Mitsunori Kitsunai
橘内　光則

Mitsunori Kitsunai operates with his works in the tradition of so-called Appropriation Art, that form of conceptual art which uses the targeted copying of already existing components of art history as an artistic strategy. Kitsunai's main - but not exclusive - role model is the rebellious artist Shōhaku Soga (1730-1781). In the confrontation with Japan's rich pictorial history, anachronistic works of unmistakable charm emerge, which inevitably elicit a smile. As a matter of fact, this also applies even if you are not familiar with the motifs borrowed from the Hokusai Manga or Chōjū-giga picture scrolls. And so in Kitsunai's works, gods of good fortune - with a big belly and an obvious appetite - appear on a kitchen table laid with a typical “continental breakfast” (toast, fried egg and a glass of milk) or elsewhere anthropomorphized animals like rabbits and frogs armed with bows and arrows, in the middle of a table lit by warm candlelight, complete with fruit. The discrepancy between modern, western interiors and old-fashioned, Japanese mythical creatures may suggest the parallelism of tradition and modernity that exists in Japan - with all its advantages and disadvantages.

CV




_{Solo Exhibition “Saturday night dream” Mitsunori KITSUNAI 9 Oct - 30 Oct 2016 TEMPORARY SPACE}