kawakami
Artist talkThursday 23 June – Tuesday 2 August 2011
Ruins
Drinks reception from 8:00pm
Daiwa Foundation Japan House
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
By Dr Brian Dillon, Writer and Research Fellow, University of Kent and Kounosuke Kawakami, the artist of (H)allo-poiesis at Daiwa Foundation Japan House. The discussion was introduced and chaired by Joanna Greenhill, former Course Director MA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins.
About the contributors
Dr Brian Dillon
Dr Brian Dillon studied English and Philosophy in Dublin before acquiring a PhD from University of Kent in 1995. He was a freelance writer and editor before returning to Kent as an AHRC Research Fellow in 2008 for his project, Ruins of the 20th Century, which is an investigation and appreciation of places, built and abandoned in the last hundred years. ‘The ruin has been a rich source of metaphors for personal grief, the passing away of civilizations and the melancholy fact of universal decay’. His publications include: Irish Book Award winning ‘In the Dark Room’ (Penguin, 2005), ‘Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives’ (Penguin, 2009) and ‘Sanctuary’ (Lukas & Sternberg, 2010).
Kounosuke Kawakami
Kounosuke Kawakami was born in Yamanashi in 1979 and completed an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in 2004. Often painting abandoned buildings eroded by nature, Kawakami chooses industrial architecture as a symbol for the interaction between nature and humans. In (H)allo-poiesis, Kawakami uses a new visual language to explore his interest in the relationship between man and the natural world. Kawakami exhibits internationally, and has also organised exhibitions as an artist-curator, introducing many young British artists to Japan in shows such as ‘Tech-Mach-Maya-Com’, 2007, in Tokyo, and ‘Japanese artists to London in Twenty’, 2009, at the Dazed and Confused Gallery.