Gozo Yoshimasu to Make His UK Institutional Solo Debut at Serpentine in 2027
In an age when language is increasingly reduced to short messages, abbreviated expressions and carefully curated digital exchanges, the work of Japanese artist and poet Gozo Yoshimasu offers a rather different perspective on the possibilities of communication. For more than six decades, Yoshimasu has challenged the conventions of poetry, exploring how words can exist beyond the page through sound, movement, painting and performance.
In autumn 2027, London's Serpentine will present a major solo exhibition dedicated to the artist, marking his first major institutional solo exhibition in the United Kingdom. The presentation will also celebrate Yoshimasu as the inaugural recipient of The FLAG Art Foundation Prize, an initiative established to support artists at significant stages in their careers by providing the time, freedom and resources to experiment and develop new work.
Conceived in close dialogue with Yoshimasu, the exhibition will subsequently travel to New York, where it will be reimagined for The FLAG Art Foundation in spring 2028. The artist was selected for the inaugural prize by a jury comprising Michelle Kuo, Venus Lau, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jon Rider and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Born in Tokyo in 1939, Yoshimasu emerged from the city's experimental avant-garde movement during the 1960s, a period when traditional artistic disciplines were increasingly being questioned and redefined. His approach to poetry developed beyond the familiar relationship between writer, text and reader, embracing the physicality of language and the expressive possibilities of the human voice.
Rather than treating poetry as something confined to written composition, Yoshimasu has explored its relationship with photography, painting, sound recording and moving image. His distinctive cinematic practice, known as gozoCiné, forms part of an extensive body of work that challenges how poetry is experienced and understood.
Many of his writings function as scores for performances, with vocal expression, bodily gestures and movement becoming as important as the words themselves. Through his experiments with typography, punctuation and the arrangement of language, Yoshimasu has developed a visual vocabulary in which the appearance of a poem can carry as much significance as its meaning.
This relationship between language and visual expression becomes particularly poignant in Kaibutsu-kun (Dear Monster) (2012–2016), a series created in response to the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Comprising approximately 600 manuscripts, the series explores memory, trauma and the difficulties of articulating experiences of collective catastrophe. Yoshimasu describes his search for 'possible poetry' in the aftermath of these events, approaching the written page as a space for remembrance, destruction and reconstruction.
His compositions combine handwritten inscriptions, line drawings, collage and vivid ink paintings, with sections of text frequently obscured or rendered entirely invisible. The resulting works raise questions about what remains when language can no longer adequately express the scale of human experience.
These ideas continue through later series, including Fire Embroidery (2016–2018) and Voix (2016–2018), both of which will feature in the Serpentine exhibition. Together, they reveal an artist whose engagement with memory and language extends far beyond conventional literary practice.
Alongside works on paper, visitors will encounter material from Yoshimasu's extensive archive, including sound recordings, photography, moving-image works and documentation of his performances. Bringing these different disciplines together will offer an opportunity to experience the breadth of his artistic practice and the relationship between his written, visual and performative work.
The exhibition also represents an important moment in the international recognition of Yoshimasu's career. Despite his longstanding influence within Japanese experimental poetry and the wider avant-garde, the presentations at Serpentine and The FLAG Art Foundation will mark his first major institutional solo exhibitions in both the UK and the United States.
For an artist who has spent much of his career questioning the limitations of language, the exhibition offers an opportunity to reconsider poetry not merely as something to be read, but as something that can be seen, heard and physically experienced.
Gozo Yoshimasu will be presented at Serpentine, London, in autumn 2027, followed by The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, in spring 2028.
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