MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY is delighted to announce a group exhibition entitled TOKYO / LONDON / NEW YORK.
This show introduces the works of three artists living in those major cities across the world—Aki Inomata in Tokyo, Kentaro Kobuke in London, and Brian Alfred in New York.

A feeling of incredible lightness comes from getting on a plane with just your laptop, passport, and minimal luggage in hand, or else just an iPhone in your pocket, and the next moment finding yourself in a totally different spot on the earth. Or maybe that kind of physical movement isn’t even necessary for us any more in the ‘warp’ of modernity we live in. With our highly complex forms of communication that transcend the restrictions posed by maps and time, truths that go beyond cultural differences and modes of thought, possessing both anonymity and universality, can have huge numbers of people across the world sharing their thoughts within a single instant.

The feeling of ‘sharing’ is now beginning to transverse even the barriers of time difference. The phenomenal number of images posted on Instagram every second speak of the seamless web of time that spreads across the world. While on the one hand this mass of images speaks of diversity of values, it also testifies to the fact the vehicle that is earth, spinning round at ferocious speed with us all on board, transforms personal language and individual desires into a sweeping tide. It already seems outside the realms of possibility to live a life that is unaffected by the huge forcefield created by the all-powerful whirlpool of the changing trends.

This exhibition entitled ‘Tokyo/London/New York’ introduces the works of three artists living in those major cities across the world—Aki Inomata in Tokyo, Kentaro Kobuke in London, and Brian Alfred in New York—but the exhibition could just as well have been Buenos Aires/Tehran/Chiang Mai, or Belgrade/Adelaide/Capetown. As we join up our computers to the net and thereby assume a nomadic presence in that imaginary world, we become part of a ‘bigger story’, as well as the protagonist of our own personal ‘small stories’. As it explores key concepts such as sharing, anonymity, noise, conflict, symbols, and the individual, the exhibition investigates contemporary forms of expression making tracks in this complex, fragile world of ours