Nanzuka Underground operates from a concrete building in Shibuya that announces nothing from the street — the name is cast into the facade but without the lighting or signage conventions of a commercial gallery. The programme is devoted to the international lowbrow and pop-surrealism movement alongside Japanese artists who work in a related visual territory: illustration-influenced painting, graphic intensity, the overlap between fine art and commercial image culture. The gallery was established in 2009 and has been consistent in its position since: this is a serious programme for work that is sometimes dismissed as unserious, and the building's architectural weight makes that argument without stating it. The shows tend to be dense — work hung salon-style or displayed with the object-density of a collection rather than the breathing room of contemporary institutional display.
Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan