For immediate release
Ken Ikeda
Primal Scene - KAFOU
August 19, 2016 – September 3, 2016

eitoeiko is pleased to announce a solo exhibition ‘Primal Scene - KAFOU’ by Ken Ikeda. Ikeda lives andworks in London and this solo show becomes the first time in 12 years for him in Japan.
‘Primal Scene - KAFOU’ is curated by Takayo Iida, an independent curator. At the exhibition, Ikeda
juxtaposes the sounds and visual images inspired by a series of diaries titled ‘Dyspepsia House Days’
written by Japanese author, playwright, essayist and diarist Kafu Nagai (1879-1959). Ikeda also showscollaboration with photographer Shin Suzuki. Nagai was suffered by the Kanto Daishinsai Earthquake(1923), and lived through the outbreak and the defeated of the Pacific War. How does he look on today?

Throwing light on the artist’s own alienation
Takayo Iida

Ken Ikeda’s music is not a device for measuring distance that has flux and linear continuity. His sounds
maintain their autonomy in the temporal continuum, never establishing a hierarchy. The atomized sounds
agglomerate, albeit only barely, through interpenetration with their neighbors. If anything the music isreminiscent of the wanderings of Japanese author and diarist Kafu Nagai, whose writings represented thespirit and culture of everyday Edo. “A little after ten at night, I go out. I love the atmosphere of the area atnight during the rainy period. Especially on nights when it isn’t raining particularly hard, there’s not muchwind, and you can see the moon from time to time as the clouds pass and the rain pauses. On nights likethis it’s good to walk around without an umbrella, absorbed in my thoughts.” (Diary entry for June 27, 1937,published in Dyspepsia House Days). Merging himself into the urban scenery, and strolling around thebackstreets, Kafu was a discoverer of scenery. Somewhere, Kafu has commonalities with Ken Ikeda, who,making his performance into unique, unrepeatable events, is a discoverer of sounds.
At the exhibition, there is another discoverer. Shin Suzuki is an accompanist for Ikeda. Suzuki's
photographs established the exhibition. Kafu noticed that “After an earthquake, Ginza became bustling. Old
Edo town was destroyed. Edokko (Edoite) disappeared.” After the disaster, Ginza was affected by theAmerican culture of the rationalism, and the amusement area of Tokyo moved from Asakusa to Ginza. Anoccurrence was happened at 2:46PM on March 11, 2011, at the birthplace of Shin Suzuki, was still deeply
inside of his memory. He continues to take a record with a camera like a diary. The photographs he showsat the exhibition were taken by the days after months of the disaster. He vanished himself in the scenery.
He keeps on shooting the images, with hope to find out a rebirth in everyday life. Every moment days haveboth of a life and a death. That is the reason I decided the theme of the exhibition ‘Dyspepsia House Days’.
Kafu Nagai, Ken Ikeda and Shin Suzuki’s each life, they provide glimpse of a world completely unrelated todialectical subjects.

Ken Ikeda
Ken Ikeda is an artist, composer and performer born inTokyo, 1964. Currently a resident in London. After studied
at Berklee College of Music, he participated in a lot ofexhibitions such as Desert of Desire, SPIRAL, Tokyo, 1994,
David Lynch’s DREAMS, Parco Gallery, Tokyo, 1998, as amusic composer, PICTURES, SCAI, Tokyo, 1999, Sonc
Boom: The Art of Sound, Hayward Gallery, London, 2000,Instrumental Drawing (Sound Print), 2016

BEHIND THE SCENES, SCAI, 2001, Screen Memories, Mito Art Center, Ibaraki, 2002, Unspecialization,SCAI, 2004, Roppongi Crossing, Mori Art Museum, 2004. He composed for the artworks and exhibitions byHiroshi Sugimoto, Mariko Mori, Satoshi Aoyama, Tadanori Yokoo, David Lynch and others. He performed
with John Russel, Eddie Prevost, David Toop, Paul G. Smith and others in London with primitive acousticsounds by his original instruments and pure sine waves by DX7.
Ikeda released his first album “Tzuki” from Touch, UK, 2000. And then he released “Merge”, Touch, 2003,“The Mist of Rainbow”, SPEKK, 2007, “Kosame”, SPEKK, 2010. In 2016, the newest full album “PrimalScene” will be released from SAD.

Shin Suzuki
Shin Suzuki was born in 1980, Fukushima. After received his BA
Photography from Tokyo Polytechnic University, Suzuki works
with a lot of commercial photographs and videos as well as hisself projects. In 2008 he published his photo book “Shashin” fromBOOK PEAK. He opens to public over 100,000 images of his
archives at his website, holds over 30 workshops in a year, gives
lectures in schools and universities, and opens his portrait studio.

Untitled, 2011

Over 6,000 models have been taken at his studio.

Exhibition Title: Primal Scene - KAFOU
Artist: Ken Ikeda
Schedule: August 19(FRI), 2016 - September 3(SAT), 2016
Opening Party: August 19(FRI), 7PM-9PM
Live Performance: August 27(SAT) OPEN 4PM /START 4.30PM | Fee 2,000JPY *see website for details
Guest artist: Shin Suzuki
Curator : Takayo Iida
Design: Nanami Norita

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