Asymmetrical Gazes

aaploit presents Asymmetrical Gazes, a three-person exhibition in which three artists of the same generation—all in their twenties—engage with the asymmetries of power latent in the act of looking, each through a distinct medium and mode of thought. The exhibition moves across multiple registers of asymmetry: from the traditional structure of "men who paint / women who are painted" in art history, to the contemporary power relations produced by social media and the night economy.

"The gaze" does not simply refer to the direction of one's eyes. It names the dynamic that operates between the one who looks and the one who is seen—the concept of gaze as it has been theorized in philosophy and art history.¹ Just as certain phenomena become visible only once they are socially recognized, and certain dynamics only begin to function as power once they are named, the gaze carries the force to construct reality. Its asymmetry frequently produces power and prejudice. Are those of us doing the looking truly in a safe position?

Work designated "unhealthy" by the state.² People a young man declared had no right to exist.³ Our society contains domains that are looked away from, labeled with prejudice. This exhibition does not consume social taboo through curiosity—it turns the critical gaze on that curiosity itself, making conscious the power relations it potentially carries, and re-examines the position from which we see and speak.

ASANO Miyabi

ASANO connects art history to contemporary labor systems through installation and painting. A camisole hangs from the ceiling. Glowing faintly within it is a smartphone screen recording messages of gratitude to clients and notes of self-analysis. Underwear and LCD screen—through this double veil, what emerges is the commodified emotion and the individual managing herself within it. The nude paintings shown alongside critically return to the present, with a spirit of mischief, the hypocrisy by which Western art history purified its depictions of sex workers as "sublime art." ASANO conducted interviews with sex workers and received camisoles and other items from them.

KANO Maashu

KANO depicts a contemporary "worship of girls" drawing solely on information from social media. The image of women offering themselves for their host club favorites in Kabukichō is overlaid with the narrative of self-sacrifice presented by religion. The hierarchy with one's oshi at its apex functions as an invisible power structure. The host who is worshipped in the night economy overlaps with the idol—the icon—constructed from fragmentary information. Within this structure, do we truly see the reality of these women's lives? The system's collapse has intensified poverty among women, and the loneliness of middle-aged men whom no one wants has become a new breeding ground for exploitation.⁴

KANO's multilayered process—silkscreen applied to a prepared wooden panel, acrylic paint added, silkscreen applied again, then sanded—produces inevitable "misalignments" of lines. These physically make visible the distortions in perception that arise from the overlay of reality and online information.

OKOSHI Madoka

OKOSHI Madoka explores the boundary between the real and the digital—and the gaze of the viewer—using the iPhone as mediator. The smartphone that everyone carries is both a gateway to a constantly connected digital world and a functioning "eye."

In Invisible view, the same image is presented across three layers—large-format print, photographic print, and smartphone—and viewers re-examine the spatial relationship between the physical and digital through fingertip and screen. The gaps and gradations between physical and digital space make the deviations of gaze and perception felt in the body. OKOSHI's work is not simply a visualization of technology; it makes conscious the asymmetries of vision and power relations mediated through the smartphone as everyday device. Where ASANO addresses the body and emotion, and KANO depicts the contemporary idol, OKOSHI turns the inquiry toward the act of visual experience itself as mediated by the screen.

Asymmetrical Gazes is an attempt to make visible, across multiple layers, the power relations and perceptual gaps that lie latent between the one who looks and the one who is seen. ASANO presents asymmetry through the body and emotion; KANO through the online idol; OKOSHI through visual experience mediated by the smartphone.

In encountering these works, viewers find themselves not simply on the "side that sees" but simultaneously placed in the position of the seen. The exhibition makes conscious this complex and delicate position, and becomes a space for re-examining how we look.

Notes

¹ The concept of "gaze" as used in this exhibition draws on discussions originating with Laura Mulvey and Jacques Lacan, as developed in the contexts of art history, film theory, and feminist criticism.

² "Sex industry 'fundamentally unhealthy': government pushes back in benefits lawsuit," Asahi Shimbun Digital, April 21, 2021.

³ "Was it femicide? Probing the inner depths of the 19-year-old in the hotel killing," Sankei Shimbun, June 18, 2021.

⁴ Nakamura Atsuhiko, Kabukichō to Hinkon Joshi [Kabukichō and Impoverished Women], Takarajimasha Shinsho, 2022.

For inquiries regarding the exhibition and works, please contact info@aaploit.com.