Where disciplines meet: MINAMI RYOHEI
Minami Ryohei is an artist who seamlessly carries his mode of artistic expression across different fields and frameworks, effortlessly bending the conventions of each discipline to fit his own style. Working across installation, design, dance, and music, the world he creates invites you into a journey of discovery, one that reveals unexpected creative possibilities at every turn.
“My style is like an experimental device for perceiving the noumenon—the essence that allows a new phenomenon to arise in myself or in someone else.”
You are a multi-disciplinary artist whose work spans music, sculpture, dance, DJing, painting, and installation. How do you perceive the balance between music and art? Which of the two takes priority for you? And which medium feels most natural for expressing yourself?
For me, artistic expression—whether visual, musical, cinematic, or corporeal—is not something I prioritize or rank. Each output is a deeply personal habit (parole) shaped by my environment, a kind of crystallization.
My two-dimensional works, such as paintings or collages, are created most intuitively, like daily diaries. In that sense, they may best represent who I am.
How would you describe your artistic style? What domestic or international influences have shaped it?
My style is like an experimental device for perceiving the noumenon—the essence that allows a new phenomenon to arise in me or in someone else. In a way, I’m a “phenomenon practitioner.” Recently, I’ve been deeply moved by Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought, a book by P.D. Ouspensky.
Tell us more about your label [A NiCE FORM]…
A good form feels good. When thought senses a pleasant fact, a form emerges from that sensation. When the form fits just right, saying “Ah, nice form” feels even better. This emerging label and platform project releases textures of “nice forms” in thinking and sensation through audio, print, video, clothing, and more.
Your track “PaRoooLe” features a unique rhyming style. Can you tell us about your relationship with the Japanese language and rhyming in Japanese?
What fascinates and matters most to me is the parole—the peculiar habits—of the Japanese language. It’s all about how to swim freely through my own parole.
A spot in TOKYO that travelers usually overlook, but shouldn’t, according to MINAMI RYOHEI
Omigoto Snack Obimusu in Kichijōji.
Art space and galleries to visit in TOKYO, recommended by MINAMI RYOHEI
Hitobito Records (Kyoto), GASBON METABORISM (Yamanashi), and ACTIVISM!!!, among others.
TEENAGE KICKS: MINAMI RYOHEI’s early influences in JAPAN
Takehisa Kosugi, Kitarō Nishida, and Hirokazu Hiraishi, among others.
One thing MINAMI RYOHEI would wish to change in TOKYO
Real estate.
