Bortolami Brings The Latest Iteration Of Its Artist/City Initiative To The Plaza Hotel & Casino

Bortolami announces the new edition of its Artist / City initiative to be held in downtown Las Vegas with New York-based Japanese painters Koichi Sato and Susumu Kamijo, and Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood.

Expanding exhibition programming outside the gallery's walls, the Artist / City initiative pairs artists with an unconventional space in an American city for a longer duration than a standard gallery exhibition, granting artists freedom to push the boundaries of their creative practices. On the occasion of this site-responsive exhibition in Las Vegas, the artists have each worked on a series of new paintings, which will occupy the vacant site of a former Greyhound bus terminal adjacent to the Plaza Hotel & Casino.

In the context of Las Vegas' status as over-the-top icon of America, the three artists have created new works based on their individual experiences of "Americana," responding to the project individually and collaboratively. Koichi Sato, a self-taught painter known for his vibrant and cartoon-like figures, worked on new portraits of individuals and groups of people representing a wide spectrum of characters and identities in American culture. Susumu Kamijo continued his signature explorations of animals' physical and behavioral peculiarities, presenting heavily abstract canvases of poodles. The exhibition will be completed with never-before-seen works by internationally acclaimed artist Jonas Wood, including a large-scale landscape painting that will serve as a pictorial, boldly graphic background of the show. Visitors will enter the once-abandoned bus station and immerse themselves in a surreal, yet ordinary scenario imagined by the three artists, reminiscent of travelers waiting for their bus.

Stefania Bortolami, Founder of Bortolami Gallery, comments, "The Artist / City initiative reflects our interest in artistic experimentation outside the ordinary gallery setting. With the ever-changing and fast-paced art market that we navigate today, Artist / City aims for an additional paradigm in exhibition programming, offering site-responsive installations that broader audiences can experience over a longer period of time. We look forward to bringing the latest edition of the initiative to Las Vegas and showcasing Koichi, Susumu, and Jonas's unique artistic perspectives on American culture."

"The Plaza Hotel & Casino has always believed in the power of art in revitalizing communities," said Jonathan Jossel, CEO of the Plaza Hotel & Casino. "We were proud to transform our North Tower into a canvas for three 21-story murals and now, we are excited to welcome the next iteration of Bortolami's Artist / City program. The public art exhibition at the former Greyhound bus station shows how the space can be a prime feature of our plans to transform Main Street into a vibrant and diverse destination in downtown Las Vegas."

Bortolami Gallery has presented eight previous iterations of its Artist / City initiative since the launch in 2015 with a yearlong exhibition by French artist Daniel Buren in Miami's Wynwood Arts District. Subsequent pairings placed Eric Wesley at an abandoned Taco Bell in St. Louis, Tom Burr at the Brutalist Marcel Breuer building in New Haven, Jutta Koether in a classic three-story "Trinity House" in Philadelphia, Barbara Kasten at the Mies van der Rohe designed Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Paul Pfeiffer at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C, Ann Veronica Janssens at various cinemas and theaters in Baltimore, and Cecily Brown at a local High School in Buffalo.

For additional information on the Artist / City initiative, please visit bortolamigallery.com/artistcity.

Bortolami opened in September 2005. The gallery presented exhibitions by Richard Aldrich, Daniel Buren, Tom Burr, and Barbara Kasten, artists with whom the gallery has had long standing relationships. The Bortolami program has expanded to include such artists as Lesley Vance, Virginia Overton, Rebecca Morris, Renée Green, Marina Rheingantz, Mary Obering, Ella Kruglyanskaya, and Naotaka Hiro.

In 2017, Bortolami relocated to the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The program has also expanded regionally with the launch of the Artist / City initiative, which brings evolving yearlong exhibitions to cities across the United States.

Koichi Sato (b. 1974 in Tokyo, Japan) is a self-taught artist based in New York. He has had solo shows at Jack Hanley in New York and East Hampton, Bill Brady Gallery in Miami, Woaw in Hong Kong, and the Hole, New York. Selected group exhibitions include Bortolami, New York; Anecdote at Stems Gallery in Brussels; Global Pop Underground at Parko Museum, Tokyo; Punch at Jeffrey Deitch in both Los Angeles and New York; Bill Brady Gallery alongside Susumu Kamijo in New York; and Galerie Nagel Draxler in Cologne.

Susumu Kamijo (b. 1975, Nagano, Japan) holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of Oregon, followed by an MFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of Washington. Kamijo's paintings and drawings take an abstract approach to familiar subjects such as animals and human faces, playing with forms and colors with a concise handling of media. Since 2014, he has been working on a series of colorful drawings depicting poodles and more recently has expanded his exploration of the subject onto canvas. Kamijo has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Perrotin, Seoul (SK), Venus Over Manhattan, New York (NY), Jack Hanley, New York (NY). Stems, Brussels (BE), GNYP, Berlin (DE), Harper's Books, New York (NY), Marvin Gardens, Queens (NY), and Masahiro Maki Gallery, Tokyo (JP).

Jonas Wood (b. 1977, Boston) makes paintings that can be classified as a variety of different genres, including portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and interior scenes. In each of these, however, his work reflects an instantly recognizable vision of the contemporary world, as well as a personal approach to subject matter defined by his affinities and experiences. Its warmth is matched by a quasi-abstract logic that breaks pictures down into layered compositions of geometry, pattern, and color. Wood works at every scale, and maintains active drawing and printmaking practices, each of which helps him generate techniques that he eventually uses in paintings. Conjuring depth using flat forms-his process involves collage-based studies in which he works with photographs, breaking images apart and reassembling them-Wood probes the boundary between the new and the familiar, integrating emotionally resonant material from everyday life.

Jonas Wood has been the subject of solo and two-person exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art (2019); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, the Netherlands (with Shio Kusaka, 2017); Lever House, New York (2014); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2010). Other solo projects include Still Life with Two Owls, a monumental picture covering the façade of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016-2018); Shelf Still Life, High Line Billboard, High Line Art, New York (2014); and LAXART Billboard and Façade, LAXART, Los Angeles (2014). Recent group exhibitions include Since Unveiling: Selected Acquisitions of a Decade, The Broad, Los Angeles (2021-2022); Psychic Wounds: On Art and Trauma, The Warehouse, Dallas (2020); One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018); and Los Angeles: A Fiction, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2016) and Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, France (2017). His work is in the permanent collections of many institutions, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Broad, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In 2019, Phaidon published the first monograph dedicated to Wood's paintings and drawings. Wood lives and works in Los Angeles. He is represented by David Kordansky Gallery and Gagosian.

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