APRIL 3 – MAY 5,2008




Yosuke Bandai, Enlightenment, Daisuke Fukunaga, Ujino Muneteru, Nobuyasu Sato, Yukiko Shibata, Akira Shimidu, Koichi Toya

Curated By Hiromi Yoshii

Deitch Projects is presenting After the Reality 2, an exhibition curated by Tokyo gallerist
Hiromi Yoshii, featuring work by Yosuke Bandai, Enlightenment, Daisuke Fukunaga, Ujino Muneteru,
Yukiko Shibata, Akira Shimidu, Koichi Toya and Nobuyasu Sato. They are among the most intriguing
new Japanese artists to have emerged after the generation of ‘Superflat’ – the Japanese post-modern
art movement championed by Takashi Murakami. With the exception of the art collective
Enlightenment, who are godfathers to the emerging generation, all of the artists are showing their work
in New York for the first time.

The artists in the exhibition share an interest in addressing the way culture has changed since 9/11.
After the Reality, was an idiom proposed by art critic Kentaro Ichihara to describe this new post-9/11
attitude. This is the second exhibition on this theme presented by Deitch Projects and curated by
Yoshii. The first took place in July of 2006, and included such artists as Yoshitaka Azuma and Koichi
Enomoto, who went on to achieve further international recognition.

Led by Hiro Sugiyama, Enlightenment works with digital images, developing them into various artistic
media ranging from graphic design, digital painting, sculpture, and video work. Their digitally
manipulated images, created through the use of labor-intensive computer techniques, blur the
boundary between photography and painting, as well as, commercial and fine art. Enlightenment is
interested in the “between-space,” not just the space between commercial and fine art, but also life
and death, good and evil, the old and the new, Western and non-Western, the real and the fantastical.
The collective is also well known for their VJ performances in Tokyo. The other members of
Enlightenment include Akiyoshi Mishima, Shigeru Suzuki, and Kaname Yamaguchi.

Tokyo-based artist and performer, Ujino Muneteru, is known for his unique sound sculpture called The
Rotators. The artist restores the sentimental value of once-discarded objects by turning them into
hybrid musical instruments. He assembles banal everyday-life articles, such as electric drills, food
processors, hair-dryers, and vacuum cleaners, to make variable beat sounds. The Rotators explores
the bipolar concepts of the tangible (i.e. ready-made recycled objects) and the intangible (i.e. sounds),
and the old and the new. Ujino’s sound installations include discarded elements that relate
specifically to each country where he performs, and he adapts his live performance to the exhibition
location, by referencing local music.

____________
Deitch Projects
76 Grand Street
New York, NY 10013
p: 212.343.7300
f: 212.343.2954
e: info@deitch.com