2026.04.30 – 05.23
artist： Taq Otsuka, Foster Mickley, and more
curated by Isabelle Olivier

Events days on 9th and 23rd May
Closed on Sun, Mon, and national holiday
We are pleased to present the exhibition “black cat day dream” in collaboration with the Kyoto-based art space black cat day dream.

Taq Otsuka—who once took part in the hugely popular “Snake Man Show”, where he shared a positive vision of gay life with listeners—and who opened the bar Tacsknot in Shinjuku in 1982, continues his practice as an artist. Alongside him, Foster Mickley, based in Kyoto, presents works across photography, video, poetry, and books. Centered on the works of these two artists, the exhibition offers a glimpse into the distinctive activities of black cat day dream.

“In response to an invitation from Satoko Oe, 「black cat day dream」presents an invitation to a field of flowers.
「black cat day dream」is an artist-run ecological research space, a machiya to welcome and share imagination in Kyoto. Created by artist foster mickley and curator Isabelle Olivier,  it is a collective of artists within visual, sound, dance, and ancient crafts within flower, tea, and kites, we daydream together as friends.
black cat day dream welcomes guests to imagine an art of the possible.
The show is glad to share Embracing the Radio (2022), in friendship and admiration by pioneer artist Taq Otsuka. His voice in the Snake Man Show was a sanctuary for listeners in 1979, and to today. For forty years, his Shinjuku Nichome bar, Taq’s Knot, has been an inseparable artist community.
We invite you, beyond division, to the uncategorical tenderness of flowers.
In rest and wonder, and to living together, we welcome you.”
Isabelle Olivier

During the exhibition period, May 9 (Sat) and May 23 (Sat) will be designated as special event days, with several programmes scheduled throughout each day. We would be delighted if you could join us.

Special Thanks: black cat day dream, Taq Otsuka, Foster Mickley, Isab, hideko ono, Matthew Nakamura, YOKOYAMA TATAMI

2026.01.20 – 02.21
Closed on Sun, Mon, national holiday

The moment an artist calls a work “complete” is nothing more than a temporary point that emerges after countless choices and trials.

In the process of creation, ideas are born, transformed, sometimes regress, and then rise again in new forms. Behind this lies a continuum of time, change, hesitation, and fluctuation. Materials and techniques, thought and body all interact with one another, giving rise to unexpected divergences.

A work does not represent a linear history of development; rather, it reveals traces of “evolution” that continually occur within a process of making that includes overlapping layers and ruptures.

What is presented here are traces, repetitions, failures, and renewals—each one a testament to an existence in constant transformation. This exhibition was conceived with the hope that, by retracing the paths each work has taken, viewers might find joy in becoming witnesses, while also confronting changes within their own sense of time and perception.

“The process of evolution” is not a destination, but the ever-generating present itself. It is our hope that this exhibition becomes a place where the richness and uncertainty of continual change can be embraced.

2025.10.07 – 11.08
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday

We are pleased to announce the solo show of Shigeru HASEGAWA (b. 1963) “gold, light, row” showcasing the recent Japanese letter paintings together with the textiles made in this summer in collaboration with Studio NIBROLL Co., Ltd.

Cooperation: Studio NIBROLL Co., Ltd.

2025.5.24 – 6.21
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday

Shinichiro Kano (b. 1982) paints motifs such as playing cards, dice, and mazes made from twigs arranged on the floor, altering their perspectives, scales, and relationships. In doing so, a work that may appear complete on its own begins to take on a more enigmatic atmosphere and symbolic meaning through its relationship with other paintings. It is as if these connections hint at complex narratives hidden behind everyday objects, or suggest the existence of underlying principles that reveal the workings of the world.

“By adding new elements to the objects and strokes I have drawn so far, I arrange them on the canvas as if forming a coherent sentence. The composition of the painting incorporates various layers of time and space, and I repeatedly copy and paste fragments from the painting onto other canvases, generating new connections and continuously transforming them into different meanings. Just as individual letters have no meaning on their own but gain significance when strung together as text, the fragments within a painting link together to acquire new rhythms and meanings. In the exhibition space, the process of play continues—not only within each painting but also in how the works relate to one another. Placing paintings within the space of Satoko Oe Contemporary, the venue for this exhibition, will create a different kind of landscape than what emerges in my studio, and I am excited to see what kind of text I, too, can reweave as a viewer. I hope each person will freely compose their own text—drawing on their own viewing rhythm—within the limited contexts of the paintings and the exhibition space.”

Shinichiro KANO

2025.3.25 – 4.26
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday

Ryoko Kumakura (b. 1991) and Naoya Hirata (b. 1991) work in different media—painting and sculpture, respectively—but both incorporate digital technology into their creative processes. Kumakura gathers images, words, historical facts, and fictional elements based on themes she sets for herself, then forcibly juxtaposes and arranges them on a computer according to her intent. Based on this digital collage, she creates actual motifs and proceeds to produce her paintings.

平田は、熊倉と同様に主にアッサンブラージュ（寄せ集め）の手法でPCの仮想空間に構築した彫刻作品を、現実世界に投影し発表しています。投影の方法は多岐に渡り、映像、ゲーム、レンチキュラー、3Dプリンター等を用いて出力・展示されますが、ときにHMDを装着するVR作品もあり、物理空間に仮想空間の彫刻作品を召喚する上記の方法とは逆に、「仮想の身体」を通して作品と対峙させることによって、人新世における新たな存在との向き合い方を模索しています。

いずれのアーティストも、それぞれがパソコンの画面上、または仮想空間内の解像度と、現実世界での解像度の差異について懐疑的、もしくはそこがまさに魅力的だと考えているかのようで、次元の間を行きつ戻りつしながら、まるで解像度の違う眼鏡を都度掛け直しながら制作しているかのようです。

「世界観」という曖昧な単語の使用は控えたいと思いますが、それぞれが目視しているパラレルワールドのような状況（環境）を、一方は絵画に、他方は彫刻に、写し取ろうとする姿は非常に興味深く、現実の場所（物理空間）でそれらを同居させてみたらどのように見えるのか、と思い本展を企画するに至りました。

ぜひお運びいただけましたら幸いです。

2024.12.017 – 2025.01.25
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday
Closed from 12.29 – 01.13

2024.08.03 – 09.14
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday

Shigeru Hasegawa (b.1963) is a graduate of the Aichi University of the Arts with a specialty in oil painting. After graduating in 1988, he went on to study abroad in Germany and the Netherlands at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and De Ateliers of Amsterdam, respectively. Hasegawa then pivoted his practice from Europe to his home country, where he has since held numerous solo exhibitions. His work utilizes large canvases featuring jars, ginger, raw meat, and toy poodles, among other things, often drawing on items used in everyday life.

Using both concrete and abstract styles, Hasegawa belongs to the “New Figurative Painting” genre, which emerged in the 1990s. In addition to his art practice, he works with T&S Gallery (Tokyo, Meguro) to organize exhibitions for young and emerging artists.

From 2003-2004, he returned to Amsterdam, where he found inspiration in paintings from the Medieval paintings and Dutch domestic interior scenes, using relaxed, loose brushstrokes to compose his works. Starting in the 2000s, Hasegawa also developed a style that combines discrete, seemingly unrelated motifs together to form novel images.

After taking a break from publicly showing paintings in 2011, Hasegawa contributed works to the exhibition “HUMOR and LEAP of Thought” (Okazaki City Museum) in 2013, and has continued to create work in private. In 2019, a solo exhibition at Satoko Oe Contemporary (Tokyo) entitled “PAINTING” showcased his ever-evolving style, which, through its changes, continues to explore the essence of painting.

This exhibition combined old and previously undisplayed pieces, including a series depicting salmon.

From August 3, 2024 to November 10, 2024, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo will hold a solo exhibition of Hasegawa’s work titled “MOT Collection – Eye to Eye.”

2024.05.28 – 06.22
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday

The collage drawings created as instructions for the social practice “Ending the War on the Other Side of the World” (2023-), which is currently in production, are drawn on waterproof blue sheets.

The text explaining the content of the work, and the face of Emperor Hirohito and the former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, who committed suicide by poisoning potassium cyanide, are largely drawn. Nearly 80 years have passed since the end of the world war II, and the number of generations that experienced war has decreased, and the form of society has changed significantly.

It has changed to welcome workers and students from Asian regions once invaded by the Japanese military. This artwork attempts to think about what war is like in the context of global change by recreating Emperor Hirohito’s Gyokuon broadcast by this visitor from Asia.

Yoshinori Niwa plans to complete this work within the next few years. This exhibition will feature new and recent drawings created in Vienna, centering around this collage drawing, as well as a video work titled “Selling the naming rights to a garbage mountain” in 2014 set in a garbage landfill in Manila, Philippines.

We are pleased to announce the group show of “ONSEN CONFIDENTIAL The Final!!” starting from 6th through 20th April.

2024.01.27 – 02.24
Opening hour: 12.00-18.00
Closed on Sun, Mon, National holiday