Whitehot Magazine
April 2025
"The Best Art In The World"
"The Best Art In The World"
April 2025
Takahiro Iwasaki and Penny Klepuszewska @ ROOM
TAKAHIRO IWASAKI
PENNY KLEPUSZEWSKA
Opening Wednesday 27th February 6-8pm until Sunday 23rd March
‘I wouldn’t like to live in the open air but sometimes I would’
To live in the wouldn’t or the would?
Again and again, in the most hard-edged urban situations, we come across carefully collected and cherished intimations of Pastoral; a Magic Tree air freshener dangling in a taxi cab, the green hills screensaver, an olive grove on the margarine tub, SOL beer and Scottish Bluebell matches.
There are little worlds to be found in window boxes, or in office cubicles populated with plastic budgies, smiley sunflowers and holiday snapshots.
A particular colour of pink, from a pear on a desk, seems to float in the space, neither in the world nor out of it.
The distance created by a pane of glass only serves to expand our capacity for daydream.
TAKAHIRO IWASAKI was born in Hiroshima Japan and studied MA Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art in 2005. Recent exhibitions include New Contemporaries, 2005 and ‘Roppongi Crossing 2007 Future Beats in Japanese Contemporary Art’ MORI ART MUSEUM, Tokyo. Iwasaki previously participated in a drawing residency at R O O M in 2006.
PENNY KLEPUSZEWSKA studied MA Photography at London College of Communication. Recent exhibitions include ‘How We Are: Photographing Britain’, Tate Britain and Recontres Internationale de la Photographie, ‘Le Off’ (Arles, France). She was winner of ‘British Journal of Photography/ Nikon Endframe Award’, 2006 and was awarded a Photography Bursary by the National Media Museum/ Wilson Research Centre, (Bradford/ London). Klepuszewska lives and works in the UK.
Iwasaki and Klepuszewska lyrically transform the gloss of the commonplace, demonstrating an almost meditative attention toward the material and situation at hand. Objects become vessels of fantasy, whispering to us of another possible existence. The romance of landscape frequently collides with the artificial and everyday. Narratives are spun around the conception of space where we might briefly inhabit a Lilliputian world or lift the lid on a private interior. To live in the wouldn’t or the would? The question exists over the hill, in that room heavy with memory, at the edge of the photograph’s darkness.
Co-curated by TAMSIN CLARK and SANDIE MACRAE
R O O M
31 Waterson Street E2 8HT www.roomartspace.co.uk
PENNY KLEPUSZEWSKA
Opening Wednesday 27th February 6-8pm until Sunday 23rd March
‘I wouldn’t like to live in the open air but sometimes I would’
To live in the wouldn’t or the would?
Again and again, in the most hard-edged urban situations, we come across carefully collected and cherished intimations of Pastoral; a Magic Tree air freshener dangling in a taxi cab, the green hills screensaver, an olive grove on the margarine tub, SOL beer and Scottish Bluebell matches.
There are little worlds to be found in window boxes, or in office cubicles populated with plastic budgies, smiley sunflowers and holiday snapshots.
A particular colour of pink, from a pear on a desk, seems to float in the space, neither in the world nor out of it.
The distance created by a pane of glass only serves to expand our capacity for daydream.
TAKAHIRO IWASAKI was born in Hiroshima Japan and studied MA Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art in 2005. Recent exhibitions include New Contemporaries, 2005 and ‘Roppongi Crossing 2007 Future Beats in Japanese Contemporary Art’ MORI ART MUSEUM, Tokyo. Iwasaki previously participated in a drawing residency at R O O M in 2006.
PENNY KLEPUSZEWSKA studied MA Photography at London College of Communication. Recent exhibitions include ‘How We Are: Photographing Britain’, Tate Britain and Recontres Internationale de la Photographie, ‘Le Off’ (Arles, France). She was winner of ‘British Journal of Photography/ Nikon Endframe Award’, 2006 and was awarded a Photography Bursary by the National Media Museum/ Wilson Research Centre, (Bradford/ London). Klepuszewska lives and works in the UK.
Iwasaki and Klepuszewska lyrically transform the gloss of the commonplace, demonstrating an almost meditative attention toward the material and situation at hand. Objects become vessels of fantasy, whispering to us of another possible existence. The romance of landscape frequently collides with the artificial and everyday. Narratives are spun around the conception of space where we might briefly inhabit a Lilliputian world or lift the lid on a private interior. To live in the wouldn’t or the would? The question exists over the hill, in that room heavy with memory, at the edge of the photograph’s darkness.
Co-curated by TAMSIN CLARK and SANDIE MACRAE
R O O M
31 Waterson Street E2 8HT www.roomartspace.co.uk
Tamsin Clark
Tamsin Clark is a freelance art writer and curator. She has held positions at the Serpentine Gallery and Victoria & Albert Museum and currently works as Exhibitions Co-ordinator for R O O M artspace in East London. Recent projects include ‘By Itself’ a series of one week, one artist, one work exhibitions and an artist book project with the painter Tom Benson. Tamsin lives and works in London.
www.tamsinclark.com
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