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Venue: YOD Gallery (Tennoz, Tokyo)

2F TERRADA ART COMPLEXⅡ 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku,Tokyo

Opening hours: 11:30-18:30

Closing date: Sundays & Mondays　

Special Opening Hours

October 10 (Sat) & 11 (Sun): 11:00–20:00
October 12 (Mon, national holiday): 11:00–18:00

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This exhibition at YOD Gallery in Tennoz, Tokyo, will present a solo exhibition by Yutaka Hashimoto, “Study for Null #008,” from October 10 (Sat) to October 24 (Sat), 2026.

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At YOD TOKYO, our Omotesando space in Tokyo, Hashimoto will simultaneously present “Study for Null #007,” from October 9 (Fri) to October 21 (Wed), 2026.

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What Yutaka Hashimoto has been exploring is not the human figure itself, but the question of what we rely on to recognize an image as a figure and to give it meaning. A few lines, the arrangement of forms, an outline, a posture or movement—these alone can be enough for us to perceive a human being. We may not know who someone is, yet we can recognize that they are human. “If we do not know who someone is, why do we still recognize them as human?” This is the question Hashimoto is currently exploring.

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Underlying this inquiry is another question: can people who are different from one another nevertheless share something in common? It is impossible to make everyone experience the same sense of pleasure or discomfort. Yet perhaps, even for a brief moment, we can share a feeling that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant—a feeling of “not knowing.” Rather than erasing or overcoming differences, Hashimoto sees in this state of “not knowing” the possibility of existing together while retaining those differences.

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Through figures that appear familiar yet cannot be specifically identified, overlapping lines and layers of information, and indeterminate bodies that move between the “human” and a “mass of flesh,” Hashimoto creates within his paintings a state of unstable perception that precedes the moment when an image emerges as “something.” Here, viewers are not simply asked to receive the meaning of a work; instead, they are prompted to interpret the image through their own memories and experiences, repeatedly questioning what it is they are actually looking at.

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The series title “Study for Null” refers to 《Study for Null》, or “Study for Nothingness.” For Hashimoto, “null” does not mean a state in which nothing exists. Nor does it mean bringing different things together into a single whole or eliminating difference itself. Rather, it refers to a state in which differences can coexist simultaneously, without being sorted according to superiority or inferiority, correctness or error. The works are positioned not as “null” itself, but as studies toward reaching such a state.

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In this exhibition, Hashimoto revisits the figure of the “human” that he has explored throughout his practice from the perspectives of movement and time. At the center of the exhibition is a series of drawings composed of twelve sheets of paper, forming a sequence of movement based on the chronophotographic studies of photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

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By superimposing the changing contours of the human figure over time, each individual image is partially lost while, at the same time, giving rise to an image different from those that came before it.

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This also represents a reconnection with the indeterminate bodily forms Hashimoto previously depicted based on the idea that “a human being is a mass of flesh wrapped in cloth.” Hashimoto once considered that, beneath a single layer of skin, humans and other animals might all be composed of similar masses of flesh, and sought to give form to something they share as living beings—something that remains when outward appearance and classification are stripped away. Having distanced himself from this imagery for a period of time, he now approaches it from a different perspective, through the overlapping of contours and movement.

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In addition to these works on paper, the exhibition will also present new experiments, including video works. “Study for Null #007” in Omotesando focuses primarily on works on canvas, while “Study for Null #008” in Tennoz explores the figure through paper, line, movement, and time. We invite you to experience both exhibitions, which approach the same underlying questions through different materials and methods.

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Artist Statement

Through works on paper, I explore how the human figure is perceived. Previously, based on the idea that “a human being is a mass of flesh wrapped in cloth,” I viewed humans and other animals as similar masses of flesh beneath a single layer of skin, and depicted this image as an indeterminate form. Although I had been conscious from the beginning of avoiding an overly grotesque appearance, I later distanced myself from this approach. In this body of work, I return to this image of a mass of flesh from a different perspective by superimposing human contours based on Muybridge’s sequential photographs. Through the shifts in perception created by the overlapping of contours and movement, I explore what we rely on when we see and recognize a “human.” The other works are studies that emerged through experiments with the contours, colors, and overlapping of human figures.