Multimedia artist Osamu Sato’s latest solo exhibition, “Osamu Sato Exhibition Part 1 & Part 2,” will be held at two locations from November 11th to November 23rd and November 28th to December 14th!
Kenbi Co., Ltd. Press release: October 27, 2025 To Members of the Press Multimedia artist Osamu Sato’s latest solo exhibition, “Osamu Sato Exhibition Part 1 & Part 2,” will be held at two locations from November 11th to November 23rd and November 28th to December 14th! Multimedia artist Sato Osamu will be exhibiting at two galleries in Kanda and Harajuku, with the themes of “cool” and “cute.” SOMSOC GALLERY, a creators’ unit and gallery run by Kenbi Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Genken), will be holding the latest solo exhibition of multimedia artist Osamu Sato at two locations. “Osamu Sato Exhibition Part 1: The Mechanism of Coolness: Photography and Its Surroundings” will be held from Tuesday, November 11th to Sunday, November 23rd at Tanabe Gallery in Kanda, Chiyoda Ward. “Osamu Sato Exhibition Part 2: The Mechanism of Cuteness: Graphics and Its Surroundings” will be held from Friday, November 28th to Sunday, December 14th at SOMSOC GALLERY in Harajuku, Shibuya Ward. In addition to opening events at each venue, two special live events are planned for December. The store attached to the gallery will also be selling the first album “Love Is Glamorous/Life Is Gorgeous” by LIG, the band formed by Sato Osamu and Gondo Tomohiko.
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https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/71221/67/71221-67-d2aff75f83e927e94122a2402cc15023-872×1236.jpg Solo Exhibition Information 1 “Sato Osamu Exhibition Part 1: The Mechanism of Cool” Photography and Its Surroundings ■Artist: Sato Osamu (SATO OSAMU) ■Venue: Tanabe Gallery ■Address: Tanabe Gallery, 1F, Itopia Kanda Kyodo Building, 1-1 Kanda Kita-Norimonocho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo ■Dates: Tuesday, November 11, 2025 – Sunday, November 23, 2025 ■Business hours: 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM *Closed on the 17th (Mon) and 18th (Tue), open until 5:00 PM on the final day ■Website: https://tanabegaroukanda.com ■Curator: Sogen Miyazaki ■Organizer: Tanabe Gallery/SOMSOC GALLERY ■Event: Sato Osamu SOLO Audio-Visual LIVE Date and Time: Saturday, November 15, 2025, performance begins at 5:00 PM (doors open at 4:00 PM) Tickets: 3,000 yen (tax included) on the day, plus one drink order required. Message Sato Osamu sets off on a journey. Several times a year, he heads to a certain city. His interest lies not in the blue ocean of resorts or glamorous tourist destinations. Rather, it’s the backstreets of towns where locals live, the shadows of buildings no one notices, rusted signs, and intersections of power lines. It’s these places that he’s drawn to. Walking. You could even call it wandering. I simply surrender myself to the rhythm of the city and take pictures without any thought. I don’t have any particular philosophy. I have no purpose or theme. The moment I think something is “cool,” my fingers start moving. The photographs he takes in this way become his raw material. These photographs are later dismantled, reconstructed, and transformed into something entirely new. That’s why the title of this exhibition is “Photography and Its Surroundings.” Sato treats photographs not as “finished works,” but as “starting points.” From there, the process of reconstruction and rediscovery begins. In the art world, we live in an age where it’s taken for granted that works should incorporate “philosophies” such as concepts, social contexts, and ethnicity. But Sato felt a slight sense of discomfort. —Even if it’s just “cool,” wouldn’t that be enough? That’s what I think. He captures the world through intuition, not logic. That is his “mechanism of cool.” Visuals of exhibited works (some works)
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https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/71221/67/71221-67-e1ba0872549e80afde3a29c792ac2e3d-1598×2354.jpg TOWER(BLN) Solo Exhibition Information 2 “Sato Osamu Exhibition Part 2: The Mechanism of Kawaii” “Graphics and Related Fields” ■Artist: Sato Osamu (SATO OSAMU) ■Venue: SOMSOC GALLERY ■Address: 3-22-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo SOMSOC GALLERY ■Event period: November 28, 2025 (Friday) to December 14, 2025 (Sunday) ■Business hours: 12:00-20:00 (open all year round) ■HP: https://somsoc.jp ■Curator: Sogen Miyazaki ■Organizer: Tanabe Gallery/SOMSOC GALLERY 【Event Information】 ■Event 1: Sato Osamu Opening Talk Event ・Date and Time: Saturday, November 29, 2025 Starts at 3:00 PM ・Performers: Osamu Sato, Minako Tanabe (Tanabe Gallery), Sogen Miyazaki (SOMSOC GALLERY) ・Tickets: Free. Please order one drink. ■Event 2: Sato Osamu SOLO Audio-Visual LIVE Date and Time: Saturday, December 6, 2025, 6:00 PM (doors open 5:00 PM) ・Guest: Hiroshi Mizude ・Tickets: 3,000 yen (tax included) on the day, plus one drink order. ■Event 3: LIG (Sato Osamu Gondo Tomohiko) Audio-Visual Live Date and Time: Sunday, December 14th, 6 PM (doors open 5 PM) ・Performer: LIG ・Tickets: 4,000 yen (tax included) on the day, plus one drink order. Message The word “kawaii” seemed so far away. For Sato Osamu, it’s not something he can easily say. When I think back, I wonder how many times I’ve used this word in my life. Probably only a handful. Whether he saw a cat or a dog, a feeling close to fear welled up within him. Things that should be soft and adorable somehow evoke anxiety. Even he himself was a little confused by this feeling. “Maybe there’s something I’m missing.” But when I think about it, a different picture emerges. Color
combinations, characters, shape placement, line balance, and typography. The structure of “kawaii” resides there. It certainly exists within him. The “kawaii” he sees is not sweetness but the beauty of construction, closer to the precision of design than emotion. Dare to drag it out into the light. Perhaps the attempt itself is a “cute” act. Visuals of exhibited works (some works)
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https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/71221/67/71221-67-0d7640e2ac308517b6430f04b51433f9-1056×1404.jpg Osamu Sato A multimedia artist whose work spans a wide range of fields, including games, graphics, photography, video, and music. Biography Born in Kyoto, currently based in Tokyo. Both his father and grandfather were photographers. He grew up surrounded by adults in the arts, and studied design and photography at two universities. He spent eight years as a student, splitting his time between two schools, taking a year off, studying in the United States, and repeating a year. During this time, while working on photography and design, he became interested in electronic music. Using synthesizers and tape, he created a variety of experimental and ambient music, performing it at live shows. This music has been used as background music and theme songs for NHK programs, and he released the cassette and silkscreen work “OBJECTLESS” on EP-4’s Kaoru Sato’s indie label, Skating Pairs. In 2017, the work was re-released on vinyl with a remix by the artist on German VOD. In 1991, for his first exhibition, he presented “Alphabetical Orgasm,” a computer graphics work. He continued to work on many other projects, including the PC game “Eastern Mind” released by Sony Music (released by Sony in the US under the US title “EASTERN MIND”). Other titles include the music CD “EQUAL,” released by Sony in Japan and Europe. He then released the PlayStation game “LSD / Dream Emulator,” still considered a cult classic, through Asmik Ace. In recent years, in parallel with creating graphic art, he has released the music albums “ALL THINGS MUST BE EQUAL,” “OBJECTLESS,” and “LSD REVAMPED” in Japan and overseas. In April 2020, he simultaneously released his original album “GRATEFUL IN ALL THINGS” (“Gratitude and Appreciation”), along with a collection of graphic works of the same name. A two-disc vinyl set will also be released shortly. Around the same time, the compilation album “COLLECTED AMBIENT GROOVES,” featuring music composed between 1993 and 2001, was released in Europe by Musique Pour La Danse, a subsidiary of Mental Groove, and San Francisco publisher Corpa Press published “Art of Computer Designing,” a new translation and revised edition of the design book “Compu Design,” originally published by Graphic-Sha (Tokyo) in 1993. In 2020, “TRANSFORMED COLLECTION” was released simultaneously on CD and a two-disc vinyl set. In 2021, the first release of the new project “LSD TRANSFORMED” was released as NFTs, featuring music and graphic works. In 2022, he will hold a solo exhibition of the same title, in conjunction with the release of the music CD “ROOTS,” which explores his roots. http://www.osamusato.net LIG 1st album “Love Is
Glamorous／Life Is Gorgeous” information
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/71221/67/71221-67-f9ebcd1d3351aa3b7e14b35e663311e6-1043×1034.jpg “Love Is Glamorous／Life Is Gorgeous” LIG is a new unit formed by Sato Osamu, a multimedia artist known worldwide for his work on the games “LSD” and “Touno,” and Gondo Tomohiko, a brass instrument player (euphonium, flugelhorn, etc.) and composer known for supporting YMO and being a member of METAFIVE. Fusing electronic music and brass instruments, they create a sound that spans contemporary music, jazz, folk music, and classical music. The band changes its lineup and performances for each live performance, presenting an “AUDIO VISUAL LIVE” that is perfectly synchronized with the video created by Sato. LIG’s first album, “Love Is Glamorous/Life Is Gorgeous,” is a masterpiece completed through the two artists’ repeated file exchanges and intermittent recording sessions. The initials of both disc titles form “LIG,” which embodies a playful and connected spirit, reminiscent of the English word “lig”—meaning “loitering” or “connective tissue.”
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