Tidal - Logos on the Flat

aaploit presents Tidal – Logos on the Flat, the third solo exhibition by KUMAGAI Ayano, on view from April 10 through April 26, 2026.

A brand logo is a device for connecting desire. It links the wearer to images of belonging and success, and the garment continues to sustain that connection even after it has left the body. Secondhand clothing retains the physical traces of its previous owner; the logo remains attached as a sign mediating that desire. KUMAGAI Ayano selects secondhand garments bearing brand logos as "traces of desire already formed," and intervenes through embroidery executed with industrial sewing machines and by hand.

What takes place here is not a critique of brands. It is an attempt to layer a different register within the structure through which desire circulates. The botanical motifs KUMAGAI applies insert a temporal rhythm distinct from consumption onto the surface of the garment. The logos are not erased—they remain beneath the petals, breathing. Not destruction but coexistence. Two temporalities overlap on the same cloth.

The market hierarchy formed by brand logos constantly shifts its level, pulled by the gravitational force of social desire—like a tide that cannot be resisted. In this exhibition, all works are presented at a uniform price. The tide is drawn back; the terrain of hierarchy is returned to a tidal flat. Even the viewer's unconscious act of ranking brands—the behavior of the gaze as it pauses before one work rather than another—is absorbed into the exhibition as part of the work itself.

In her 2022 solo exhibition altitude, KUMAGAI explored where life resides in alpine plants. In 2025, Imprint – Texture of Logos inscribed bodily traces onto the surface of brand logos. Tidal – Logos on the Flat excavates further into that stratum. Having worked within the production and distribution systems of the apparel industry, KUMAGAI intervenes not from outside the system but from within. The works in this exhibition are open to four attitudes: looking, wearing, owning, using. The work is not an endpoint but an entrance to the next desire.

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