April 03 - 27, 2024
at MtK Contemporary Art, Kyoto, JapanLa Promesse d’Avril

Sheila Hicks
Yasuko Hirano
Yasuhisa Kohyama
Kenjiro Okazaki
Kaz Oshiro
Tobias Pils
Mungo Thomson

galerie frank elbaz.

La Promesse d’Avril
20-1 Okazaki Minamigoshocho
Sakyo Ward, Kyoto
606-8334 Japan
April 03 – 27, 2024

“ One afternoon in the space of a cherry tree in Kyoto, and here I am lifted to thehighest heights of the inebriation of existing.”- René Depestre

galerie frank elbaz is delighted to announce its upcoming exhibition, La Promesse
d’Avril, to be held in Kyoto throughout the month of April.
The idea to open an exhibition in Kyoto during the cherry blossom season reflects
our desire to introduce the local audience to the works of various artists with theintention to pursue further exchanges and to mark the beginning of newcollaborations. Much like blooming spring announces the forthcoming fruit, thisexhibition is also a promise of exciting future projects.
For over two decades, galerie frank elbaz has been dedicated to promoting bothinternational and Japanese contemporary artists. On the occasion of the La
Promesse d'Avril group exhibition, we will present a selection of works by Sheila
Hicks, Yasuko Hirano, Yasuhisa Kohyama, Kenjiro Okazaki, Kaz Oshiro, Tobias Pils,and Mungo Thomson.

ギャラリー ・ フランク ・ エルバス

La Promesse d’Avril - ４月の萌〒 606-8334
京都府京都市左京区岡崎南御所町 20-1

2024 年 4 月 3 日〜 27 日

” ある日の午後京都の桜咲く空間で、 私は生きているという喜びの境地に達した。 ”- ルネ ・ デペストル

ギャラリー ・ フランク ・ エルバスは、 この４月京都にて、 展覧会 La Promesse d’Avril - ４月の萌 を開催いたします。
桜の季節に京都で展覧会を開くという考えは、 様々なアーティストの作品を地域の皆様に紹介することでさらなる交流を深め、 新たな結びつきの始まりをここに記したいという、 私達の思いを表しています。 花咲く春が果実の実りをも告げるように、 この展覧会は心踊る未来のプロジェクトを予期するものでもあるのです。
ギャラリー ・ フランク ・ エルバスは 20 年以上にわたり、 国内外で活躍する現代アーティストの紹介に尽力して参りました。 この度のグループ展 La Promesse d’Avril - ４月の萌 では、 シーラ・ヒックス、 平野泰子、 神山易久、 岡崎乾二郎、 カズ ・ オオシロ、 トビアス ・ ピルス、 マンゴ ・ ト
ムソンの作品を展示いたします。

galerie frank elbaz.

Tobias Pils
Born in 1971, Linz, Austria.
Working within a palette of blacks and whites and the range of grays that can be made from them,
Tobias Pils creates mixed media paintings full of abstract and representational elements. Theseelements are often arranged so that they flow from one to the next seemingly of their own accord,obeying the dictates of a painterly logic that generates meaning through the accumulation ofmany small moments. As such, Pils’s works are endlessly captivating as arrangements of textures,
flows, and material invention—in a sense, as symphonic, non-objective compositions, even when
their mythological content and primal imagery tempt narrative readings. This syncretic approachreflects a mind that revels in contradictions, even as it seeks to suture together contrasting passages
with a subtle and virtuosic array of mark-making strategies that are alternately bold, incisive,impressionistic, and completely open to the innate properties of paint medium and support. Pils
works at a variety of scales and in different contexts, responding to the urgency of his own
intuition and the external constraints of architectural and institutional settings with equal fluency.
In each of these forums, he locates the places where the vast and the intimate meet, both in thephysical world and the human psyche alike.

galerie frank elbaz.

Tobias Pils
Appletree (lovers), 2019
Acrylic and oil on canvas
155,5 x 100 cm (61 1/4 x 39 3/8 in.)UniquePIL2019-3435

galerie frank elbaz.

Mungo Thomson
Born in 1969, Davis, USA.
The wide-ranging, multi-media work of Mungo Thomson approaches mass culture and everyday
perceptual experience through a lens of deep time and cosmic scale, implicating the spaces ofproduction and exhibition along the way in ever-widening extrapolations.
Mungo Thomson’s TIME mirrors are person-sized, silkscreened mirrors bearing the iconic logo
and red border of the international weekly news magazine TIME. The mirrors are based on
individual covers of the magazine that reference cultural or cosmological notions of time, history,perception and encounter.

galerie frank elbaz.

Mungo Thomson
January 1, 2000 (Welcome to a New Century), 2022
Enamel on low-iron mirror, poplar and anodized aluminum
188 x 142 x 6 cm (74 x 55 7/8 x 2 3/8 in.)Unique
THO2022-2942

galerie frank elbaz.

Kenjiro Okazaki
Born in 1955, Tokyo, Japan.
Kenjiro Okazaki is a Japanese visual artist whose works span over several genres, including
painting, sculpture, as well as landscape and architecture. Many of his works has been featured
in public collections throughout Japan and in various exhibitions around the world. In 2002,
Okazaki was selected as the director of the Japanese pavilion of the International Architecture
Exhibition in Venice Biennale. His works include a collaborative performance «I Love my Robot»
with choreographer Trisha Brown. He received Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden (HMSG) in 2014.
Okazaki is also extremely active as a theoretician and critic, and is the author or co-authorof several books, including Renaissance: «Condition of Experience» (Bunshun Gakugei Library,2015) featuring his analysis of Filippo Brunelleschi, and «Abstract Art as Impact: The Concrete
Genealogy of Abstract Art» (Akishobo, 2018), which received the Minister of Education Awardfor Fine Arts in 2019.

galerie frank elbaz.

Kenjiro Okazaki
How Many Generations Has the Princess Pine on the Banks of Suminoe Been /日月山水, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
18,2 x 25,1 x 3 cm (7 1/8 x 9 7/8 x 1 1/8 in.)Unique
OKA2023-3377

galerie frank elbaz.

Sheila Hicks
Born in 1934, Hastings, USA.
Since the late 1950s, Sheila Hicks has been producing work exceptionally difficult to categorise.
Knotting, wrapping, folding, twisting and stacking wool, linen and cotton: these are only someof the techniques and materials that have seen her undermine conventional artistic categories
and their hierarchical relationships. A pupil of Josef Albers at Yale, Sheila Hicks is the heir toboth a Modernist spirit that holds the distinctions between fine art, decoration and design to be
unimportant and a textile practice that has its roots in pre-Columbian America.
If Sheila Hicks chose textiles, it is because from clothes to furniture, interior decoration and on tothe canvas that undergirds the high art of painting, these are materials that life constantly puts in
our way, in a vast variety of contexts. It also allows works to remain alive, taking different forms
each time they are shown. Ductile and tactile, Hicks’s work occupies a singular place in the art ofour time. It combines forms typical of modernism with non-Western traditions, the play of colour,
and a concern to maintain the vital openness of the work.

galerie frank elbaz.

Sheila Hicks
TBD, 2024
Synthetic fiber, cotton and linen
Variable dimensions
Unique
HIC2024-3437

galerie frank elbaz.

Yasuhisa Kohyama
Born in 1936, Shigaraki, Japan.
Shigaraki is a historical ceramics production centre in Japan, Yasuhisa Kohyama has played asignificant part in reviving the use of the traditional Japanese anagama wood-firing kiln, being thefirst potter in the area to build such a kiln since the Middle Ages. He is a contemporary master of
the ancient practice of Sueki, a method that originated in southern China, which accounts for his
unglazed yet glassy surface textures.
Kohyama’s pieces are collected internationally and exhibited widely in Japan and overseas. Hisworks are included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Art and
Design in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Denver
Art Museum or The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as in several museums across theNetherlands and Germany.

galerie frank elbaz.

Yasuhisa KohyamaSora, 2005
Stoneware, unglazed wood firing
48 x 51 x 51 cm (18 7/8 x 20 1/8 x 20 1/8 in.)Unique
KOH2005-3430

galerie frank elbaz.

Kaz Oshiro
Born in 1967, Okinawa, Japan.
Creating sculptures from paintings, Kaz Oshiro pushes the limits of both mediums, merging
abstraction, conceptualism, and representation.
« At first glance, California Calligraphy may seem to deviate from Oshiro’s previous works, whichmeticulously replicate everyday objects down to the finest details. Nevertheless, the artist hasalways considered the dust, stains, and scratches he intentionally applies to amplifiers, trash bins,
and steel beams as part of his abstract expression. Oshiro firmly acknowledges the transformative
impact the Abstract Expressionist movement and the «death of painting» had on the medium—yet
as he continues to seek the true essence and meaning of painting, he maintains the belief thatthe ultimate purpose of art is the pursuit of abstract ideas. His practice represents a continuous
endeavor to create work that aligns with such inner convictions, and this new series embodies theartist’s unwavering commitment to abstraction more strongly than ever before. »— Haruna Takeda

galerie frank elbaz.

Kaz Oshiro
California Calligraphy (Founder), 2024
Acrylic and Polyurethane on stretched canvas.
61 x 91,4 x 4,4 cm (24 x 36 x 1 3/4 in.)UniqueOSH2024-3446

galerie frank elbaz.

Yasuko Hirano
Born in 1985, Toyama prefecture, Japan.
There is a profound «scenery» embedded in her artworks. She began to observe the space or
phenomena that emerged through the layering of paints. Her pursuit while creating her works isto reinforce the perspective she holds while exploring «uncertain matters».
Her major solo exhibitions include «Twilight» (Masayoshi Suzuki Gallery, 2019), «Twilight» (Masayoshi Suzuki Gallery, 2012), «To Be Called» (Gallery PARC, 2018), «Uncertain Map» (CALM& PUNK GALLERY, 2018), «Yasuko Hirano: Unfold Room» (Gallery Stoop, 2020).
Additionally, her prominent group exhibitions encompass «VOCA 2015» (The Ueno RoyalMuseum, 2015) and «New Positions 2021» (Taguchi Fine Art, 2021).

galerie frank elbaz.

Yasuko Hirano
Superposition 2403, 2024
Oil, plaster and glue on canvas and woodenpanel
41 x 38 cm
Uniquegalerie frank elbaz.

La Promesse d’Avril
April 03 - 27, 2024
opening April 03
galerie frank elbaz in Kyoto
at MtK Contemporary Art, Kyoto, Japan
more information: jana@galeriefrankelbaz.com
in Japanese: zaal@mtkcontemporaryart.com