Back when that weird record shop Los Apson?, which is now in Koenji, was still in Nishi-Shinjuku, Naohiro Ukawa used to show his work there, and then I got an offer to show my work, too. I said, “Well, I just so happen to have some artwork on records,” so we mixed my pieces in with the shop’s actual products. It was a pretty crazy concept for an exhibition that I’m sure confused a lot of customers who were just there to buy records
The thing is, when I said I wanted to put this series on display for PEEKABOO, the museum expressed their disapproval, saying, “You seriously intend to display these as works of art?” So the negotiations were a little difficult
Another series you have are your color drawings, of which you displayed more than 160 at your 2022 show, “Diary”.I had time on my hands then because of the pandemic, so I’d been drawing the things I felt each day like a diary. I then got an offer from Bijutsu Techo (a monthly art magazine) to do a feature, but all this stuff was just experimenting that I’d never intended to make public, and the styles of the pieces were all very different, so I turned them down at first. But they kept after me, and even started saying we should support the feature with a solo show and book at Taka Ishii Gallery. So I just went along with it all and said okay.