FRESH GASOLINE Maquette
©Noboru Tsubaki
Main Gallery Area Artist
Artist Information
Noboru Tsubaki
1953 Born in Kyoto,Japan. Graduated the Faculty of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of the Arts. He exhibited “Fresh gasoline” at Against Nature in 1989 – his idea becoming the title of the exhibition – and greatly influenced the future Japanese contemporary art scene.Participated in the Venice Biennale 1993. He exhibited the giant inflatable grasshopper “Insect World – Grasshopper” at Yokohama Triennale 2001. Held solo exhibitions at Art Tower Mito in 2003, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 2009, and Kirishima Open-Air Museum, Kagoshima in 2012.He consistently uses balloons as a medium to make huge humorous toys that suggest cautions to the critical circumstances of contemporary societies.He has directed regional art projects “Sakate + Hishio project” in 2013, and “Shodoshima Future Project” in 2016, which brought upon a positive economic impact as part of the Setouchi Triennale. Serves as director for the AOMORI Triennale since 2017.Engaging in art education over many years at the Fine and Applied Arts Department of Kyoto University of Art and Design, where he currently serves as a professor, he has transformed graduation exhibitions to art fairs, and has founded “ARTOTHÈQUE” to promote the domestic art market. Also as the director of ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO since 2018, he positions art as an innovative tool to establish sustainable societies.
One of the artists in the Kansai New Wave of the 1980s, Noboru Tsubaki exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1989, and his exhibition "Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties" toured 7 US cities and the ICA Nagoya. The title of this exhibition was decided by Tsubaki as an antithesis to the fact that mainstream Japanese contemporary art was seen as being represented by Mono-ha in the United States at that time and the image of Japanese = nature was strong. In 1993 he participated in the 45th Venice Biennale. In addition, his Insect world - Grasshopper, a huge grasshopper balloon with a total length of 50 meters, attracted a lot of attention when exhibited at the Yokohama Triennale in 2001. In recent years, he has been engaged in various activities, such as hosting the art fair "ARTISTS' FAIR KYOTO" where artists exhibit, in which he raises some doubts about society and the systems in the art world itself.