Symposium Commemorating the Publication of “Takayuki Toshima Selected Works”

A talk event kindly organized to celebrate the publication of TARKY Toshima's e-book collection of works, Takayuki Toshima Selected Works 2006-2022. The collection contains fourteen works made between 2006 and 2022, including texts, videos, manga, and sketch comedy and performances, together with commentary. To celebrate it, guests from the field of art came, making it an event in which the artist talked about their own works and heard them talked about—which, for the artist, was fiendishly nerve-racking. Of course, it goes without saying that the gratitude won out.
　By the way, it's actually in Part 2 that everyone's talks and presentations get going, and it's actually quite interesting, so—Part 1 on its own is simply all talk about my works, but in Part 2, it becomes a discussion in a broader context, so do please read Part 2 as well. That's Toshima's request.

“First, there was a presentation that included Toshima's commentary on their own works and an analysis of a literary work related to their practice, Ango Sakaguchi's ‘Kaze Hakase’ (‘Wind Professor’); then, by way of these, a discussion about art and laughter unfolded. The exhibition Cast off skin (OFF) and put on something (ON)〈Give answer of what exists between hiding origins (ON) and taking off them (OFF)〉 (2021), which Toshima curated and organized together with Takeshi Ueda of TALION GALLERY, also became one of the topics. From there, with the workings of o-giri and similar practices as a starting point, the discussion explored how the form in which a work is offered, performativity, and personality connect with—and at the same time diverge from—the political.”
(From the introduction to Part 1 of “Event Commemorating the Publication of Takayuki Toshima Selected Works”)

Symposium Commemorating the Publication of “Takayuki Toshima Selected Works”: Part 1 / Part 2 (in Japanese)

Takuma Ishikawa (visual artist/art critic)
Takeshi Ueda (Director, TALION GALLERY)
Hiroko Tasaka (Curator, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum)
TARKY Toshima (visual artist/comedian)

Recorded: May 21, 2023 | Former Shimizuya Dry Cleaning (now Suisei), Nakano, Tokyo
Editing: Mei Satsuki
Photo: Hideto Maezawa