Art Collector Visit
This series visits the homes of art collectors and takes a look at their collections.
For our fourth installment, we introduce @gutsurohi, who posts records of exhibition visits and works from his collection on Instagram.
gutsurohi is a collector in his thirties: a former art student who worked as a painter, then at a gallery, then at an advertising agency, and today runs his own company.
I first met him around the fall of 2019 through a mutual collector friend, and we have been in touch ever since. At a collectors’ year-end party I asked about visiting his home, which led to today’s visit.
Collector Interview
gutsurohi_ told me that he entered the world of art collecting with the aim of hanging works in the home he completed three years ago. A graduate of the oil painting program at Tama Art University with a career at a gallery, he has a deep knowledge of art.
- How long have you been collecting?
About five years. - What got you started?
When I began designing my house.
He commissioned the architect Shinichi Ogawa to design his home. - Please tell us your collecting policy or particular focus.
Mainly painters of my own generation. I especially want to support artists whom I feel are undervalued.
To make the most of the space in my home, I collect large-scale works.
Yutaka Watanabe, “Picasso and Women,” 2019, charcoal and oil on canvas, 162 × 130.3 cm - What is your most favorite piece?
A work by Teppei Takeda.
A single work displayed in the entrance. About a year before his solo show at Maho Kubota Gallery, I was shown works in the gallery’s back space, and I remember getting excited — an incredible artist had appeared! Inquiries were flooding in even before the solo show opened, and it was uncertain whether I could purchase anything, but I was fortunate enough to obtain the piece I liked best.
Teppei Takeda, “Painting for Painting 019,” 2019 - Please share a memorable collecting episode.
Kei Imazu’s “berlin 1943 – 1945.”
Kei Imazu, “berlin 1943 – 1945,” 2014 *Photographed by gutsurohi_ In 2006, I went to see Kei Imazu’s first solo show at a rental gallery.
I was working as an artist at the time, and among my contemporaries I had my eye on Kei Imazu as someone likely to become a major artist.
Almost ten years later, in 2015, when I began designing my house with collecting in mind, I learned that Yamamoto Gendai was holding a solo show of Imazu, and I decided to purchase her work as my first-ever collection piece. That was in 2015, roughly a decade after her debut solo show.
Framed drawings as well — left: Kei Imazu. - Which artist most interests you at the moment?
Ai Makita.
She is a master of super-refined technique whose motifs include metal parts. Before I purchased a work I associated her with strongly figurative, machine-part imagery.
Recently, however, she has been presenting works that retain the beauty of her metal rendering but tend toward much greater abstraction — I feel her appeal has grown even further.
She has a solo show coming up in New York in April, and she is an artist to look forward to.
7. Which emerging artists do you have high expectations for?
Keisuke Tada, Keisuke Katsuki, and Reina Sanpei.
8. Which art collectors do you respect (or find interesting)?
@sh_art_collector.
Most collectors, I think, narrow their focus to certain preferences or genres. I am the same, and it is easy to end up looking only at works that fit one’s taste, gradually narrowing one’s field of vision.
@sh_art_collector’s collection and the works he posts on Instagram are not constrained by genre; I felt he has an appreciation for every possibility of art. He is an influential collector who made me aware of the biases in my own viewing habits.
9. What are your favorite (or regularly visited) galleries?
Maho Kubota Gallery, ANOMALY, EUKARYOTE, and Yutaka Kikutake Gallery.
Reflections after the visit
He is a collector who focuses on large-scale works and keeps his annual acquisitions to just a few pieces.
Rather than displaying works in isolation, he hangs pieces powerful enough to change the character of the interior, and one can see how life and art coexist in balance.
Unlike me, who hangs works wherever a wall exists, he has plenty of white walls yet employs a display approach that deeply considers the use of space.
The way he shows off art and living space with a minimum of works was extremely skillful and left a strong impression.
gutsurohi shares works he has viewed and pieces from his own collection on the following Instagram account.
https://www.instagram.com/gutsurohi/
Alongside the wonderful works and display methods, the clear axis of his collection made for an enjoyable and inspiring visit.
