Taiki Yokote_Nyan, Ten, Onni, Pii, Shii, 2026
LOUNGE /
ART
June 26, 2026
Yokote Taiki presents solo exhibitions at two distinct venues: CON_ and Parcel.
ART | to make today lovely, too / to make today lonely, too
Yokote Taiki presents solo exhibitions at two distinct venues: CON_ and Parcel. From Saturday, June 27 to Sunday, July 26, 2026, in Tokyo's Bakurocho district. Yokote is an artist who has focused on nameless presences and overlooked moments within daily life, bringing to light the unseen narratives lurking beneath the surface through sculpture, installation, video, and photography. This exhibition features new works across these two locations.
Text by WASEDA Kosaku
“Lovely” and “Lonely”: Two Venues, One Letter Apart
Located within the same building, Parcel (2F) and CON_ (4F) share nearly identical floor plans and dimensions. The former is titled “to make today lovely, too,” while the latter bears the title “to make today lonely, too.” Under these names, differing by just one letter, spaces of the same shape are imbued with entirely different flavors.
Affection and loneliness, comfort and anxiety—these are not separate emotions, but rather two sides of the same day. Yokote’s inquiry oscillates between these dual meanings.
A consistent thread throughout Yokote’s work is an interest in the liminal space between fantasy and reality. The unseen, precisely because it is unseen, expands in the imagination. Events that haven't occurred, anxieties that haven't yet arrived, begin to gain a strength that makes them indistinguishable from reality through delusion.
Taiki Yokote_Moku_ Floating Rubble (when the cat’s away, the mice will play), 2025_photo by Jungwoo Lee
Taiki Yokote_I’ll eat you up, I love you so_2025
This perspective directly influences the choice of materials. Everyday objects like blue tarps and bicycle covers undulate and move, while pieces of concrete hover inches above the ground, rotating continuously. In his works, objects that should remain static exhibit impossible movements. Crucially, these don't appear to be "moved" by an external force, but rather seem to "move on their own."
By ingeniously rendering the power source and mechanisms invisible, Yokote challenges our conventional assumptions about objects—the premise that concrete should rest on the ground, or that a blue tarp cannot move by itself.
Furthermore, Yokote is conceptualizing a kinetic work using used bags to connect the two venues of this exhibition. Bags, as extensions of the body, carry the traces of their owner's life, yet revert to being mere objects the moment they are no longer used. They are not only physical burdens but also metaphors for "emotional baggage"—a psychic weight mixed with both hope and despair.
The exhibition also features new plush toys based on a dog Yokote once owned. These stuffed animals, while shaped like animals, are also commodities—objects already imbued with affection and emotional attachment. Yokote has consistently blurred the boundaries between the animate and inanimate, previously by working with animal fur, faux fur, sculptures of animal traces on walls, or the minute substances found in studio dust (including the hair of departed pets and human skin).
Lovely and lonely. The difference of a single letter signifies not opposition, but a range of fluctuation. The core of Yokote’s work lies not in settling on one emotion, but in the very time spent in flight between them. Blue tarps and concrete fragments are all somewhat dry, inorganic materials. As such, they appear to remain suspended in the air not with a vague sense of buoyancy, but with a distinct will. They seem to be constantly, subtly moving, even while appearing still. The phenomenon of "flight," in addition to the "in-between," may be a consistent characteristic of the artist Taiki Yokote.
Taiki Yokote
Born in 1998. Raised in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture. Graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts in 2021. Completing his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2025.
Taiki Yokote’s practice begins with emotions stirred by everyday scenes and occurrences. Presence and absence, non-verbal communication, minute beings and phenomena imperceptible to the eye. Yokote turns his attention to the unseen interactions behind materials and their contexts, using a meticulous gaze to reveal the existence of individuals buried within collectives and the flow of diverse temporalities. As the human and non-human, present and memory, reality and imagination flow together naturally, this quiet resonance with others is an attitude that directs attention to the in-between, encouraging a deeper connection between ourselves and society, and the world. Major exhibitions include: “Frieze Seoul 2025” (COEX, Seoul, 2025); “Minor Attractions 2025” (The Mandrake Hotel, London, 2025); “West Bund Art & Design 2024” (West Bund Art Center, Shanghai, 2024); “BOLMETEUS” (SAI, Tokyo, 2024); “until soil unites” (CON_, Tokyo, 2024); “Roppongi Meets Art 2023 beyond” (Mt. Rokko, Hyogo, 2023); “even a worm will turn” (Parcel, Tokyo, 2022); “Planet Zamza” (Kodaka Printing Industrial Site, Tokyo, 2022); “Encounters in Parallel” (ANB Tokyo, Tokyo, 2021); and “Beast (Chapter 0 / Intersection Point)” (Kita-Senju BUoY, Tokyo, 2021).
to make today lovely, too / to make today lonely, too
Dates | Saturday, June 27 – Sunday, July 26, 2026
Hours | Wednesday – Sunday, 2:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Closed | Mondays, Tuesdays, National Holidays
Venues | Parcel (2F) / CON_ (4F)
Maruka Building 2F/4F, 2-2-14 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Note: Access to the venues is by stairs only. For those requiring assistance, such as wheelchair users, please contact CON_ via Instagram in advance.
Inquiries
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Q. What kind of gallery is CON_?
Opened in April 2022 in Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Tokyo. CON_ develops programs that traverse various expressive cultures, including contemporary art, centered on the coexistence of visuality and concept. In reconsidering and practicing Tokyo's urban culture, the gallery envisions reinterpreting expressive activities, not limited to contemporary art but including music, as organic movements. Through planning programs born from dialogue and research with artists, it continuously constructs new contexts emerging from contemporaneity.