Kisho Kakutani, Reo Kikuchi

Artglorieux GALLERY OF TOKYO is pleased to present Side Effects, a two-person exhibition featuring Noriaki Kakutani and Reo Kikuchi.
Today, we are surrounded by an overwhelming number of images. Landscapes viewed through smartphone screens, photographs preserved as records, and endlessly reproduced and circulated pictures have become part of our everyday lives. These images are not merely consumed as information; they also shape the ways we remember, perceive, and understand the world around us.
Through the distinct practices of these two artists, Side Effects invites viewers to reconsider the very act of seeing.
Noriaki Kakutani creates paintings based on snapshots taken with his smartphone, deliberately obscuring the image through blur and visual noise. As information is partially withheld, viewers are prompted to fill in the missing elements with their own memories and experiences. Rather than functioning simply as concealment, this ambiguity stimulates the imagination and gives rise to new forms of reality.
In contrast, Reo Kikuchi repeatedly reconstructs existing pictorial images by hand, questioning the relationship between originality and reproduction, as well as the uniqueness and reproducibility inherent in painting. The subtle variations that emerge through repetition quietly unsettle the visual frameworks and systems of perception that we often take for granted.
Although their methodologies differ, both artists share a fundamental interest in how seeing itself is constructed. Kakutani encourages imagination through absence, while Kikuchi reveals difference through repetition. In both practices, painting functions not merely as a medium of representation, but as a device capable of transforming perception and cognition.
The exhibition title, Side Effects, refers to the unintended effects or consequences that arise beyond an original purpose. Rather than communicating a singular message, the works provoke unexpected responses within each viewer: the recollection of memories, the completion of fragmented images, shifts in perception, and renewed questions about established values. These secondary yet deeply personal responses constitute the essential experience of the exhibition.
In an age when images and information are constantly generated and replaced, can we truly say that we are seeing? Through the contrasting approaches of absence and repetition, Side Effects explores the uncertainty of contemporary visual experience and the new possibilities of perception that emerge beyond it.
Throughout the exhibition, works by both Noriaki Kakutani and Reo Kikuchi will also be presented in the display windows on the first floor of GINZA SIX.