Contemporary Tokyo is pleased to announce Naoyoshi Hikosaka’s solo exhibition, “The Three Levels of Art: Event, the Death of Painting, and Generative AI Painting,” from March 1 to March 8. This exhibition will be the first to systematically trace Hikosaka’s creative journey over the past half-century, from his early performance art piece Floor Event (1970–1975), in which he worked nude, pouring latex onto tatami floors and balconies and documenting the process through photography, to his Wood Paintings series, and his latest works utilizing generative AI, which he began in 2022. We warmly invite you to visit.

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Naoyoshi Hikosaka is a distinguished artist who continuously expands the possibilities of art in both theory and practice. His work delves deeply into broad themes such as the value of art, market mechanisms, and the structure of civilization, while also employing his original "Linguistic Determination Method" for artistic analysis and writing. Furthermore, he has attempted a "post-painting" reconstruction of painting itself, breaking free from traditional forms and re-examining the essence of the medium from a post-painting perspective.

This exhibition marks the first systematic retrospective of Hikosaka’s creative journey spanning over half a century. Between 1970 and 1975, he created the early performance artwork Floor Event, in which he poured latex onto the tatami floor and balcony of his room, documenting the process through photography as a means of deconstructing traditional painting concepts. From 1977 onward, he developed the Practice by Wood Painting (PWP) series, abandoning canvas and instead assembling wooden panels of various shapes as the support structure, covering them with acrylic paint to challenge new post-painting structures. In 2022, he took his exploration further by incorporating generative AI into his artistic practice.

Hikosaka has been interested in computer technology since early on. In 1989, he presented digital works created with early versions of Adobe Illustrator at the Europalia Japan arts festival. In 1994, he produced a computer-assisted metal sculpture for the Faret Tachikawa Art Project, which can still be seen today in the area north of JR Tachikawa Station. Additionally, he has actively utilized the internet for disseminating information and remains engaged on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

"The reason I am drawn to computers and the internet is that from first grade through high school, I studied oil painting under teachers affiliated with the Nitten exhibition system. I grew weary of Japan’s bureaucratic art system. I do not simply think that computers or generative AI are superior; rather, I want to break free from the timid mindset of conservative, bureaucratic people. At the same time, I also love traditional Japanese art, so in some ways, my aesthetic tendencies might even be seen as right-wing. To the average person, I may be a complex and difficult-to-define artist."

In the contemporary art landscape, the interplay of technology, markets, artistic motivations, and their relationship to society has grown increasingly complex, making the definition of artistic value more elusive. Hikosaka continues to explore the essence of art from multiple angles, including the opposition between AI-generated art and traditional techniques, the psychological state of artists, market mechanisms, the structure of civilization, and the credibility of information dissemination. He asserts that "some works are merely self-indulgent creations, while others pose serious inquiries into the essence of art," emphasizing that "art should not be a tool for self-affirmation, but should strive for a more universal form of expression."

Moreover, Hikosaka stresses that appreciating an exhibition requires considerable effort and education. He views artistic expression fundamentally as a matter of "literacy." In the past, the art world maintained clear hierarchical distinctions―first-tier, second-tier, third-tier, and so on―but in the contemporary era, these standards have become ambiguous, and market dynamics continue to evolve.

Hikosaka is also skeptical about the reliability of online media and remains cautious about historical information control and the construction of artistic evaluation systems. When discussing the preservation of traditional techniques, he asserts that art is not merely about inheritance but about striking a balance between technique and ideology while evolving in response to the demands of the times.

Hikosaka believes that "modernity has been an era of 'horizontal movement,' but modernity has now come to a complete end." This statement implies that the conventional systems of artistic value no longer function, and that art must seek new directions for development. He envisions a future art market free from existing frameworks, guided by more open and diverse values, leading to new forms of artistic exploration.