What is Onsen Confidential?

Onsen Confidential is a hybrid city-wide gallery share and natural hot spring retreat / conference. The project is meant to bring together like-minded gallerists in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation and to provide a friendly introduction to the unique context of the contemporary art world of Tokyo. Onsen Confidential was inspired by precedents such as the Milwaukee International, Paramount Ranch, Condo, OKEY DOKEY, Friend of a Friend, the Villa Projects (Villa Warsaw, Villa Reykjavik and Villa Toronto), non-profit initiatives such as NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) and Paris Internationale and gallery organizations such as CADAN (Contemporary Art Dealers Association Nippon) and the IGA (International Galleries Alliance).

Artists in the exhibition :

James T Hong (Born in 1970, USA) / presented by Empty Gallery, Hong Kong

James T. Hong  is a Taiwanese-American filmmaker and artist whose works tend to focus on philosophical topics and figures, controversial race and class issues, and historical conflicts in Asia.

Hong’s work is a series of concept art storyboards for a speculative science fiction film set in the near future entitled ‘The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend’. The film presents a military conflict in Taiwan which involves forces from China, the USA, Japan, Taiwan, and other nations.

Daifu Motoyuki (Born in 1985, Tokyo, Japan) lives and works in Tokyo / presented by MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo

Motoyuki Daifu is a representative of the younger generation of Japanese photographers, who like the more senior Nobuyoshi Araki, use the snapshot as a way to represent his life. Daifu’s past photographs appear to be full of humor, as he used the clutter of the everyday to his advantage, packing as much color as he could into each frame.

Daifu’s new series of photographs are a continuation and elaboration on his casual technique from the previous bodies of work,  “untitled (surround)” and “untitled pee)”. The present series has no product of unexpected juxtaposition or representations of artificially constructed reality; rather, Daifu focuses on the age-old photographic trope of the shadow while allowing the camera color correction function to malfunction producing alien hues of green, purple and blue.

Dean Sameshima (Born in Torrance, USA)lives and works in Berlin. /  presented by Kristina Kite Gallery, LA

The images capture solitary individuals in Berlin porn theaters. Dean has emptied the screen of any explicit details, letting it become an open-ended receptacle for imagined desire. Constructed for an anonymous being-together, the theater becomes an escape hatch from everyday reality and the fixed self. The prints are very dark and soft, the blacks have almost a velvety surface. They are gorgeous in person. This image is also included in the selection being presented at the Venice Biennale.

Jasper Marsalis (b. 1995 in Los Angeles, CA, US) lives and works in Los Angeles. /  presented by Kristina Kite Gallery, LA

Working across painting, sculpture, music and text, Jasper Marsalis elaborates a parallel between the space of painting and a performer on stage, both of which entail an experience of being consumed by audiences. Glaring spotlights are depicted throughout his work, obscuring their intended objects and acting as obstacles to vision. The tension of impermeability is mirrored in the sculptures whose surface fractures seem to chisel at opacity. By troubling perception, Marsalis interrogates the ocular centrism of visual art and the associated role of spectacle and access.

Onsen Confidential Website

http://onsenconfidential.com/