Tomoo Gokita at Mary Boone is the Daily Pic by Blake Gopnik
Tomoo Gokita paints worlds no one has seen.
(Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery, New York)
"Mystic Revelation" is one of the deeply peculiar paintings by the Japanese artist Tomoo Gokita, now gettting his first solo at Mary Boone Gallery in New York. Gokita’s pictures feel like they were made by someone surveying the entire history of 20th-century art afresh, with no special attachment to any particular moments, and asserting no hierarchy between them. Normally, the idea that a work is “timeless” is both praise and empty cliche. Here “timelessness” yields anxiety, and a sense of a world out of whack. Even reference seems to float free: Are those ten appendages swollen fingers, or dreadlocks, or sea cucumbers? The surrealism in these pictures doesn’t seem to come from recombining what’s out in the world, so much as from not recognizing reality’s parts.
For a full visual survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.
Register below to read this article for free or subscribe
to unlock unlimited access to The Daily Beast.
Monthly
$1
First month then $5.99/month
Annual
$35
First year then $59.99/year
Premium
$79
First year then $119.99/year
*Substack access provided by the next business day, using your subscription email. Choosing the Premium plan constitutes your permission to share your subscription email with Substack and your agreement to Substack’s Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Sign In
Looks like you already have a subscription!
You're all set!
Thanks for subscribing.