About TANAKA Shinpei

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About TANAKA Shinpei
HAZAMA Yasuhiro
TANAKA Shinpei is the name of the group consisted of HAZAMA Yasuhiro(Painting) and HAYASHI Tomoki(Poetry). The name, TANAKA Shinpei, is quite a common name for male in Japan, so many people take it for a name of real person. In 2000 we made some works for our two-man exhibition in which there was a character. In 2000 we made some works with a character of little boy for our two-man exhibition. HAYASHI named the character Shinpei. After some discussion we decided that we were going to make one-man exhibition of Shinpei instead of our two-man exhibition. We gave him a common family name 'TANAKA' to pretend he was a real man. This was the beginning of TANAKA Shinpei. The first time that I met HAYASHI was our high-school days. Our relationship started as friends before the relationship as artists. Each of us had already started each activity in high-school days. HAYASHI had trained himself as a poet, I had been studying oil paintings at university of art. In 1992 we established a coterie magazine named 'KIRIN' to prepare ourselves to be artists, in which we presented some essays of art and some works. The last number of the coterie magazine was published in 1999. We made our first exhibition in 1992 at the gallery of my university. Although each of us made independent works, each work had some connection to each other. Because firstly I made a work inspired by HAYASHI's poem, then he wrote a poetry inspired by mine, then again I made another one inspired by his. Since then for 5 years we had no activities except 'KIRIN' in which we presented our works made by the same method. After all the method that we combined our works in one surface didn't start before the birth of TANAKA Shinpei. To combine our works in one screen means that we don't care about the taxonomy of art. In order to show our work's power to convey the intentions in our work to the people of appreciation, we don't have to know how our works classified. And the activities of TANAKA Shinpei don't aim to confirm what we are, nor to express ourselves. The method of TANAKA Shinpei is inspired by the method of 'What is MrX?' that three person(KASHIHARA Etsutomu, KOIZUMI Hiroo, and MAEKAWA Kinzo) exhibited in 1969. They fictionalized that an fictitious man(Mr.X) ordered them to make same works by each, a portrait of fictitious person form their portraits and so on at respective studios without communications. About 'Mr.X' activities KASHIHARA said that 'I don't want us to join our forces to make a work that we can't make by each. I want to see the work that comes to the world only with the encounter of us.' I agree to that. To make the work that comes to the world with our encounter is my purpose to collaborate as TANAKA Shinpei. That's the way how the principal ideas of TANAKA Shinpei works, 'Shinpei', 'Tenshi' and 'Huwahuwa Island' ware born. These are growing up steadily like two men are exploring the virgin land to write its map. TANAKA Shinpei is the name of such activities to expand the sphere of imagination of mankind, not of myself.
in 2007