Yoi Kawakubo (Toledo, 1979) is fascinated by the vertiginous sensation that occurs when turning from a point of view to another in a fast and extreme manner. This shift could be temporal, as when witnessing and dealing with deep time history while gazing at the stars million-light-years away; or intellectual, as when established sets of values, like economic, ethical or social values are shaken. His aim is to share this paradoxical and ungraspable experience with the viewer through the installation of works from a varied practice that ranges from large format landscape photography to perfume making, including sound installations, cocktail recipes, wall polishing or texts. As a result, his work is built from a specific context that stands as a starting point from where he begins to explore and question preconceptions about human identity, cognition processes or economic, intellectual and social values. Thus, disparate combination of themes such as the structures of financial markets, Spanish colonial history and Greek mythology, or nuclear energy consciousness and genetic identity are some of the important issues that arise in Kawakubo’s work. By placing these seemingly disparate territories on a new context, Kawakubo seeks to connect them through his own physical practice and establish a new vision of the world, one that is at the same time personal and universal.
Yoi Kawakubo lives and works between London and Tokyo. He obtained a BA in Human Sciences in University of Tsukuba, Japan. Following his time working as a financial market trader, Kawakubo embarked on his artistic career in 2008.