EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow
at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Nov. 2021–Feb. 2022)

An installation of an endless repetition of the horizon line of the pristine ocean/stratum. The entire process was done by hand in complete darkness, a work of a human statue that will never be seen for eternity. (Visitors could also touch this sculpture one at a time in a room of complete darkness.) A ray of golden rain. An 8-meter oil painting by brush, in which small “groups of figures” form a pale rainbow gradation.
Eugene Kangawa’s EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow made him the youngest artist ever to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, where only a few Japanese contemporary artists, including Yayoi Kusama and Yoko Ono, have had solo exhibitions. This epoch-making exhibition, with “the power of imagination” at its core, attracted great attention. By the end of the exhibition, visitors had to wait for two to three hours a day to see the works.

White Painting series, 2017–
Canvas

White Painting is only the collective name for the series, as each piece is titled with the names of the people who kissed the canvases—for instance, the names of about a hundred people.
There are 2 series of this work; one was done by calling out to people on the street in cities around the world (USA, Mexico, Italy, Taiwan...) and the other within a specific community unit such as “a certain family”.

For a certain family series (2017–)
The small For a certain family series (33.3 × 33.3 cm), works done within the community unit of a specific family, began with the creation of a piece for the family of a friend of his.
Portraits on consciousness, timeless portrait-like works are now in possession of more than one family.

The title of the work will officially be “a series of names of all the family members”. For example, “Anna, Ryo, Erika”.
And if there are more family members—for example, they have children—the title of the work would also change. There is flexibility in the concept of family.
This is the smallest form of commission work, but it is also a commission work that lasts forever.

“— THE EUGENE Studio’s White Painting series […] transforming the canvases into nomadic shrines to love and memory… White Painting series returns the monochrome to its iconic if uncertain place between a portal and a thing.”

From “Passion in Monochrome” (2018)
by David Gears, an art critic who contributes his writing to October magazine and other publications.
Read full story

Mr. Tagi’s room and dream #four-handed, 2014
Steel, wood, oil / wood, brass, glass, artificial leather, plaster

Twin Drums was one of Eugene Kangawa’s graduation projects in 2014, a “Research project into the history of sports by a fictional sports scientist.” At the time, the installation consisted of a number of objects, images, and fictional sports workshop devices related to sports, such as chance, probability, the origin of time, domain, dialogue, exchange, and community. This drum set is one of them, recreating the conditions after the workshop was done.

(*The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa hosted an exhibition in 2020 titled Desport, in which the title of the exhibition was Eugene’s graduation works (2013–2014).)
Detail

Playset & Park
“PLAY EARTH PARK” (2022. Apr-May, Jul-Aug)

EUGENE STUDIO considers “playground equipment” as a type of public sculpture, and designed the overall concept for PLAY EARTH PARK, a park for children who will build the future, in Tokyo and Toyama. New playground equipment that fosters imagination was designed by five architects.