Beat Takeshi Kitano show, Paris

Animal-plant hybrid image feauring a Sunflower head and lion body against a red background

’Untitled’, 1996. © Office Kitano Inc.

(Image credit: TBC)

last updated 20 August 2022

TV personality; film star; director; comedian; writer and artist – 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano is one of Japan’s most ambidextrous exports. Famed for cult gameshow 'Takeshi’s Castle', alongside films including 'Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence' and 'Battle Royale', Kitano has caught the art world's attention in recent years with his paintings.

Despite being showered with exhibition offers, Kitano has refused them all, until now. Following a meeting with director of the Fondation Cartier (opens in new tab), Hervé Chandès, Kitano agreed to produce a site-specific exhibition for the Paris institution.

'Gosse de peintre' or 'kid painter' has been designed to act as one gigantic installation, featuring attractions such as an oversized, inefficient sewing machine (Kitano’s visual metaphor for the contemporary art world), a waffle stand and a marionette theatre.

Alongside the interactive elements of the exhibition, Kitano will also be showing an array of paintings for the first time. Narrative, figurative and channeling the rudimentary spirit of the Art Naïve movement, the paintings – including a series of animal-plant hybrid images, created following a motorcycle accident in 1996 – bristle with high-colour energy.

Kitano has also shot a series of short comic films for the exhibition, all of which play on western notions of Japanese culture.

‘Gosse de peintre’ is the first exhibition of its kind, and will remain in situ at the Fondation Cartier until September 12.

Multiple animals overlayed over each other -Whale, elephant, hippo - on a blue background — ’Untitled’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

Human-plant hybrid image feauring a white flower head and human body standing, wearning a pink flowered floor lenght kimono — ’Untitled’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

A sketch of a Taxi with a driver (a tiger) and 3 passengers (one in front and 2 at the back. — ’Untitled’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

Human-like Portrait sketch in black with red eyebrows, nose and lips with white eyes and a red french beret. Drawn against a grey background — ’Untitled’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

An upside down vase in blue with an abstract sketch of a face — ’Daruma’ small statue, 2009. Photo by André Morin. © Office Kitano Inc.

Object-fish hybrid image with the top half as a plane wings and bottom half as a whale — ’Preparatory exhibition sketch 2’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

Animal-fish hybrid image with the top half as a rhino and bottom half a fish — ’Preparatory exhibition sketch 3’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

A sketch of an exhibition with a train, dinosaur and people walking about — ’Preparatory exhibition sketch 4’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

A sketch of an stall with a blue roof, japaneses words on flyers and to men in behind the till of the stall — ’Preparatory exhibition sketch 5’, 2009. © Office Kitano Inc.

Pink egg-shaped ceramic object with a face and 2 hands — ’Tama-jii (the good divinity)’, 2009. Photo by André Morin. © Office Kitano Inc.

Portrait photography of Takeshi Kitano in a white shirt against a white background — The Japanese cultural juggernaut behind the exhibition, Beat Takeshi Kitano.

ADDRESS

Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
261 Boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris

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