Daisuke Yokota | Room. Pt. 1

This exhibition is composed of not only two-dimensional works, but also installations and multi-channel video content. It showcases photos of hotel rooms taken from a fixed perspective over the course of many years, as well as the various caves and natural sites that the artist has visited.
For an artist, memory and the past are not static entities; rather, they evolve depending on the state of the subject who recalls them. This can be said to be a consistent theme that undergirds all of the artist’s works from his ‘1_WALL’ exhibition to the present moment. An image that is bound to any particular ‘support medium’ is no more than a temporary phenomenon, for it can transition between various media and appear to the viewer as the same image at times and as a slightly different image at other times. The collection of these images resists being combined by the mind into a coherent memory, and they emerge in a fragmentary manner when you least expect it.

Artist’s Message

“I want to create something new.“
“I must create something new.”
This is what I had been thinking that to myself for the past few years as I went on creating the same works as always, while continuing to live my slow, self-indulgent life.
However, new ideas are not always easy to encounter, and having said that, as someone without the knowledge, skills, or connections that would allow me to make use of the latest technology, I have no choice but to create the same works over and over again while constantly reminding myself that I need to be mentally prepared to do away with my obsession with ‘newness’.

What exactly is time?

I remember vaguely asking myself that question around the time that I was in elementary school. I wondered why it was that I was able to think about and, what’s more, remember all these various things right now when I would die in the future anyway. I was confronted by the fear that I would never arrive at the answer. Since being confronted by this fear, I no longer think about that all the time, although I have probably still thought about it quite a bit more than other things. Before I knew it, 35 years had passed, which is not a short time by any means. The only thing I finally understood is simply that I am interested in time, and the core of my question of what time is remains unresolved. However, I was suddenly able to intuitively grasp my own sense of what the answer to that question might be in the midst of chatting with my friend at night a few years ago. Time is that which is a part of all things.

Although I cannot claim that my epiphany is entirely new, this exhibition features works that are part of what I can (hopefully) call my own second stage, at least in the sense that I have achieved some form of progress in a question I have always wondered about.
(Quoted from website.)