Title Will Be Here

2014-2019. Paintings: oxidized silver / gold leaf

A series of works, Title Will Be Here, shows Takahashi’s transition from being an artist working in traditional Japanese painting to working as a conceptual artist using contemporary media. In these works, Takahashi combined traditional and contemporary approaches to communicate the richness and tensions of cultural translation. Majority of works in this series uses translated and segmented text from original writings in a foreign language. These writings, made decades ago by a non-English speaking teenager, are processed into English using online translation software. By filtering these original writings, Takahashi attempts to revalue the initial journal by selecting segments created through the subversion of corporate products to investigate her own thought process through poetry in English, and herself: the communication to the world she lives in. The works monumentalize these neutralized snippets in silver leaf, transmitting the text through burning the surface.

One of the works, “Title Will Be Here: Downwards” - works on ladder, Takahashi interprets the usage of the ladder to challenge the ritual of her painting practice and to encourage people to see the work from different angles. Ladders are recurrent objects in famous artists' works, including Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, and Joseph Beuys. Why did these experimental artists use ladders, what potentiality of ladders did they see?