From now until October 22, head on over to Gallery by the Harbour to see Japanese graphic artist Koichi Yairi’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. Titled ‘Three Hunters & The Golden Rock’, this exhibition differs from your usual gallery showcases in that the entire collection has a very clear narrative running throughout – in fact, it is pretty much like viewing a blown-up version of an old-school comic book.
Running along the gallery from right to left, the acrylic paintings depict Yairi’s signature ghost characters finding a golden ore in the mountains, which emits a disastrously strong wind when they try to break it. The three hunters begin preventing anyone else from interfering with the ore by beating up people who approach – they are later joined by new hunters who help them enforce this rule. Eventually, word spreads about how travellers who approach the ore will end up hurt – despite people not knowing the full story behind why the ore has a bad reputation.
This range of work was inspired by a scientific research where monkeys would be punished whenever they reached for bananas. When a new monkey was introduced, the original monkeys would attack it for reaching for the bananas, even after the punishment was lifted. The story of the golden rock is Yairi’s way of critiquing traditions and taboos that have been passed down, which are now just adhered to out of habit but have actually lost their original significance.
