Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK) 2026

For the 2026 edition of Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK), Almine Rech and KOTARO NUKAGA have closely collaborated to bring together two artists for whom light constitutes both a formal concern and a means of interrogating perception: James Turrell, presented by Almine Rech, and Keita Morimoto, who works with both galleries.

Although emerging from distinct artistic and historical contexts, both artists examine the perceptual and psychological effects of illumination, considering light not simply as a visual phenomenon but as an agent that transforms our experience of space, atmosphere, and reality. Morimoto's paintings are situated within the nocturnal city, where artificial illumination from vending machines, storefronts, and streetlamps punctuates an enveloping darkness. Drawing upon the chiaroscuro of Baroque painting and early twentieth century American Realism, he translates these precedents into a contemporary urban vocabulary. His enigmatic figures and meticulously constructed environments occupy a space between observation, memory, and fiction. Alongside new paintings, Morimoto will present an installation incorporating an actual vending machine, extending into the booth a recurring source of illumination within his work.

Since the mid-1960s, Turrell has pursued a related investigation of light as a material in its own right. His Glasswork series, begun in 2001, constitutes a significant body of his practice. Awakening (2006), a major example, presents colored light as seemingly tangible volumes occupying space, while gradual chromatic shifts produce an uncanny sense of depth. By disrupting distinctions between object, space, and illumination, Turrell draws attention to the mechanisms through which perception is produced.

Together, these practices consider light as both physical phenomenon and perceptual condition: an active force in constructing visual experience.