Hideaki Yamanobe

Hideaki Yamanobe solo exhibition with a group show twist: Galerie Biesenbach presents new paintings by the Japanese artist in dialogue with works by eight international artists. The works of Yamanobe and his guests are newly selected and juxtaposed for three different hangings.

Black-and-white meets colour, abstraction meets figuration, painting meets sculpture and Hideaki Yamanobe meets Douglas Witmer, Yoshio Ogawa, Ji Eun Lee, Takashi Hosokawa, Graphic Surgery, Sergio Femar, Fault Lines & Nicolò Baraggioli

Hideaki Yamanobe (*1964 in Tokyo, lives and works for over 20 years now in Cologne, Dusseldorf and Tokyo) is a crossover between East Asian and European culture. His interest in media and art forms apart from painting – especially his fascination for classical contemporary music, one of his constant sources of inspiration – is expressed in ever new projects. Examples are his collaborations with the German star conductor and composer Matthias Pintscher (2017 painting series and exhibition/concert at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg) as well as his new, overall fourth solo exhibition at Biesenbach Gallery, Snow Monkey.

Yamanobe's new paintings and drawings are neither inspired by nor have they been created with regard to the work of the eight invited Snow Monkey artists. Rather, the "guests" were selected to deliberately create contrasting dialogues. The juxtaposition of the works, which could not be more different, creates a tension between opposites, but also reveals unexpected parallels between the individual artists.

As a result, the exhibition will also present figurative art alongside Yamanobe's primarily abstract painting in which, however, object-like elements are constantly flashing up. His restricted colour spectrum – mostly black, white or a blending grey – as a are contrasted with brightly coloured plexiglass objects and oil paintings as well as similarly monochrome works. Especially due to the recurring structures in Hideaki Yamanobe's paintings – cloud-like textures, hard, cut-like lines in the surface of the paint, or even layers of paint reminding of air bubbles – many parallels can be drawn to the works of the other artists: geometric-abstract assemblages, sculptural wall objects, collages and textile works set accents and are in dialogue with or find their resonance in Yamanobe's paintings.

A new catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be available,