“Do you have time for me to buy you a cup of coffee?”

“I’m out of time. I should go.”

“How much time will this take to finish?”

Time is an abstract noun, one that is never absent in our lives. However, have you ever thought of using time other than for the purposes of making appointments, arranging itineraries, and calculating the duration of something? What else can you do with time? From 3/13 (Sat) to 4/10 (Sat), 2021, “In the Name of Time – Artists Group Exhibition” organized by Soka Art will feature remarkable works by 10 prominent artists from Japan and Korea, including Naoki Koide, Moon Bongsun, Kosuke Nagata, Ji Yongho, Teppei Kaneuji, Chiho Aoshima, Kang Misun, Masahiko Kuwahara, Daido Moriyama, and Jeong Jinyong (ordered based on the number of strokes in their surname). The exhibition is centered around five major themes: “Frozen in Time”, “Stacking of Time”, “Contrast of Time”, “Heritage of Time”, and “Condensation of Time”. Let’s take a look to see how the artists narrate different stories of life in the name of time.

Frozen in Time, A Spiritual Epitome of History

Japan’s most well-known contemporary photographer, Daido Moriyama, captured the dark side underneath the glorious exterior of contemporary cities with his distinct shaky, blurry, and unfocused style of photography. His artworks have been collected by various international art institutions, including New York Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, and the Centre Pompidou. His representative work, Stray Dog (1971), captured the image of a stray dog appearing distressed, fearful and waiting for an opportunity to pounce. The wild animal looks ill-at-ease yet filled with a resilient vitality, symbolizing the social conditions and spiritual epitome of Japanese civilians after the war.

Touted as the “Wizard of Contemporary Art”, Teppei Kaneuji’s works have become prized collections of art institutions, including the Yokohama Museum of Art, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, as well as individual collectors, such as Japanese heavyweight collector Tatsumi Sato and famous Korean entertainer T.O.P. The artist’s signature series, White Discharge, alters the relationship and boundaries between objects by stacking and collaging ready-made objects together. It also applies white resin to simulate the look of objects covered with melted snow, signifying a frozen moment in time when the original meaning of the object was transformed, and leaving ample room for unbridled imagination and interpretation for viewers of a different space and time.

Stacking of Time, Childhood Sentiments and the Virtual Internet Generation

Tower: Frog, Duck and People by Naoki Koide creates an eerie world of fairy tale fantasy. At the base is a head covered with long brown hair along with two widely bulging eyes. Atop the head is a white duck with a neck in the shape of a twisted towel. At the very top is a frog that looks like a character from a video game. Under the artist’s clever arrangement, the surreal combination of three nonsensical objects recreates the image of childhood TV cartoon characters, evoking a sense of shared nostalgia.

A young artist with potential, Kosuke Nagata excels at integrating photography with Adobe post-processing, creating a collage of objects photographed at different times within the same frame. Objects of different time and space randomly interweave together, resulting in a seemingly rational yet actually eerie picture that reflects the commonalities of contemporary society through the transmission of online videos. All of the pictures were edited through post-production, blurring the boundary between virtuality and reality, making it difficult for people to recognize the truth.

Contrast of Time, Exploration of Environmental Issues

Active in the international art community, Korean artist Ji Yongho has abundant experience in exhibition and public art production. He excels at resurrecting worthless waste by transforming discarded second-hand tires into giant mutant life forms. His JAGUAR 7 captures the instantaneous posture when the jaguar creeps forward while baring fangs and brandishing its claws. A temporal contrast is formed by comparing a finite moment of a posture with the never-disintegrating tire material. Such a stark contrast prompts us to reflect on whether the damage caused by humans is akin to that of a beast ferociously encroaching on the natural habitat, causing irreversible damage on earth.

Since the 1990’s, Masahiko Kuwahara’s creative works have focused on the social and environmental changes caused by human desires. With elegant hues and blurry outlines, his art illustrates cute, innocent-looking dolls or unknown aquatic life forms discarded in polluted waters. Using a humorous and understated expression manner, the artist explores the ever-increasing environmental devastation confronting the public after Japan’s economic boom in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Through this type of comparison and contrast, the artist hopes to elevate people’s awareness and concern for the environment.

Passing Down Time: The Heritage of Religious Culture

Jeong Jinyong holds a doctorate from the Hongik University in South Korea. His artworks have won the recognition of art institutions, and became part of the collection at Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Seoul Museum of Art. In his work Genesis, he takes an effect similar to a negative film and applies it to the throne of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica, recreating the moment of a miraculous arrival. In the black and white picture, the light radiating outward and the little angels surrounded with sparkling holy light display a sense of solemnity transcending time and space. This important and classic moment is displayed forever to the public through art, thus passing on the heritage of religious culture through time.

Known as the “successor of Takashi Murakami”, Chiho Aoshima has garnered the attention of international galleries. As a self-taught artist, she uses Adobe Illustrator software to create a unique style of cutesiness intermingling with horror.  In Plum 3 – Blue World, under the night sky of blue gradation, there is a black plum tree with blooms of various colors as well as the naked bodies of beautiful and thin young girls tied to and hanging from the tree. Underneath the tree is a whole field of buried skulls. The picture showcases an aesthetics of visual conflicts. Her art is comparable to the modern revival of Ukiyo-e. While many elements come from Japanese Shinto beliefs and folk traditions, her works explore the concept of reincarnation and the relationship between human vs. nature via contemporary expressions.

Condensation of Time, Years of Peace and Tranquility

Moon Bongsun and Kang Misun are a Korean couple well-known for their ink-and-wash art. Having obtained doctoral degrees from the Nanjing University of the Arts, both conduct an in-depth and thorough exploration of the culture and elegance of an eastern artistic spirit. The ink paintings of Moon Bongsun transform naturally turbulent storms onto still pictures brimming with a Zen quality. Kang Misun, on the other hand, expresses tranquil serenity of the passage of time with still life drawings of ordinary objects. Both of their works appear as a condensation of time that is simple and unpretentious, best enjoyed while sipping a good cup of tea to slowly appreciate the eternal yet simple beauty of their art.