Izumi Kato
Children with disturbing faces, embryos with fully developed limbs, ancestor spirits locked up in bodies with imprecise forms—the creatures summoned by Izumi Kato are as fascinating as they are enigmatic. Their anonymous silhouettes and strange faces, largely absent of features, emphasize simple forms and strong colors; their elementary representation, an oval head with two big, fathomless eyes, depicts no more than a crudely figured nose and mouth. Bringing to mind primitive arts, their expressions evoke totems and the animist belief that a spiritual force runs through living and mineral worlds alike. Embodying a primal, universal form of humanity founded less on reason than on intuition, these magical beings invite viewers to recognize themselves.
Kato graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at Musashino University in 1992. Since the 2000s, he has garnered attention as an innovative artist through exhibitions held in Japan and across the world. In 2007, he was invited to take part in the 52nd Venice Biennale International Exhibition, curated by Robert Storr.
1992 Graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Musashino Art University
■ Solo Exhibitions
2021 Stand by You, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, USA
Perrotin, New York, USA
2020 Perrotin, Paris, France
Exhibition from the Red Brick Art Museum Collection – Izumi Kato, Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China
2019 IZUMI KATO – LIKE A ROLLING SNOWBALL, Hara Museum, Tokyo and Gunma, Japan (~2020)
Perrotin, Shanghai, China
Like A Rolling Stone, Item Éditions, Paris, France
Fundación Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, Mexico (~2020)
2018 Perrotin, Seoul, South Korea
Izumi Kato, Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China
Perrotin, Hong Kong, China
2017 Lithographs, Perrotin, Tokyo, Japan
New Prints and Drawings, Item Éditions, Paris, France
Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Galerie Perrotin, New York, USA
2014 Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
Soft Vinyl Sculptures, CAPSULE; SUNDAY, Tokyo, Japan
Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong, China
2012 SOUL UNION DELUXE, Kirishima Open-Air Museum, Kagoshima, Japan
2011 The View from After, COMME des GARÇONS OSAKA (Six), Osaka, Japan
Paintings and Sculptures, ARATANIURANO; NADiff Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2010 KATO Izumi − Journeying into Each Day, The Hakone Open-Air Museum, Kanagawa, Japan
SOUL UNION, ARATANIURANO, Tokyo, Japan
2008 The Riverhead, The Ueno Royal Museum Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2007 Dear Humans, ARATANIURANO, Tokyo, Japan
MOKU, Takahashi Collection, Tokyo, Japan
2006 Murata & Friends, Berlin, Germany [also ’04,’01]
2005 HADAKA NO HITO, SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo, Japan
Galleria Enrico Astuni, Pietrasanta, Italy
2004 αM PROJECT Vol.5, art space kimura ASK?, Tokyo, Japan
2003 ai gallery, Tokyo, Japan [also ’01,’00,’95]
23GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan [also ’01,’00]
2002 Galleria Chimera, Tokyo, Japan
2001 Criterium 46 – Izumi Kato, Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan
1999 SAMAZAMA NA ME 98 Izumi Kato, IBM-KAWASAKI City Gallery, Kanagawa, Japan
1998 GALLERY LE DÉCO, Tokyo, Japan [also ’97, ’96]
■ Selected Group Exhibition
2022 Hawaiʻi Triennial, Honolulu, USA
2021 A Nexus of Rainbows: Works from the Hara Museum and the Hara Rokuro Collections, Hara Museum ARC, Gunma, Japan
Space Mounting, Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design, Kyoto, Japan
Collection Exhibition 1: Inner Cosmology, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art,
Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
Oketa Collection: 4G, Spiral Garden, Tokyo, Japan
Next World – Taguchi Art Collection × Iwaki City Art Museum, Iwaki City Art Museum, Fukushima, Japan
Just Looking, Still Looking, Always Looking, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao, China
2020 Garden of Life: Eight Contemporary Artists Venture into Nature, Tokyo Metropolitan Teien
Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
On the Frontline of Contemporary Art: from the Taguchi Art Collection, Shimonoseki City Art Museum, Yamaguchi, Japan
Unconstrained Textiles: Stitching Methods, Crossing Ideas, Centre for Heritage, Arts andTextile (CHAT), Hong Kong, China
SCAI 30th Anniversary Exhibition, SCAI PARK, Tokyo, Japan
2019 My Name is Tokyo Kai and I am an Artoholic, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto,
Kumamoto, Japan
Portraits: Selection from the Hara Museum Collection, Hara Museum ARC, Gunma, Japan
CONTACT connecting art exhibition of art in Japan and the world, Kiyomizu-dera Temple, Kyoto, Japan
NMAO collection with Alberto Giacometti II, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Thousand-Armed Guanyin, Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China
Weavers of Worlds – A Century of Flux in Japanese Modern / Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
2018 Bubblewrap, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan
MOMAT Collection, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
An Enchanting Future, Le Consulat, Paris, France
Contemporary Sculpture Art Works from Xin Dong Cheng Collection, Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China
10th Anniversary, Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Contemporary Art of the 21st Century – Taguchi Art Collection, The Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, Japan
My Favorites: Toshio Hara Selects from the Permanent Collection, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Takahashi Collection – Face and Abstraction, Kiyoharu Art Colony, Yamanashi, Japan
Contemporary Wood-Caved Netsuke, The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam
The Ubiquity of Borders: Japanese Contemporary, Gallery Baton, Seoul, South Korea
2017 The Riddle of Art: Takahashi Collection, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan
Japanorama. New vision on art since 1970, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France
THE ART SHOW – Art of the New Millennium in Taguchi Art Collection, The Museum of Modern Art Gunma, Gunma, Japan
GLOBAL NEW ART – The Essence of Taguchi Art Collection, Woodone Museum of Art, Hiroshima, Japan
ART VACANCES, Kagoshima Islands, Kagoshima, Japan
TAKAHASHI COLLECTION – Mindfulness 2017, Yamagata Museum, Yamagata, Japan
PLAY, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
TAKAHASHI COLLECTION, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan
Spring Fever, Komagome SOKO, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Living in Figures – Izumi Kato x Chen Fei, Nizayama Art Park Power Plant Museum, Toyama, Japan
Traces of a Dream – Selections of the Hara Museum Collection, Hara Museum ARC, Gunma, Japan
ART VACANCES – Izumi Kato, Paramodel, Mrs. Yuki, Gallery Hiramine, Kagoshima, Japan
TAKAHASHI COLLECTION, Kanaz Forest of Creation, Fukui, Japan
It’s Our Permanent Collection!, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
THE COLLECTION OF THE TAKAMATSU ART MUSEUM EXHIBITION CELEBRATING THE MUSEUM’S REOPENING A CONCISE GUIDE TO LIFE WITH JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY ART, Takamatsu Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan
S-HOUSE Museum Project, S-HOUSE Museum, Okayama, Japan
2015 STANCE or DISTANCE ? − Connecting Myself to the World, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan
COSMOS/INTIME La Collection Takahashi, Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris, Paris, France
Messages – Takahashi Collection, Towada Art Center, Aomori, Japan
TAKAHASHI COLLECTION: Mirror Neuron, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Taguchi Art Collection − A Walk around the Contemporary Art World after Paradigm Shift, The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, Gifu, Japan
2014 Red Bull Music Academy Tokyo 2014, Red Bull Music Academy, Tokyo, Japan
Rokko Meets Art 2014, Mount Rokko National Park, Hyogo, Japan
Twentieth Anniversary Special MOT Collection: Contacts, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Taguchi Art Collection: TAG−TEN, Matsumoto City Museum Of Art, Nagano, Japan
Mindfulness! – TAKAHASHI COLLECTION 2014, Nagoya City Art Museum, Aichi, Japan
2013 Traveling Art in Mimasaka Province, Shurakuen Garden, Okayama, Japan
Visceral Sensation – Voices So Far, So Near, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
Wonderful My Art – Artists of the Takahashi Collection, Kawaguchiko Museum of Art, Yamanashi, Japan
Re:Quest – Japanese Contemporary Art since the 1970s, Museum of Art, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
MISUGOSHITEKITAMONO, sendai mediatheque, Miyagi, Japan
2012 Parallel Far East Worlds, A4 Contemporary Arts Center, Chengdu, China
Rokko Meets Art 2012, Mount Rokko National Park, Hyogo, Japan
The 35th Anniversary of the National Museum of Art, Osaka: the Allure of the Collection, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka, Japan
Double Vision: Contemporary Art from Japan, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia; Haifa Museum of Art, Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, Israel
2011 Pathos and Small Narratives − Japanese Contemporary Art, Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea
JALAPAGOS, MITSUBISHI ESTATE ARTIUM, Fukuoka, Japan
MOT Collection Silent narrator: on plural stories, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Taguchi Art Collection − Global New Art, Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
The Most Requested Top 30 / 10 Years of Takahashi Collection, Takahashi Collection
Hinode; TABLOID GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan
Be Alive! – Selections from the Hara Museum Collection, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Art in an Office, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
2010 Living With Art – Contemporary Art From Japan and Taiwan, Yi&C Contemporary Art,
Taipei, Taiwan, China
New Kore Shizuoka – New and Previous Collections and Art Closely Connected to Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan
Fifth Anniversary Exhibition: Garden of Painting – Japanese Art of the 00s, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka, Japan
2009 Being Seeing Feeling – Selections from the Hara Museum Collection, Hara Museum ARC, Gunma, Japan
Dorodoro, Doron – The Uncanny World in Folk and Contemporary Art in Asia, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
Long Season, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, China
TOYOTA ART COLLECTION 2008, Kuragaike Art Salon, Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall, Aichi, Japan
2008 Forwards 08 – Daimler Awards for Contemporary Art in Germany, Japan, South Africa and USA, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Kankai Pavilion Opening Exhibition – Beyond Time, Beyond Space, Hara Museum ARC, Gunma, Japan
neoteny japan – From TAKAHASHI Collection, Kirishima Open-Air Museum, Kagoshima; Sapporo Art Museum, Hokkaido; The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo; The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Niigata; Akita Museum of Modern Art, Akita; Yonago City Museum of Art, Tottori; The Museum of Art, Ehime, Ehime, Japan [–’10]
Art Scope 2007/2008 – Faces of Existence, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Selections from the Hara Museum’s Permanent Collection, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
2007 Venice Biennale 52nd International Art Exhibition Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense curated by Robert Storr, Italian Pavilion at Giardini, Venice, Italy
Painting as Forest: Artist as Thinker, Okazaki Mindscape Museum, Aichi, Japan
MOT Annual 2007 – From a World as Large as Life, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
2006 The Child, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
2005 GLOBAL PLAYERS – Deutsche und japanische Kunst der Gegenwart, BankART1929, Yokohama, Japan; Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen, Germany [’06]
Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture, Japan Society, New York, USA
Izumi KATO, Junya SATO, Yuken TERUYA, 14-1 Galerie, Stuttgart, Germany
2004 Galleria Enrico Astuni, Pietrasanta, Italy
lonely planet, Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan
Body, Galerie Robert Drees, Hannover, Germany
2003 ZONE – Clairvoyants in this threatening age, Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
The 1st Magical Art Exhibition ‘Magic Room’, PROJECT ROOM, Tokyo, Japan
2002 Pro Tsubo, Theodor-Zink-Museum, Kaiserslautern, Germany; Neue Galerie Landshut, Germany [’04]
VOCA 2002, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2000 Four Emerging Artists, Theatres des SENS, Tokyo, Japan
1997 ‘Bi’ and ‘Jutsu’, Ai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
■ Public Collection
– Aranya, Qinhuangdao, China
– Bernard Buffet Museum, Shizuoka, Japan
– Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT), Hong Kong, China
– Colección SOLO, Madrid, Spain
– Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
– Japigozzi Collection, Geneva, Switzerland
– K11, Hong Kong, China
– Long Museum, Shanghai, China
– Longlati Foundation, Hong Kong, China
– Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
– The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan
– The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka, Japan
– The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
– Okazaki Mindscape Museum, Aichi, Japan
– Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China
– S-HOUSE Museum, Okayama, Japan
– Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China
– Taguchi Art Collection, Tokyo, Japan
– Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, Tokyo, Japan
– Takamatsu Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan
– Toyota Motor Corporation, Aichi, Japan
– Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
– 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
– Zhiguan Museum of Fine Art, Beijing, China
■ Publications
2020 IZUMI KATO, Perrotin, Paris, France
IZUMI KATO – MEXICAN WORKS IN CASA WABI, Potziland Records, Tokyo, Japan
2019 Izumi Kato – LIKE A ROLLING SNOWBALL, Seigensha Art Publishing, Inc., Kyoto, Japan
IZUMI KATO – DRAWINGS & PAPER WORKS, Potziland Records, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Living in Figures – Izumi Kato x Chen Fei, Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong, China
2014 Izumi Kato: Soft Vinyl Sculptures, Izumi Kato Studio, Tokyo, Japan
2012 IZUMI KATO EXHIBITION−SOUL UNION DELUXE, Izumi Kato Exhibition Committee, Tokyo, Japan
2011 Izumi Kato: Paintings and Sculptures, Seigensha Art Publishing, Inc., Kyoto, Japan
Izumi Kato − Soft Vinyl Sculptures, Izumi Kato / Linden, Tokyo, Japan
2010 KATO Izumi − Journeying into Each Day, The Hakone Open-Air Museum, Kanagawa, Japan
2005 Izumi Kato, Edizioni Galleria Astuni, Pietrasanta, Italy