Starting Saturday, October 3, Goyo Gallery will present the joint exhibition “物極必反”, organized in collaboration with AWASE gallery.

“物極必反” is a Chinese idiom meaning that when things reach an extreme, they inevitably turn into their opposite. When anything exceeds its limits, it transforms into something contrary to what it was. For this exhibition, the phrase is reinterpreted as an invitation to pause and reconsider the act of continually pushing toward what is regarded as a higher value while still adhering to existing systems of value.

Conceived by curator Mizuki Endo, the exhibition is structured around four categories: “Video”, “Painting,” “Events,” and “Printed Matter.” At first glance, these practices may appear unrelated, yet they exist side by side within the same space and gradually intersect. Rather than complementing one another, they coexist while maintaining their respective autonomy, giving rise to a new landscape that emerges as an exhibition.

The exhibition brings together filmmaker Shinya Aoyama, painters Ioannis Aristotelous and Kohei Yamada, Nanaka Nagata, who runs the art zine Izumi, and editorial designer Daishiro Mori, each presenting a distinct practice.

This joint project by Goyo Gallery and AWASE gallery is an attempt to explore new possibilities for exhibitions through the intersection of different backgrounds and values. We invite you to experience in person the new form of exhibition that emerges through the intersection of these diverse practices.

Curatorial Statement

“物極必反” is a Chinese idiom meaning that when things reach an extreme, they inevitably turn into their opposite.
When anything exceeds its limits, it transforms into its opposite.
Love becomes hatred, beauty becomes ugliness, truth becomes deception, and justice becomes evil.
Or perhaps these things can also reverse themselves in the opposite direction.

The lesson we might take from this is simply that “going too far is not a good thing.”

For this exhibition, we reinterpret the phrase as an invitation to finally stop endlessly pushing toward what is considered a higher value while continuing to follow existing systems of value.

The exhibition consists of four categories: “Video,” “Painting,” “Events,” and “Printed Matter.” Each exists almost independently of the others. We take the coexistence of these categories, each moving according to its own logic, as one of the exhibition’s guiding lines, or, if we may call it that, a horizontal line of equality.

Shinya Aoyama will present a screening of his film Tokyo Olympics 2017: Toei Kasumigaoka Apartments, alongside footage from his work in progress Osaka Expo: Progress and Harmony (working title). Together, these works reveal the richness of documentary film, which operates simultaneously through the acts of “seeing,” “preserving,” and “changing” reality.

The abstract paintings by Ioannis Aristotelous and Kohei Yamada each express something different. At the same time, they make many demands. We respond to them. We answer them. We return something in response.

The series of events organized by Nanaka Nagata should embody the irreplaceable value of people gathering, discussing something, and sharing with one another.

An exhibition is always something special, while at the same time it can be generalized as something that could happen anywhere. The printed works by Daishiro Mori exist as a materialization of this principle.

Even within an exhibition that may appear to have somewhat lost its balance, a kind of sensory equilibrium begins to emerge. Disparate things may become connected, or they may remain unconnected. In this way, the exhibition is composed as a chain of small events, each different from the others.

Mizuki Endo

Comments from the representive

Goyo Gallery Kenjiro Kimura

AWASE gallery Kohei Yamada

AWASE gallery Riku Matsui

▼Artists

Shinya Aoyama
(https://x.com/aoyamema)
Filmmaker, Artist, and Culinary Researcher
Alongside making films, Aoyama works as a cinematographer and editor, collaborating with visual artists and musicians on video works and documentary footage.
Selected directorial work: Tokyo Olympics 2017: Toei Kasumigaoka Apartments (2021)
Selected cinematography: Mixed Reviews (Japanese) (2021, by Christian Marclay); Documentation of “Deconstruction” (2023, by Atsuko Mochida), among others.

Ioannis Aristotelous 
(https://www.instagram.com/aristotelousioannis/)
Born in 1995. Visual artist based in Kyoto.
Aristotelous approaches painting as a trace of light, inscribing within it the interaction between his body and material.
His creative practice is a return to the unconscious, an act of mourning, and a contemplation that moves between the active and the passive. Deeply influenced by Viennese Actionism, his work departs from visually centered contemporary painting and exists instead as a distinctive space that directly affects the viewer’s perception of space and time. His works possess an archaic quality and may also be understood as a tangible “vessel” for unconscious human emotions and memories.

Nanaka Nagata
(https://www.instagram.com/nagata_1512/)
Born in 2006. Has been studying in the Department of Art Studies at Tama Art University since 2025.
Focusing primarily on contemporary art, Nagata examines the relationships between art and society, narrative, language, and related subjects, while writing criticism and reviews. She is particularly interested in the structures of “narration” and meaning-making surrounding art, and seeks to critically examine contemporary artistic expression by drawing across philosophy, aesthetics, and social thought. As the founder of the art zine Izumi, she is also involved in editing and publishing art-related publications.

Daishiro Mori
Born in 1971. Works in the planning, design, and production of printed materials, including art exhibition and film festival catalogues. His practice focuses primarily on editorial design.
His major projects in the field of art include Dan Graham by Dan Graham (2003) and Shuzo Takiguchi and Marcel Duchamp (2011), both for the Chiba City Museum of Art; the exhibition series at Gallery 4 of The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2005–2015), which he directed and produced with Kenjin Miwa, now Chief Curator of the Department of Art at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Waiting for the Video: Video, from the 1960s to Today (2009), Nugu Painting: Japanese Nude 1880–1945 (2011), 14 Evenings (2012), and Re: play 1972/2015 “Video Expression ’72” Exhibition, Reenactment (2015), all for The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Other projects include the direction and production of the MOT Collection series at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2009–2013), as well as MOT Annual 2011: Nearest Faraway | Measuring the Depth of the World (2011); Grand Openings, Return of the Blogs (2011), Museum of Modern Art, New York; Wolfgang Tillmans: Your Body is Yours (2015), The National Museum of Art, Osaka; Koki Tanaka: Possibilities of Being Together, An Attempt (2016), Art Tower Mito; Lieko Shiga: Blind Date (2017), Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art; Hikikomisen 2017 (2017), Hikikomisen 2017 Executive Committee; Kenjiro Okazaki: Revisions of Vision (2019), Toyota Municipal Museum of Art; and Arakawa Nashiyui: Paintings Are Popstars (2024), The National Art Center, Tokyo.
He has also produced and presented “Publication = Printed Matter”: A View of Robert Smithson (co-authored with Sen Uezaki, Idea No. 320, January 2007, Seibundo Shinkosha), among other publications.

Kohei Yamada
(https://www.instagram.com/kumakuma0523/)
When I paint, I begin by pouring a generous amount of oil onto the surface before moving the brush. In doing so, while preserving a sense of noise within the image, the paint bleeds, drips, and mixes, allowing various memories and signs to emerge. Within the square format of the canvas, I move back and forth between things that take shape and things that do not, in the process of turning them into a painting.
Kohei Yamada was born in Osaka in 1997. He graduated from the Oil Painting Major at Musashino Art University in 2020 and completed the Master’s Program in Oil Painting in the Fine Arts and Crafts field at Kyoto University of the Arts in 2022. He is currently based in Tokyo.
Selected solo exhibitions include Supporting Lightness, Sukima (Tokyo, 2025); Borderline, Arario Gallery Seoul (Seoul, 2025); Strikethrough, Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo, 2023); As If to Hide It, biscuit gallery (Tokyo, 2022); The Way Lines Enter, MtK Contemporary Art (Kyoto, 2022); Kyoto Okazaki Tsutaya Books Gallery Space (Kyoto, 2022); and road, Daikanyama Hillside Terrace Annex A (Tokyo, 2021).
Selected group exhibitions include Brick, Breath, Horizon, Zian Gallery × Lisson Gallery (Shanghai, 2025); Fluid in Forms, Arario Gallery Shanghai (Shanghai, 2025); Everywhere It Goes, Mai 36 Galerie (Zurich, 2024); Japanese Contemporary Art in My View: The Ryutaro Takahashi Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Tokyo, 2024); Collection Exhibition: Introducing New Acquisitions, The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (Gunma, 2024); Abstraction (re)creation: 20 under 40, Le Consortium (Dijon, 2024); and the art fair ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO, Annex of The Museum of Kyoto (Kyoto, 2021, 2020).
In 2020, he was selected for the CAF Award.


▼Curator

Mizuki Endo
Born in Sapporo in 1975. He was involved in establishing art spaces including art space tetra (Fukuoka, 2004), Future Prospects Art Space (Manila, 2005), and Yugi-shitsu (Mito, 2007).
In 2005, he received the Lorenzo Bonaldi Art Prize, an international award for emerging curators, in Italy.
He has served as director of artist support programs including ARCUS Project, HAPS, and KACCO. From 2017 to 2020, he served as Artistic Director of the newly established Vincom Center for Contemporary Art in Hanoi.
He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).

▼Exhibition Information
【Date】2026/10/3(Sat.) – 10/24(Sat.)
【Open】12:00 – 19:00
※Wednesdays｜13:00 OPEN
Last day｜17:00 CLOSE
【Closed】Sundays, Mondays
【Location】TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 3F, 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002