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Naotaka Hiro

Past exhibition
April 13 - May 25, 2019
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Related Artists

Naotaka Hiro

Past exhibition
April 13 - May 25, 2019
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Related Artists
Overview
Naotaka Hiro Fan (with Upper Body), 2016 Bronze, Steel stand 40 x 24 x 12 inches 102 x 61 x 31 mm
Naotaka Hiro
Fan (with Upper Body), 2016
Bronze, Steel stand
40 x 24 x 12 inches
102 x 61 x 31 mm

 

Press:
Contemporary Art Daily, May 24, 2019
Bijutsu Techo, April 27, 2019

 


 

Naotaka Hiro’s practice is rooted in the unknown, exploring the body – specifically his own – in an attempt to better understand our physical form. His artworks cannot be defined by their finished appearance, but are better understood as objects resulting from prescribed performative processes, which the artist refers to as “sessions”. Usually 3 hours in length and regulated with a timer, the Hiro typically finishes a work in 8 or 9 physically demanding sessions. To produce the canvas works on view, Hiro used rope and grommets in two opposite ways; to control the canvas in “Untitled (Two Legs Vertical)” and to control himself in “Untitled (Crawl)”. For “Untitled (Two Legs Vertical)”, the artist put the ropes over his neck to shape the unprimed canvas around him into a bag-like form, standing with his legs through each hole. In this position, Hiro sprayed fabric dye in the first session to large areas of the canvas. In following sessions, the artist returned to the same contorted position and, keeping his body in contact with the canvas, painted the canvas against his chest, knees, arms, hand and head. Testing the limits of his reach, he drew finer movements with oil sticks. For the Untitled (Crawl), 2016, the artist used the rope connected in the center of the canvas to control himself as he crawled clockwise continuously a few hundred times. Tied at the neck, waist and wrist, the artist became a human compass, making the circular marks with oil-stick in hand.

 

Not limited to canvas, Hiro draws, creates video, and sculpts. The sculpture, Fan (with Upper Body) is a life cast of the artist’s upper body in motion. Hiro laid his body face down, from knee to the top of his head, in a pool of wet plaster and pivoted clockwise from his knees in a circular motion, from the bottom left edge to the right side edge. The artist considers this sculpture as a type of drawing.

 

Hiro is creating these works without intention to make a representational picture of himself, but to overcome, as he puts it, “the dilemma of the unknowability of my body”. Hiro’s works straddle diverse classifications; painting and/or sculpture, figuration and/or abstraction, self-portrait and self-negation, performance and/or object, enticing viewers with new angles from which to consider corporeality.

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Naotaka Hiro was born in 1972 in Osaka, Japan, and currently lives and works in Pasadena, California. He completed studies at California Institute of the Arts (MFA, 2000) and the University of California, Los Angeles (BA, 1997), and Universitas Gadja Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (1996). Hiro regularly joins artist talks and lecture panels at universities and institutions in the United States and abroad, including Pomona College Museum of Art and Casa Vecina in Mexico City. His works have been included in museum exhibitions around the world, such as Made in LA at Hammer Museum (2018) and Hiropon Show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2001), as well as galleries including Misako & Rosen (Tokyo), Shane Campbell Gallery (Chicago), Brennan & Griffin (New York), and The Box (Los Angeles). He was most recently named by W Magazine as one of the 6 rising artists to watch in 2019.

Works
  • Naotaka Hiro Fan (with Upper Body), 2016 Bronze, Steel stand 40 x 24 x 12 inches 102 x 61 x 31 mm
    Naotaka Hiro
    Fan (with Upper Body), 2016
    Bronze, Steel stand
    40 x 24 x 12 inches
    102 x 61 x 31 mm
  • Naotaka Hiro Untitled (Crawl), 2016 Canvas, Fabric dye, Oil Pastel, Rope, Grommets 9 x 7 ft 274 x 213 cm
    Naotaka Hiro
    Untitled (Crawl), 2016
    Canvas, Fabric dye, Oil Pastel, Rope, Grommets
    9 x 7 ft
    274 x 213 cm
  • Naotaka Hiro Untitled (Two Legs Vertical), 2016 Canvas, Fabric dye, Oil Pastel, Rope, Grommets 9 x 7 ft 274 x 213 cm
    Naotaka Hiro
    Untitled (Two Legs Vertical), 2016
    Canvas, Fabric dye, Oil Pastel, Rope, Grommets
    9 x 7 ft
    274 x 213 cm
Installation Views
  • Dsc4338
  • Dsc4336
  • Dsc4337
  • Dsc4338
  • Dsc4336
  • Dsc4337

Related artist

  • Naotaka Hiro

    Naotaka Hiro

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Artist Exhibited:

Kiyoshi Awazu
Miho Dohi

Koichi Enomoto

Daisuke Fukunaga

Shuzo Kazuchi Gulliver

Mitsutoshi Hanaga

Shigeru Hasegawa

Tatsumi Hijikata
Naotaka Hiro

Takashi Homma
Eikoh Hosoe

Kyoko Idetsu

Ulala Imai
Kazuo Kadonaga
Kentaro Kawabata

Zenzaburo Kojima
Kisho Kurokawa
Tadaaki Kuwayama
Toshio Matsumoto
Keita Matsunaga
Yutaka Matsuzawa
Kimiyo Mishima

Jiro Nagase

Tomohisa Obana

Tomoko Obana

Toru Otani

Kaz Oshiro
Sterling Ruby

Trevor Shimizu

Megumi Shinozaki

Kenzi Shiokava

Michael E. Smith

Hiroshi Sugito

Kunié Sugiura
Takuro Tamayama
Tiger Tateishi
Sofu Teshigahara
Shomei Tomatsu
Wataru Tominaga

Hosai Matsubayashi XVI
Kansuke Yamamoto
Masaomi Yasunaga

 

Exhibitions:

-2025- 

KEY HIRAGA: The Elegant Life of Mr. H

We Like Us

SAWAKO GODA

TAKESHI HONDA • TOMOKO OBANA

-2024-

JIRO NAGASE

ULALA IMAI: ARCADIA

MIHO DOHI

KYOKO IDETSU: What can an ideology do for me?

KENTARO KAWABATA / BRUCE NAUMAN

SHINJIRO OKAMOTO: TALKATIVE

SAORI (MADOKORO) AKUTAGAWA: CENTENARIA

Keita Matsunaga : Accumulation Flow

-2023-

NONAKA-HILL ♥ TATAMI ANTIQUES: A holiday sale of unique objects from Japan

TAKASHI HOMMA : REVOLUTION No.9 / Camera Obscura Studies

TATSUMI HIJIKATA THE LAST BUTOH: Photographs by Yasuo Kuroda

Sanya Kantarovsky: TO PRISON – with selections from Tatsumi Hijikata The Last Butoh, Photographs by Yasuo Kuroda

Kiyomizu Rokubey VIII: CERAMIC SIGHT

Megumi Shinozaki: Now/Then

Kenzi Shiokava

Kokuta Suda: Okukō 憶劫

Masaomi Yasunaga: 石拾いからの発見 / discoveries from picking up stones

Kazuo Kadonaga

SHUZO AZUCHI GULLIVER  ‘Synogenesis’

- 2022 -

Koichi Enomoto: Against the day

Shigeru Hasegawa: painting

Tatsuo Ikeda / Michael E. Smith

Hiroshi Sugito: the garden with Zenzaburo Kojima

Zenzaburo Kojima: This very green

Tomoko Obana and Toru Otani

Tomohisa Obana: To see the rainbow at night, I must make it myself

Daisuke Fukunaga: Beautiful Work

not titled not Untitled

- 2021 -

Kentaro Kawabata: 凸凹 Bumpy

Natsuyasumi: In the Beginning Was Love

Takashi Homma: mushrooms from the forest

Busy Work at Home

Ulala Imai: AMAZING

– 2020 –

Hosai Matsubayashi XVI & Trevor Shimizu

Megumi Shinozaki: PAPER EDEN

Sterling Ruby and Masaomi Yasunaga

Kaz Oshiro: 96375

Sofu Teshigahara

– 2019 –

Keita Matsunaga

A show about an architectural monograph

Tatsumi Hijikata

Eikoh Hosoe

Yutaka Matsuzawa
Yutaka Matsuzawa through the lens of Mitsutoshi Hanaga
Takuro Tamayama & Tiger Tateishi
Kunié Sugiura
Masaomi Yasunaga
Miho Dohi
Wataru Tominaga
Naotaka Hiro
Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s
Tadaaki Kuwayama

– 2018 –

Toshio Matsumoto
Kentaro Kawabata
Kansuke Yamamoto
Kazuo Kadonaga: Wood / Paper / Bamboo / Glass

Kimiyo Mishima: Paintings

Shomei Tomatsu: Plastics

Press:

 -2025-

Artillery Magazine, Sawako Goda 

-2024-

Artsy, Nonaka-Hill

Richesse, Nonaka-Hill Kyoto

Bijutsutecho, Nonaka-Hill Kyoto

The Art Newspaper, Nonaka-Hill Kyoto

Meer, Kyoko Idetsu

Bijyutsutecho, Masaomi Yasunaga

Switch, Masaomi Yasunaga

ARTnews JAPAN, Masaomi Yasunaga

Richesse, Masaomi Yasunaga

Art Basel,  Daisuke Fukunaga, Imai Ulala

Art Basel, Kazuo Kadonaga, Sofu Teshigahara 

-2023-

ADF webmagazine, Yasuo Kuroda, Tatsumi Hijikata

e-flux, Sanya Kantarofsky, Yasuo Kuroda

Los Angeles Times, Kenzi Shiokava

Artillery, Masaomi Yasunaga

Contemporary Art Daily Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver

- 2022 -

Contemporary Art Daily, Tomohisa Obana

ARTE FUSE, Daisuke Fukunaga

Contemporary Art Daily, Daisuke Fukunaga

Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), Daisuke Fukunaga

What's on Los Angeles, Daisuke Fukunaga

Hyperallergic, Daisuke Fukunaga

Artillery, Kentaro Kawabata
Larchmont Buzz, Kentaro Kawabata

- 2021 -

Art Viewer, Natsuyasumi: In the Beginning Was Love
Hyperallergic, Natsuyasumi: In the Beginning Was Love

Art Viewer, Takashi Homma

Hyperallergic, Busy Work at Home

Art Viewer, Busy Work at Home

Hyperallergic, Ulala Imai

Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), Ulala Imai

Contemporary Art Daily, Ulala Imai

artillery, Ulala Imai

Special Ops, Ulala Imai

Art Viewer, Ulala Imai

artillery, Matsubayashi & Trevor Shimizu

– 2020 –

Ceramic Now, Sterling Ryby and Masaomi Yasunaga

Hypebeast, Sterling Ryby and Masaomi Yasunaga

Art Viewer, Sterling Ruby and Masaomi Yasunaga

Air Mail, Sterling Ruby and Masaomi Yasunaga

Los Angeles Times, Kaz Oshiro 

ArtnowLA, Kaz Oshiro

What's on Los Angeles, Kaz Oshiro

KCRW, Kaz Oshiro

Tique, Kaz Oshiro

Contemporary Art Daily, Kaz Oshiro
Art Viewer, Kaz Oshiro
Contemporary Art Daily, Sofu Teshigahara
Art Viewer, Sofu Teshigahara
KCRW, Sofu Tsshigahara
Hyperallergic, Nonaka-Hill
Los Angeles Times, Keita Matsunaga

 – 2019 –

Los Angeles Times, Tatsumi Hijikata
Art Viewer, Tatsumi Hijikata, Eikoh Hosoe
Contemporary Art Review  Los Angeles, Tatsumi Hijikata, Eikoh Hosoe

ArtAsiaPacific, Yutaka Matsuzawa

Los Angeles Times, Tatsumi Hijikata

AUTRE, Tatsumi Hijikata, Eikoh Hosoe
Los Angeles Times, Nonaka-Hill

ARTFORUM, Takuro Tamayama, Tiger Tateishi

Art Viewer, Takuro Tamayama, Tiger Tateishi

KCRW, Nonaka-Hill

LA WEEKLY, Nonaka-Hill

AUTRE, Takuro Tamayama, Tiger Tateishi
ArtsuZe, Takuro Tamayama, Tiger Tateishi

ARTFORUM, Review: Tadaaki Kuwayama, Rakuko Naito

Art Viewer, Masaomi Yasunaga, Kunié Sugiura
Los Angeles Times, Masaomi Yasunaga

KQED, Tadaaki Kuwayama, Rakuko Naito

Contemporary Art Daily, Naotaka Hiro, Wataru Tominaga, Miho Dohi

Los Angeles Times, Miho Dohi

Los Angeles Review of Books, Miho Dohi

Bijutsu Techo, Naotaka Hiro, Wataru Tominaga, Miho Dohi

Art Viewer, Miho Dohi

Art & Object, Parergon

COOL HUNTING, Felix Art Fair

Art Viewer, Tadaaki Kuwayama

artnet news, Nonaka-Hill

Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), Tadaaki Kuwayama 
– 2018 –
Art Viewer, Kentaro Kawabata
Contemporary Art Daily, Kazuo kadonaga
Los Angeles Times, Kazuo Kadonaga
ARTFORUM, Kazuo Kadonaga
Contemporary Art Daily, Shomei Tomatsu
KCRW, Kimiyo Mishima, Shomei Tomatsu

 

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