ニコラス・トレンブリー
Drawings for Tokyo
Wade Guyton
For the 11th edition of the Ginza Curator’s Room, we are pleased to welcome Nicolas Trembley, an internationally renowned Paris-based curator, as he presents a solo exhibition of Wade Guyton, one of the most influential artists of his generation, celebrated for his reflections on and creations of imagery in the digital age.
This project is the culmination of a long-standing and close collaboration between Trembley and Guyton. During their exploration of Tokyo’s Jinbocho district, they encountered a catalog of works by Kitaōji Rosanjin, which became the inspiration for Guyton’s latest series of drawings and paintings. The show unveils this new series of works, showcasing how Guyton, in his pursuit of new possibilities in painting, interprets the aesthetic sensibilities of Rosanji, who transcended traditional genre classifications.
Through Trembley’s curatorial vision, this exhibition offers a unique perspective on the intersection of contemporary art practices and traditional Japanese aesthetics, showcasing the innovative approach of both the curator and the artist.
2025.2.7 Fri. — 2025.2.28 Fri.
Closed on Sunday and Holiday
10:00 — 18:00
Shibunkaku Ginza
Ichibankan-Building
5-3-12 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan
Supported by Nomura Securities Co.,Ltd.
Nicolas Trembley
In the fall of 2024, during his first trip to Japan, Wade Guyton Was introduced to Shibunkaku’s collection of rare books and explored the bookstore district of Jinbōchō in Tokyo.
Illustrated books hold a significant place in the artistic practice of this artist, who is also a collector and publisher. They serve both as sources of inspiration and as mediums for creating his works.
Printing is central to Wade Guyton’s production. His works are made from digital files using inkjet printers. Errors, drips, and printing defects are integral to his compositional approach, producing the uniqueness of each piece. Unlike his paintings, which are made on blank canvases, his drawings are done on pre-printed pages taken from catalogs. He repeatedly overprints computer-generated signs and shapes, such as his well-known “X” motifs or images of flames, in various formats.
For his exhibition “Drawings for Tokyo,” Wade Guyton created a series of drawings on and around reproductions of ceramics from catalogs of the Japanese artist Kitaōji Rosanjin (1883-1959). Rosanjin, a calligrapher, potter, writer, gallerist, publisher, and chef, produced an unclassifiable body of work inspired by traditional Japanese aesthetics, which he propelled into 20th-century modernity.
Here, two languages blend and interact: the more artisanal and vernacular but innovative language of Rosanjin’s ceramics and that of Wade Guyton, who challenges traditional painting conventions by adopting contemporary tools. As one of the most important artists from his generation, he explores the limits of digital processes and questions the relationship between the artwork, its creation, and its representation.
The interactions and overlays between text, signs, and images, the traditional and the contemporary, produce a unique body of work that transports the viewer between two artistic periods, two distinct cultures, and a representation of art confronted with its inevitable transformation into image.
For the installation in the classical Japanese architecture of the Ginza gallery, Guyton also created three paintings based on his drawings placed on the floor of his New York studio, which he chose to hang in the traditional Tokonoma spaces.
Nicolas Trembley
Nicolas Trembley is an art critic, curator and advisor based between Paris and Geneva. He is currently the director of the Syz Collection for contemporary art. Trembley has collaborated with various institutions including the Swiss Institute, Paris; Mamco, Geneva; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Le Consortium, Dijon; and the Musée Guimet, Paris.
In the 1990s, he co-founded bdv (bureau des vidéos), a platform dedicated to the distribution and production of contemporary art videos, whose archives are now housed at the LUMA Foundation in Arles.
For the past decade, Trembley has been interested in the interactions between craft and contemporary art as well as exhibition displays. He has organized shows on the Japanese craft “Mingei” movement at Pace Gallery London, NYC; Taka Ishii, Hong Kong; Sokyo Gallery Kyoto and at La Monnaie de Paris for Asia NOW, 2013-2022. He was the curator for the Arts & Crafts section for the Art Paris art fair (2024) and for “Sur Mesure” at Art Genève 2025. He is currently working on an exhibition on vernacular French design for Vague in Kobe and on a publication on craft, art and display.
Ten years ago, Trembley organized a major monographic exhibition of American artist Wade Guyton, who presented thirty new works created for Le Consortium’s space in Dijon and the Académie Conti in Vosne-Romanée.
A book titled “Wade Guyton,” edited by Nicolas Trembley with an in-depth essay by philosopher Tristan Garcia, was published by Les presses du Réel on this occasion.
The various collaborations between Wade Guyton and Nicolas Trembley testify to the close professional relationship they maintain, which is why the curator chose the American artist for the “Curated by” project.
Wade Guyton
Born in 1972 in Hammond, Indiana, Wade Guyton (who lives in New York) is one of the most influential representatives of a generation of artists who reflect on and produce images in a digital era.
Since the early 2000s, Wade Guyton has pursued, with a notable consistency, an investigation into the condition and impact of digital image production. Guyton purposefully misuses his printer by challenging its commands and materials that exceed its design specifications. As a result, the digital work everts its inherent conflicts questioning the conditional nature of its visualization.
In his latest series, Guyton intensifies the interplay between painting and photography by integrating cellphone snapshot of paintings drying on the floor, views of and from the studio, screen captures, and enlarged bitmaps.
Wade Guyton is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Award in Art (2014); the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts (2004); the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Grant (2003); the Artists Space Independent Projects Grant (2002); the Delfina Studio Trust (2000).
Wade Guyton has had major solo exhibitions at the Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo (2024); Musée d’art moderne, Paris (2023); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2019); Serpentine Gallery, London (2017); Brandhorst Museum, Munich (2017); Museo MADRE, Naples (2017); MAMCO, Geneva (2016); Le Consortium, Dijon & Académie Conti, Vosne-Romanée (2016); Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich (2013); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2012-2013); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2010); the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2009); Museum d’Arte Moderna (MAMbo), Bologna (2008); The Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2008); Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg (2005), among others.s.