Kazuhiko YOSHIZAKI Curator

Born in 1980 in Kagoshima Prefecture and grew up in Tokyo. Under the Influence of his brother, Yoshizaki entered Keio University’s Faculty of Letters and studied art history after graduating high school. In 2002 while he was a college student, he travelled around Europe with the main purpose to see Western art from medieval times with his own eyes, which he was interested in at the time, and he visited “documenta 11”. He got a great influence, felt acutely the problems that the world is facing through artworks, and since then, he began to study contemporary art. After finishing his study at the University, he moved to UK and enrolled in MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he got exposed to contemporary philosophy and critical theory in the West and studied art with a different approach from art history. After seeing a solo exhibition by a Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija at a gallery in London, he began to think about what is it “participation” in participatory art, and chose it as a theme to research further.

Yoshizaki returned to Japan in 2007 after completing his MA degree, and he began to curate exhibitions as a freelance. Later on, he joined “CAMP”, a group that creates platforms to discuss about art from the same age, in which he organized talk events and exhibitions. In January 2009, he started working as a curator as a curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and worked on exhibitions of various genres such as videos, photography, performance, and sound. The main exhibitions he curated include “Francis Alys” exhibition (2013) and “MOT Annual 2016 Loose Lips Save Ships” (2016 / co-curated with ARTISTS’ GUILD).

In October 2017, Yoshizaki joined YCAM. He works on curating exhibitions mainly, as well as getting involved in projects that consist of research & development and educational programs. Everyday, he strives to find out how he can organize projects in Yamaguchi that are experimental and get the locals involved.