Noe Aoki Print Exhibition 1997-2026
2026.1.17 (Sat.) - 2.14 (Sat.)
Opening hours：12:00 – 18:00
Closed on Sundays, Mondays
*In conjunction with Maki Ohkojima Solo Exhibition “Uzuki | Resonant Wounds“
Opening reception: 1.17（Sat.）17:00 – 19:00
*The artist will be present at the reception.
Talk Event: 1.17 (Sat.) 16:00 − 17:00
Speakers: Noe Aoki, Chiaki Kayama (Representative Director of the printing studio Edition Works)
*Japanese only
Cooperation: Edition Works
We at ANOMALY are pleased to announce the upcoming Noe Aoki Print Exhibition 1997 – 2026, which will run from January 17 (Sat.) to February 14 (Sat.), 2026.
kumogaki, kameike / hasuike, suikan, kusudama, kanten, shiratama, tamakagiru, suiten, tamagumori, kurotama, Toufu, Plasmolysis, hikari no yama, Offering / Hyogo. These are the titles of print series that Noe Aoki has produced from 1997 to the present at Edition Works, a printing studio. Although she has not had many opportunities to exhibit them, the series total 14 and together contain over 100 prints. Besides prints of each series produced in the past using various types of plates, techniques, and sizes, this exhibition will also present cloud chamber, her first stone lithographs, along with her latest sculptures. It will be a precious opportunity to experience firsthand the world of prints by the sculptor Noe Aoki.
Many of Aoki’s sculptures are dismantled into parts after the run of the exhibition because of their large scale and production to fit the display space. They live on only in photos and other records of the exhibition as well as in the memories of those who saw them, the artist included. In contrast, with her prints, traces of the artist’s hands are left on the paper by the use of different plates and techniques, and remain there along with the poetical titles. Her prints conjure up a delicate world in which diverse lines and shapes penetrate the interior of her iron sculptures spreading into the recesses of the plane, together with fragments of her thought. Perhaps it could be said that they make visible that “something which cannot be seen with the eye but definitely exists,” which Aoki herself says she aims for in her sculptures.
Aoki says that she has been making prints, which she has been producing for nearly 30 years, entirely as a continuation of her sculptures. The resemblance of imagery seen in the two indicate her interest at the time. The imagery first appears in the prints in some cases, and in the sculptures in others. The prints are not drawings, and require a plate and the existence of a printer to support her. She cites this need for the capabilities of others as a point held in common with her sculptures. Together with these words, this exhibition takes a retrospective look at Aoki’s prints, from the old to the new, and presents their diverse appeal as art deeply intertwined with her sculptures. It also provides an opportunity for again reflecting on the works, which cross media boundaries in her eyes, and their production.
Reference:
“HANGA GEIJUTSU” No.187 2020 Spring Sculpture and Printmaking 2020.3.1 Published by ABE PUBLISHING LTD.
Born in Tokyo in 1958, and lives in Saitama Prefecture. She graduated from Musashino Art University Graduate School. Since the 1980s, she has been producing works that are completed by repeating the simple process of cutting industrial iron plate into parts and welding the parts together. Freed from the hardness and massiveness inherently projected by iron and even the concept of sculpture, the works dramatically change the space. Aoki also holds iron workshops for children, actively participates in art festivals in various places, and asserts that interchange with places and people where her art is installed is part of her lifework. She has held many exhibitions. Her main ones in recent years are as follows: Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum (2024), Ichihara Lakeside Museum (2023, solo exhibition), Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum (2019, solo exhibition), Kirishima Open-Air Museum (2019, solo exhibition), Fuchu Art Museum (2019, solo exhibition), Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2012, solo exhibition), and Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo (2000, solo exhibition). Her works are part of the collections of the following entities: Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art; National Museum of Art, Osaka; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Tottori Prefectural Museum of Art; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art; Pola Museum of Art; and Agency for Cultural Affairs. She has been selected for the Mainichi Art Award, Teijiro Nakahara Prize, and Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award for Fine Arts.
<Activities in recent years>
March 2024 saw the opening of the Tottori Prefectural Museum of Art and accompanying installation of Aoki’s shikidai there to greet visitors. In November of the same year, she took part in an exhibition in the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, where she displayed a work that recalled the history of the building. In January 2025, her work Offering / Hyogo was installed at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art as part of activities to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. In May of the same year, she held a solo exhibition at ANOMALY. That summer, she displayed the work genkeishitsu / Nagasaki (Protoplasm / Nagasaki) at a group exhibition held at Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum on the theme of war, to mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings. And in November, she displayed works produced on the basis of information she had gathered in Fukushima, in a solo exhibition titled Cloud Chamber held at gallery21yo-j. As this evidences, she remains in energetic activity to convey her thoughts as an artist who lives the present and uses simple materials and techniques that have remained unchanged from the 1980s.
