Hiroki Otsuka a.k.a. Pirontan "Super Ero Manga Bros."
graphite.
This event has ended.
graphite. will be presenting a collection of new paintings, drawings, and prints by New York's flourishing Japanese artist Hiroki Otsuka.
http://www.hirokiotsuka.com
Otsuka, who began drawing as a young child, was already making manga by adding stories to his own pictures even before he entered elementary school, and he became a professional manga artist in 1994. Several years later, he decided to put an end to that chapter of his life and relocate to the U.S. After spending some time in San Fransisco, he soon found himself drawn into the contemporary art scene and moved to New York City to immerse himself in it. Since coming to New York, he has not only had the opportunity to work at Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami's studio, he has also exhibited alongside famous artists such as Yoko Ono, Yasunao Tone, and more. He has had shows in galleries all over the world including the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Kunstraum Richard Sorge in Berlin, MOCA in LA, as well as galleries in Tokyo and New York.
In Otsuka's paintings and drawings, we continually see examples of how he has beautifully accomplished a transition from ero-manga into the fine arts. In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes explains that original humans were much different than those of today. They were double bodied with double genders and much more powerful: complete woman, complete man, and the androgyne. One day these double bodied super-humans severely angered the gods, and in retaliation, Zeus split them in half, weakening them. He explains that the reason we feel whole when we fall in love is due to our desire to find that other half-self. You can certainly see this idea playing a role in Otsuka's work. It is his relentless impulse towards the questioning of gender which is wandering about in search of that other body half.
Media
Schedule
from August 14, 2010 to September 09, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-08-14 from 18:00 to 21:00