ABOUT
ART FOR THOUGHT is pleased to present the solo exhibition of Kai Ono, “FELT SENSE” from November 12 to 30.
This new series of works made of blended colors and interlocking felts inhabits a more flesh-and-blood vitality and subjectivity in contrast to the “Prism” series, which has been creating a three-dimensional perception as a sculptural object.
What kind of “felt sense” (physical sensation that is difficult to verbalize) breathes behind the works and our skin? We hope you all enjoy his exhibition.
CURATOR'S REVIEW
"The Monster" appears once again.
Kai Ono has been creating three-dimensional perceptual entities. In the “Prism” series, he sculpturally constructs invisibility and perception, and by stringing rainbow-colored threads around them, he has expressed the variety of perception and the infinity of its construction (when we view the work, we perceive the expansion of the work a moiré phenomenon), or the fraying and fragility, and manifests them as a holistic “perception.”
In the “FELT SENSE” series in this exhibition, as was the case with the “Prism” series, Ono aimed to “launch perception” and attempted to approach the coexistence of plurality and extensibility, as well as the groaning physicality of flesh and blood. In his work, composed of felt blotting out multiple colors and a staple that bluntly holds them together, the ambiguity of boundaries and extensibility coexist, reminding us that we are attempting to expand our bodies, symbolized by the Internet of Bodies (IoB), while encompassing multiple ambiguous alter egos (we feel exhausted and confused, while using multiple characters according to the scene).
In fact, “FELT SENSE” refers to “body sensation that is difficult to verbalize” in the field of psychology, suggesting that Ono, who has been developing invisible perception, has focused his interest on the body as the subject of perception.
The staples used to hold the felt together are reminiscent of the “monster” in Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein,” and suggest a distorted shape held together by human skill, with flesh and blood pulsating inside. (In fact, although the work is two-dimensional, it is wavy, evoking the body behind the felt.)
In his book “The Art of the Post-Humanocene,” critic Hiroki Yamamoto states, “We will be called upon to carve and polish a new form of ‘wildness’ for the future. (p.81) In the same book, he advocates the need to re-magic the world. For us human beings, to be conscious of the vague and invisible perception (FELT SENSE), as well as perception as an organ, could be called an act of reeling in the fog of our humanity (wildness) in order to live better.
In “Frankenstein” mentioned above, the “monster” was never given a name, and was never able to win a sense of humanity. How does Ono intend to establish the physical sensation of “felt sense” as a human perception, or will the aura, as a “monster” that is ambiguous and difficult to verbalize, never be able to win humanity? In the novel, the reader is faced with the last page of the book without being told whether the “monster” lives or dies.
Curator: Keiichiro Tao