Riding for a Fall - Kazuhito Kawai

Kazuhito Kawai – Riding for a Fall
Opening: Tuesday, October 19th, 4 - 8pm
Exhibition Dates: October 20th – December 4th, 2021

Riding for a Fall is Kazuhito Kawai first solo exhibition with Sokyo Lisbon.

Using a distinctive approach to ceramic, Kawai’s sculptures emerge like castles or vessels in which the extreme glaze overflows with nostalgic expression that holds and traps the artist’s emotions and concepts.

The title of the exhibition is a reference to Tracey Emin’s homonymous work from 1998, a work that Kawai first experienced while studying art in London. In the video Riding for a Fall, Tracey Emin is seen wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse in circles in a sandy beach. Endlessly and without purpose the set-up renders an all too rehearsed poise. The film imprinted on the young student as an exercise in narcissism. Something now familiar to all when contemplating streams of Instagram, Tik Tok and other social media outlets.

For Kazuhito Kawai, his self-portrait works are equally staged yet they are meant to hold something in their abstraction: “They hold and trap my emotions and memories”.

Their titles are references to his thoughts and as such, each sculpture contains a sense of longing or nostalgia, belonging or alienation by which, the familiarity of the name can trigger a gateway for the viewer through his own personal interpretation or empathy.