A new exhibition titled “Beat & Art Takeshi Ten” will bring the paintings of Takeshi Kitano (北野武) to Tokyo’s Ginza district on July 20 and 21, showcasing reproductions made with ultra-high-precision imaging technology.
The exhibition is organized by Tsutaya Juzaburo Shoten, a company applying cultural-property preservation technology capable of capturing up to 18 billion pixels to contemporary art. Using this process, the company has created what it calls “premium edition” reproductions of Kitano’s paintings that faithfully replicate the color, brushwork, texture of the paint, and even the surface of the canvas.
The show will feature 47 selected works from Kitano’s output, including pieces that were exhibited at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Cannes Film Festival, artwork used in the manzai duo Two Beat’s act and in Kitano’s film “HANA-BI,” and a brand-new piece being shown publicly for the first time.
Kitano himself viewed the reproductions and offered an enthusiastic reaction. “I was shown [the premium edition works] and I was genuinely surprised. They’re truly just like the originals,” he said. “It’s a far more advanced technique than the silkscreen prints you usually see. Even I, the one who painted them, mistook them for the real thing.”
He went on to note that the company behind the technology also works with institutions such as the Tokyo National Museum, and compared the project to the tradition of ukiyo-e woodblock printing, in which skilled printers and carvers of the Edo period produced hundreds of copies of a single image, some of which are now treated as national treasures. He described Tsutaya Juzaburo Shoten’s project as a modern version of that craft.
Who is Takeshi Kitano?
Takeshi Kitano is one of Japan’s most prominent entertainment figures, known to Japanese audiences primarily as the comedian Beat Takeshi, one half of the manzai duo Two Beat. Beyond comedy, he has built an acclaimed career as a film director, screenwriter, and actor, with works including “HANA-BI,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He is also an established painter, and his artwork has previously been exhibited internationally, including at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris.
The “Beat & Art Takeshi Ten” exhibition will run from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (last entry at 7:00 p.m.) on both days at Ginza Tsutaya Books’ GINZA ATRIUM, with tickets available through a dedicated reservation form.
