Previously having performed as a lead guitarist in über-hip rock bands as well as practicing as a visual artist, Masato Takasaka thinks about his studio practice in musical terms, describing his aesthetic as an iPod Shuffle: playing the greatest hits of 20th century avant-garde art, with references to constructivism, dada,pop and minimalism alongside the back catalogue of his own greatest hits.
Primarily working with found objects and materials to construct his gallery based installations, art and design history collide in Takasaka’s mini-cities. Described as “techno-contemporary”, the exuberant chaos of his sculptural practice involves a process of working and re-working everyday materials in inventive ways to make something new. Bent, crumpled and endlessly interacting surfaces of Takasaka’s work explore limitless formal possibilities and combinations.
Recent exhibitions include Towards Regrowth, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne (2020); Art Schools for Fire Relief, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne (2020); Drawing Folio 3, Block Projects, Melbourne (2019); Kensington Contemporary, New Agency, Melbourne (2019); The Road Paintings, RNOP Biennale of International Reductive and Non Objective Art, Sydney (2019); PHOTOSTATS Redux, George Paton Gallery Project Spaces, Melbourne (2019); New Modern RNOP The Road Paintings, Five Walls, Melbourne (2019); Idea Generation, Book Coffee Print Workshop, Melbourne (2019); Manifesto, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne (2019); The Mechanic Part 2, Neon Parc, 215 Albion st, Brunswick (2018); RNOP Queensland- End of the Beginning, RAYGUN, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba (2018); Paperwork!, Second Space Projects, Melbourne (2018); SAM Education Lab, Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton (2018); On Location with Louise Paramor and Masato Takasaka, True Estate, Melbourne (2018); timeFRAME- Works from the Taylor/ Jones Collection, Justin Art House Museum, Melbourne (2017); 9×5 NOW, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne (2018); Red Green Blue: A history of Australian Video Art, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane (2017); Garage Days Revisited, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne (2016); Playroom, Lismore Regional Gallery, Lismore (2016); TarraWarra Biennial 2016: Endless Circulation, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville (2016); Channel G as part of Transmission: Legacies of the Television Age, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015); 3-Ply Remote Residency, The Stool, Good Press Gallery, Glasgow (2014); Don’t Kurt Cobain, Slopes, Melbourne (2014); Das Boot Fair, Melbourne (2014); Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013); Roppongi Crossing 2013: OUT OF DOUBT, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2013); Reinventing the Wheel: the Readymade Century, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2013); A Space Oddity, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne (2013) Third/ fourth Melbourne artist-facilitated Biennial, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne (2013); Regimes of Value, Margaret Lawrence Gallery and The Substation, Melbourne (2013); SUB12, The Substation, Melbourne (2012); ALMOST EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES (In Four Parts…), Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2012); Post-Structural Jam (Shut Up! We know you can play!…), Metro Arts, Brisbane (2010) and Y3K Gallery, Melbourne (2009); NETWORKS (cells and silos), Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2011); New Psychedelia, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2011); Post-logical Form, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide (2011); Found Refractions, Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne (2010) and Cubism and Australian Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2009).
As part of the artists’ group Inverted Topology he was included in + Plus Factors, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2006); at SNO, Sydney (2007) and Minus Space at PS1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York (2009).
+ Masato Takasaka CV 2021 [PDF]