横山裕一
Yuichi Yokoyama
横山裕一 1994–2024
Yuichi Yokoyama 1994–2024
展览时间：2024年7月20日至8月24日
周二至周六 | 10:00–18:00
开幕时间：2024年7月20日，星期六，下午4至6时
Duration: July 20–August 24, 2024
Tuesday–Saturday | 10:00–18:00
Opening: Saturday, July 20, 4–6 PM
上海市黄浦区云南南路261号6楼
6F, 261 S. Yunnan Rd., Huangpu Dist., Shanghai
关于展览
About the Exhibition
Gallery Vacancy荣幸地宣布将呈现艺术家横山裕一在上海的首次个展“横山裕一 1994–2024”，展期为2024年7月20日至8月24日。
横山裕一
世界地图伙伴，2012–13
纸上墨水、纸胶
10.3 × 15.3 公分（4 × 6 英寸）
含框：11 × 16 公分（4 3/8 × 6 1/4 英寸）
图片致谢艺术家及ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Member of The World Map, 2012–13
Paper, ink and masking tape
10.3 × 15.3 cm (4 × 6 in)
framed: 11 × 16 cm (4 3/8 × 6 1/4 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
横山裕一的漫画和绘画的区别或许在于，通常前者是可以读解的，而且饶富乐趣；后者则更独立和完整，线条，色块，质地，肌理，共同构成了整个页面，无需读解，观众只要观摩画面本身的节奏和律动（像听音乐那样），就可以获得愉悦感。如果拿出横山裕一漫画中的一格，或者一页，是否能视为一幅绘画作品呢？而横山裕一的绘画作品，又是否存在如漫画那样的读解空间呢？
Yuichi Yokoyama
YUNBO TOWN, 1994
Paint, marker and varnish on board
136 × 183 cm (53 1/2 × 72 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and NANZUKA
在绘画的进程里，画家们总是试图将观众限制在一幅画的视野之中——让观者停留更久，独立提供自洽的冲击力——观者得以领会这幅画真实地再现仿佛天然存在的合理性。时间和空间在漫画阅读形式中相辅相成的流动，恰恰不同于单幅绘画对于单一空间视角的凝视。尽管横山裕一的漫画有着明显高于其他漫画绘本的绘画性，但如果提取其中一格，也并不总是像一幅传统意义中的绘画。因为在横山裕一单幅的绘画作品之中，去除了漫画格式中会引导读者的视觉分镜格律——总是暗示上一格或下一格的存在，强调着方格之间几何形式的流动和配合。单幅绘画在横山裕一的视角下通常在视觉上更复杂一些，即使在视觉上画面构成相对单纯，也因为局部变化而呈现更多细节，更多信息。
Yuichi Yokoyama
Ourselves, 2001
Acrylic and collage on paper
36 × 51.5 cm (14 1/8 × 20 1/4 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and NANZUKA
横山裕一
无题，2000
纸上铅笔、水彩、马克笔、网点纸
21.5 × 22.5 公分（8 1/2 × 8 7/8 英寸）
含框：25 × 26 公分（9 7/8 × 10 1/4 英寸）
图片致谢艺术家及ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Untitled, 2000
Pencil, watercolor, marker and screentone on paper
21.5 × 22.5 cm (8 1/2 × 8 7/8 in)
framed: 25 × 26 cm (9 7/8 × 10 1/4 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
横山裕一
无题，2000
25 × 26.8 公分（9 7/8 × 10 1/2 英寸）
含框：28.5 × 30 公分（11 1/4 × 11 3/4 英寸）
图片致谢艺术家及ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Untitled, 2000
Pencil, watercolor, marker and screentone on paper
25 × 26.8 cm (9 7/8 × 10 1/2 in)
framed: 28.5 × 30 cm (11 1/4 × 11 3/4 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
横山裕一
无题，2000
纸上铅笔、水彩、马克笔、网点纸
23.5 × 26.5 公分（9 1/4 × 10 3/8 英寸）
含框：27 × 30 公分（10 5/8 × 11 3/4 英寸）
图片致谢艺术家及ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Untitled, 2000
Pencil, watercolor, marker and screentone on paper
23.5 × 26.5 cm (9 1/4 × 10 3/8 in)
framed: 27 × 30 cm (10 5/8 × 11 3/4 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
横山裕一
无题，2000
纸上铅笔、水彩、马克笔、网点纸
26.7 × 26.9 公分（10 1/2 × 10 5/8 英寸）
含框：28 × 28 公分（11 × 11 英寸）
图片致谢艺术家及ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Untitled, 2000
Pencil, watercolor, marker and screentone on paper
26.7 × 26.9 cm (10 1/2 × 10 5/8 in)
framed: 28 × 28 cm (11 × 11 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Color Engineering episode 3, 2004
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the Artist and NANZUKA
横山裕一
Yuichi Yokoyama
EARTH DAY 3, 2023
Plastic, styrofoam, acrylic, marker and stone
26.5 × 31.5 × 31.5 cm (10 3/8 × 12 3/8 × 12 3/8 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
横山裕一
采访，1994
纸板丙烯、马克笔、光油
133.4 × 158 公分（52 1/2 × 62 1/4 英寸）
图片致谢艺术家及ANOMALY
Yuichi Yokoyama
Interview, 1994
Acrylic, marker and varnish on board
133.4 × 158 cm (52 1/2 × 62 1/4 in)
Courtesy of the Artist and ANOMALY
Gallery Vacancy is pleased to announce artist Yuichi Yokoyama’s first solo exhibition in Shanghai, Yuichi Yokoyama 1994–2024, on view from July 20 to August 24, 2024.
As an artist, Yokoyama deliberately separates his manga from his paintings, but the distinctive connections between the two are what makes his works interesting. According to the artist, he chose manga over painting as his means of artistic expression because manga is more important to him. However, in recent years, Yokoyama’s worldwide exhibitions not only included paintings in the traditional sense, but also showed a large amount of manga-related works as well as “name,” manga sketches that are considered least important and displayable in Japanese manga tradition. To this day, Yokoyama’s manga practice has re-entered the scope of contemporary art institutions, considered as a specific painting genre originated in East Asian culture; hence, Yokoyama’s practice circulates beyond the form of manga tankobon, crossing over the fields of manga and painting.
What distinguishes Yokoyama’s manga from his paintings perhaps lies in legibility: the former can be read and interpreted with pleasure, whereas the latter are independent and complete entities composed of lines, color fields, materials, and texture. Observing the rhythm and groove contained in paintings as listening to music, evokes a different kind of joy. If you take out a frame or a page from Yokoyama’s manga, can it be considered a painting? Does Yokoyama's painting provide the same room for interpretation as the manga?
Over the course of painting, painters always seek to contain viewers in one pictorial frame, providing sufficient visual impact to convince viewers of the rationality in representation. Instead of revealing a single perspective, time and space interact fluidly in Yokoyama’s works, informed by manga reading. Yokoyama’s manga stands out with its exceptional painterly quality. Still, if a single panel is extracted, it hardly resembles a painting. For his manga always implies a continuity between panels, even if the facilitating visual break is removed; the interconnectivity constantly exists in formal and content coordination. Paintings, under Yokoyama’s intervention, appear to be complex, even though the compositions could be simple, each changing bit comprising rich details and information.
This is why Yokoyama’s paintings are unlikely to be incorporated into a manga as one panel; despite sharing the same visual language: dashing lines, exploding bubbles, and screentone, the approach is different. Nonetheless, Yokoyama’s originality manifests, which differentiates his works from that of Roy Lichtenstein: Yokoyama doesn’t reproduce and enlarge manga panels to replicate the viewing experience of billboard or movie screen; on the contrary, he employs the symbol, technique, and logics in manga to experiment with applying manga reading to formal construction in geometric shapes.
When viewers look at Yokoyama’s depictions of the sun, the rain, the snow, and the intricate, real yet alienated scenes, they realize that the abstraction is not the characteristic of contemporary art, rather from the more familiar and relatable manga. The artistic expression is stunning as the symbolic language of manga is introduced into painting, serving as a point of entry to interpret the work. The experience of reading manga helps ease the feeling of loss when confronted with paintings.
Intriguingly, Yokoyama’s painting employs a manga thinking process, which expands the possibility to interpret his works: the ambivalent visual elements could stem from both the artist’s observation and extraction from the everyday experience and his remaking of reality, like an otherworldly creator.
In the Untitled (2000) series, the artist depicts sunny paddy field after the rain, with the sun shining in exaggerated geometric shapes in all directions along the sharp lines, the black dots in the washed palette creating a steamy effect, and fine lines forming thick cumulus clouds above the horizon, which gives out a clue that a rain has just left. In another work, the sky darkens while rain drops hitting leaves to form a curtain of water. The third piece portrays amber-like geometric objects covered by snow which floats in a turbulent stream, a surreal scene to viewers. Similarly, the last work captures snowmelt: the tree trunk is warm and toasty under the sun, snow resembling giant rice grains turning into huge droplets, reflecting different shades of color. Through Yokoyama’s paintings, our senses become more receptive to the new perspectives and angles in this newly created world, prepared to move beyond the current world.
If Yokoyama’s manga creates an open and all-encompassing world for viewers, his paintings serve as a key to get into this world. Viewers can always use one form to better understand another in Yokoyama’s practice, either through the occasion of exhibitions or the inner stimulation from manga reading, depending on which field viewers value and situate.
In manga reading, viewers usually identify with characters to experience the fictional world; the characters Yokoyama created, however, adopt unconventional bodily forms in different geometric shapes with barely recognizable facial features. This intervention suggests a detour from everyday life, and through the curious lens of a group of outsiders, viewers get to relentlessly deconstruct and fictionalize the meaning of the familiar objects and scenes. To fully embrace the perspective of the characters means viewers can break free from the limitation and prejudice in the current world, following freely the lead of the artist.
Yokoyama first abstracts the reality of the figurative world into manga, and then treats this abstract world as the new reality; through his interpretation and transformation, the artist accomplishes a series of impossible feats of creation. For viewers who follow his narratives, they can’t help but apply the new order to the conceived old world, attempting to subvert the existing structure. Such is a game that Yokoyama enjoys playing throughout almost all of his works.
For instance, in Color Engineering (2004) series: Color Engineering episode 3 reveals the building process of different types of human dwelling space. The shape and structure, though appear to be familiar houses, don’t actually perform the function of housing; together, they form a quasi-residential area, whereas they become a completely foreign landscape to viewers. In Color Engineering episode 5, Yokoyama constructs an installation employing an alternative logic to the human world; the mountains form a circle, connected by triangle glass walls. The mountain tops are carefully trimmed to unify with the glass height; these perfectly fitted parts are held together to become a reservoir, waiting for the rain. Just like the characters in Color Engineering episode 15, viewers are also clueless about what the three pictures are and have to be susceptible to any fantastical explanations offered by the artist, relinquishing control and liberating from the old order, and thus creating more room to understand painting.
Therefore, exhibitions such as Yuichi Yokoyama 1994–2024 are crucial in introducing viewers who are open to the form of manga into the world view created by Yokoyama. In this case, exhibitions don’t necessarily bring forth the most inspiration for manga fans, but for those who don’t have a fixated understanding of space and geometric forms. The exhibition is an invitation for the adventurous who are willing to follow the works of Yokoyama to explore a new, imaginary realm.
Text/Hu Xiaojiang
关于艺术家
横山裕一的近期个展包括：“EARTH DAY”，ANOMALY，东京，2024；“Waste Land”， ANOMALY，东京，2019；“Yuichi Yokoyama: Wandering Through Maps”，Pavillon Blanc，科洛米耶，2014；“YOKOYAMA Yuichi x Surrealism”，宫崎县立美术馆，宫崎，2014；“this is that, touch it.”，兵库县立美术馆，神户，2014；“The Complete Neo Manga of YOKOYAMA Yuichi: I am depicting time”，川崎市博物馆，川崎，2010。过往群展于：蓬皮杜艺术中心，巴黎；东京宫，巴黎；克拉科夫当代艺术博物馆，克拉科夫；Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale)，萨克森-安哈尔特；Museum Haus Konstruktiv，苏黎世。横山裕一的作品被收藏于：熊本市现代美术馆，熊本；川崎市博物馆，川崎；兵库县立美术馆，神户；龙美术馆，上海；Mitsubishi Estate co. ltd，东京；森美术馆，东京；及东京国立近代美术馆，东京。
Yuichi Yokoyama was born in 1967 in Japan. Yokoyama has been producing artworks since the 1990s after he received his BFA at Musashino Art University in oil painting. Since 2000, Yokoyama shifted his practice to manga as a medium that allowed him to “draw time.” Famously known as “Neo-Manga,” his works involve no specific story development, but rather, they depart from standard manga and express a pure flow of time depicting multiple characters with unfriendly and obscure actions, movements, and transformation of mysterious objects. His representative comics, New Engineering, Travel, NIWA, Baby Boom, The Room of the World Map were translated into various languages and earned a high reputation in the world.
His recent solo exhibitions include: EARTH DAY, ANOMALY, Tokyo, 2024; Waste Land, ANOMALY, Tokyo, 2019; Yuichi Yokoyama: Wandering Through Maps, Pavillon Blanc, Colomiers, 2014; YOKOYAMA Yuichi x Surrealism, Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum, Miyazaki, 2014; this is that, touch it., Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, 2014; The Complete Neo Manga of YOKOYAMA Yuichi: I am depicting time, Kawasaki City Museum, Kanagawa, 2010. He also had participated in numerous group exhibitions at: Centre Pompidou, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK), Krakow; Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale), Land Sachsen-Anhalt; and Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich. Yokoyama’s works are in the collections of: Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Kumamoto; Kawasaki City Museum, Kanagawa; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo; Long Museum, Shanghai; Mitsubishi Estate co. ltd, Tokyo; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
更多关于艺术家
More about the artist
V A C A N C Y
周二–周六
Tuesday to Saturday | 10:00–18:00
200021 上海市黄浦区云南南路261号6楼
6F, No.261 S. Yunnan Rd., Shanghai 200021
+86-(0)21-62411239
info@galleryvacancy.com
www.galleryvacancy.com
