KUMUKUMU is proud to present an exhibition of works by Japanese artist Kaoru Hirano. This will mark her solo debut in the United States.
Kaoru Hirano continues her practice of the deconstruction of discarded women’s clothing with a new installation of unraveled women’s underwear, in this case ... Read more
KUMUKUMU is proud to present an exhibition of works by Japanese artist Kaoru Hirano. This will mark her solo debut in the United States.
Kaoru Hirano continues her practice of the deconstruction of discarded women’s clothing with a new installation of unraveled women’s underwear, in this case a brassiere and matching shorts, leaving the viewer with the de-threaded remnants that take on a formal life of their own as well as investigate more personal issues of history and sensuality. By removing the clothes from the realm of the body and the persona inhabiting it, Hirano is creating a new arena of physical displacement, perpetuating an entirely different ethos of eroticism, memory and imagination. And in taking apart these garments, the artist is also eradicating individual identity and replacing it with an innovative version of impressionism, as if to blur the boundaries of what we may have previously taken for granted. What was whole has become, in Hirano’s hands, an amalgam of formally compelling traces of an individual that no longer portray a conclusive entirety; rather, we are left with an intriguing breakdown of a sensual past combined with a revisionist and expansive vision of future possibilities.
Kaoru Hirano has exhibited in the U.S. and Japan, including solo shows in Tokyo at SCAI X SCAI, SHISHEIDO, Gallery, GalleryK, and Institut Franco-Japonais de Tokyo. Her work has also been featured in group shows at KUMUKUMU Gallery in NYC, the Yokohama Museum of Art in Kanagawa, and the Nakanojo Biennale in Gunma. In 2008, Hirano was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship for the ISCP residency in New York City.
KUMUKUMU is a contemporary art gallery in the burgeoning art locus of the Lower East Side, two blocks from the New Museum. The gallery represents emerging and internationally recognized artists, with a program focused on gender, social, historical and environmental issues. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11AM-6PM. For further information, please contact Atsumi Fujita at: atsumi@kumukumugallery.com
