Hiroki Tsukuda's "199X" exhibition of frenzied monochrome compositions on acrylic frames is like a '70s prog rock concept album.
Each work is individually intense, with its own rhythm and hint of a story, but they also work together to imply a larger alternative reality. However, unlike world building in books and films, which can be very exact in their storytelling, the narratives of concept albums are a backdrop to a more open-ended sensory experience — Rush's "2112" or "Tales From Topographic Oceans" by Yes would be good examples. The story doesn't have to be watertight, but the idea is that you will be transported somewhere that is weird and hyperbolic.
So it is with Tsukuda's "199X," which has the back story of being images of, or possibly from, a post-apocalyptic world (the apocalypse happened in the 1990s). Smudged diagrams of the Kabbalah's teaching, references to trashy movies and freemasonry, the biohazard symbol and alchemical notations can be seen among jumbles of geometric planes and calligraphy of made-up characters that resemble a mixture of Arabic, hiragana and graffiti tags.
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