Takashi Horisaki and Gautam Kansara

Of Record, June 2016

For our June exhibition, Grizzly Grizzly presents 'Of Record,' featuring two New York based artists, Takashi Horisaki and Gautam Kansara. Both artists utilize the act of recording to report on the state of our social landscape.

Takashi Horisaki's "Social Dress" sculptures are latex imprints of wall surfaces, telling the stories of communities dealing with issues such as abandoned housing and natural disasters. Incorporating the imperfections, scars, and layers of detritus that build up over time, Horisaki's fabric-like, latex walls "explore the tensions between community and urban structure, storytelling and history, object and narrative."

Gautam Kansara's "Wearing Through News" series is a collection of cyanotype image transfers onto shirts made up of 'important' headlines from the front pages of The New York Times (as signified by the editorial decision to use bold-faced capital letters.) As Kansara's daily uniform, the lifespan of the shirts is intentionally shortened by bleaching and toning, weakening the fibers so that the imagery deteriorates through wearing and washing, a reference to the temporary nature of stories as they rise and fall within the confines of the news cycle.

Artist Bios

Takashi Horisaki (b.1974, Tokyo) is a New York-based sculptor whose work has been exhibited internationally at venues including New Orleans's Prospect.1 Biennial (2008), the Incheon Women Artists Biennale, Korea (2009), the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2012), and Seoul Art Space Geumcheon (2012). In 2014, Horisaki collaborated with Nina Horisaki-Christens on Metabolic Morphology, a project produced for Recess's Sessions Series in Soho, and subsequently presented at a Calder Foundation event next to Gramercy Park. Horisaki also developed a community collaboration for LMCC's Paths to Pier 42 program as part of his ongoing Social Dress series, conducting workshops in collaboration with various community organizations in New York's Lower East Side. He has received commissions from the Sculpture Center, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park, NY; the Queens Museum of Art, NY; the Storefront for Art and Architecture, NY; Buffalo Arts Studio, NY; and Southeastern Louisiana University. His work has also been shown in exhibitions at Abrons Arts Center Gallery (2013, 2011); hpgrp Gallery New York (2012); Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects (2012); Kunsthalle Galapagos, NY (2011); Regina Rex, NY (2010); Third Streaming Gallery, NY (2010); the Mason Gross Galleries at Rutgers University, NJ (2010); the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, Germany (2008); Flux Factory Inc., Queens (2006, 2007); The LAB Gallery, San Francisco (2006); Murray Guy Gallery, New York (2005); and the Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis (2004.)

Gautam Kansara (b. 1979, London) is an artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. Gautam's video and photographic work is part of prestigious private collections including The Burger Collection, Hong Kong, and The Shreya and Swapan Seth Collection, New Delhi. Since 2002 his works have been featured internationally in numerous exhibitions and screenings, most recently as a part of Speak Out at the Bronx Art Space, New York City (2016); The Time is NOW curated by the Rush Philanthropic Foundation at the Scope Art Fair, New York City (2015); Save As… at Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi (2014). Gautam has been an artist-in-residence at Smack Mellon, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space, and the Center for Book Arts. Gautam is part of the faculty at Manhattan College's Visual and Performing Arts Department and New York University's Department of Art and Art Professions.