Nerhol are an artist duo formed in 2007 by graphic designer Yoshihisa Tanaka (b. 1980) and sculptor Ryuta Iida (b. 1981). Their unique practice, which traverses both photography and sculpture in its investigations, received high praise both internationally and domestically early in their careers for portraiture that applied a sculptural sensibility to series of photographs, as well as for more recent work concerning naturalized plants and petrified wood. Following their large-scale solo show, Turning the leaves of horizons, at the Chiba City Museum of Art, and Seeding and Crows—Misreading Righteousness at the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Nerhol have turned a reflective gaze to their artistic activities to date, and have declared their intention to begin a new chapter of artistic production. This exhibition, organized around their most recent work, illuminates Nerhol’s multilayered investigations and current context.

Nerhol's practice of carving into bundles of sequential photographs has matured over the years, expanding into a wider range of fields and delving deeper into expressive possibilities. What began as an initial interest in figurative subject matter has expanded to address everything from naturalized plants to the serialized photographs of Eadweard Muybridge. Recently, Nerhol have expanded into a new material approach where tens of thousands of still images from films are piled one on top of another and exhibited as a cross-section. For this exhibition, Nerhol address the body as the central theme. Tens of thousands of still images are first extracted from videos of professional models before being cut into strips by hand and piled into a single stack. This series, entitled Hidden Crevasse, invites the viewer into a microscopic time axis, an invisible threshold, a gap in existence that is imperceptible to the naked eye. This work can be described as a confrontation with life’s inhered multi-layered nature, an attempt to drive a wedge into cross-sections of the physical world and capture them from a different perspective. This work is presented alongside a horizontal stack of still images of the same video subject that has been carved into following their usual creative approach. Early versions of this series featured hundreds of layered photographs, but the number of images in this work has been drastically reduced. The contrasting composition—tens of thousands of layers stacked vertically juxtaposed with only a small number of layers that nevertheless are carved from overlapping perspectives of the same human figure—vividly demonstrates the multi-layered nature of Nerhol’s investigations while simultaneously encompassing reflections on time and space. This exhibition also features cross-sections of petrified wood covered with tin, as well as works carved from layers of limestone-based stone paper.

Time and space, visible and invisible, macro and micro—just as Nerhol have traversed the space between photography and sculpture, so too have they continued to develop and enrich their practice by traversing dimensions and concepts. Through this show’s thematic focus on the body, these investigations open up deeper connections with the viewer and bring an awareness of the possibilities of a rich, multi-layered reality. Petrified wood reflects the figure of the viewer through a mirror-like surface of tin, linking hundreds of years of history with the present. One could argue that the “bodily” theme and practice of this work has developed into something internalized by each viewer, thus connecting those same viewers more deeply to the work. The results of this innovative approach were recognized in 2024 by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology with the Award for Fine Arts. Through constant reflection and practice, the two artists seek ever-new frontiers.

Nerhol

Nerhol are a Tokyo-based artist duo formed in 2007 by Ryuta Iida and Yoshihisa Tanaka. Beginning with explorations into defamiliarizing books, the characters within them, and established forms of images existing in the world, in 2011 they attracted considerable attention with a three-dimensional portrait created by carving into a stack of more than two hundred completely different portraits taken over the span of several minutes. Their practice attempts to unravel the multilayered existence inherent in organic matter that is frequently overlooked in everyday life.

Recent major exhibitions include Nerhol: Seeding and Crows—Misreading Righteousness (Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 2025), Household Vestiges (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2025), Nerhol: Turning the leaves of horizons (Chiba City Museum of Art, 2024), Tenjin Mume Nusa (Dazaifu Tenmangu, Fukuoka, 2024), Beyond the Wall (Museo Leonora Carrington, San Luís Potosí, Mexico, 2024), Affect (Dai-ichi Life Gallery and M5 Gallery, Tokyo, 2023), critical plane (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2021), Interview, Portrait, House and Room (Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea, 2017), and Promenade (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, 2016).

Major collections include Foam Museum (Amsterdam), Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art (South Korea), Fundación AMMA (Mexico), Dazaifu Tenmangu (Fukuoka), Chiba City Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

Ryuta Iida was born in 1981 in Shizuoka prefecture. In 2004 he graduated from the Sculpture Course in the Department of Fine Arts at Nihon University College of Art, and in 2014 received his Master’s degree in Intermedia Art from Tokyo University of the Arts. He is currently based in Tokyo.

Yoshihisa Takana was born in Shizuoka prefecture in 1980. After graduating in 2004 from the Scenography, Display and Fashion Design Department in the College of Art and Design at Musashino University, Tanaka received his Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University.