Opening Saturday, March 23, Wako Works of Art is very pleased to present an exhibition of new and recent works by Antwerp-based artist duo Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen. This will be their first exhibition in Japan.

Carla Arocha was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1961. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Stéphane Schraenen was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1971, and attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. They have been working collaboratively since 2006, primarily in the three-dimensional form as well as with the photographic medium. At first glance, the works are viscerally capturing, making both Pop and Minimal references; in further inspection, however, the works reveal a more conceptual stratum with the visual traversal between abstraction and figuration.

For their show at Wako Works of Art, Sunday, Arocha and Schraenen bring an array of their representative works: Moiré (Japan) (2013), a window decal installation; Table and Chair 4 (both 2012), everyday furniture made of mirror, placed in dysfunctional positions; and photographs, Window and Carpet (both 2008), of familiar found patterns. Seemingly banal, yet provoking an unsettling and ominous feeling, the works begs the audience for a closer look at its everyday environs.

Together, they have shown in solo exhibitions at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Caja de Burgos (CAB), Burgos, a project with Arturo Herrera and Meyer Weisman at the Künstlerhaus Bethaniën in Berlin, and LTD Los Angeles.

This exhibition will be shown simultaneously with Luc Tuymans’ exhibition of new paintings, The Spill.