Vintage by Merlin Carpenter at Galerie Tenko Presents, Tokyo, 2025

May 14 - May 29 2025 Merlin Carpenter ‘Vintage’ Galerie Tenko Presents Tokyo Japan

Galerie Tenko Presents proudly inaugurates a new gallery space in Tokyo with British artist Merlin Carpenter’s solo exhibition ‘Vintage’.

In conversation with Merlin in a taxi ride in Busan last year about the drawings he did in 2006 in Beijing of Karl Marx’s birthplace, Trier, it struck me as relevant that my intrigue about these works was because they felt vintage.

Tokyo must be the capital of vintage. Vintage stores are treated like museums here, each item is repaired, cleaned and so curated. I love the thought of the buyers gleaning a suburban Goodwill or Humana once a year, filling up boxes with weathered reunion t-shirts and college jumpers and restoring them to Japanese standards, and re-selling them at prices surpassing their original tags. And trendy young Tokyo boys and girls, blend Eurotrash with Americana and West Coast hiphop, blurring genre boundaries in a seamless fusion. It’s the beginning and end of genre.

Indoor Street Art, 2025. Exterior paint on two walls, 368 x 280 cm and 406 x 267 cm.

Indoor Street Art, 2025. Exterior paint wall, 415 x 234 cm.The highly produced newest songs by k-pop super group New Jeans, effortlessly reference B'more Club, UK garage and Jersey Club with immaculately pitched teen voices that transcend mere music, reaching the pinnacle of sonic perfection. It’s perfection till the point that it feel like the the end of music. I particularly remember going to the new Tenko Presents when it was still a bar, as a teenager circa 2015 on a electro-swing night, which already during its peak was considered a bad genre that blends vintage jazz swing and house.

Indoor Street Art, 2025. Exterior paint on two walls, 368 x 280 cm and 406 x 267 cm.Indoor Street Art, 2025. Exterior paint on wall, 179 x 267cm and 178 x 88 cm.

Now, below the gallery, there’s a Barry McGee throw up. Alongside a large commission he did under the Ebisu rail tracks. This kind of commissioned street art is the epitome of gentrification. Probably his little graffiti throw up was driven by this guilt he feels.

Tenko Nakajima

2025

Trier (Beijing) 1, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 54.6 cm x 78.8 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 2, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 54.6 cm x 78.8 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 3, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 54.6 cm x 78.8 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 6, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 54.6 cm x 72.7 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 7, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 54.6 cm x 73 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 8, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 72.7 cm x 54.6 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 10, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 72.7 cm x 54.6 cm.

Trier (Beijing) 17, 2006. Graphite and mixed media on drawing paper, 72.7 cm x 54.6 cm.

Vintage

Galerie Tenko Presents proudly inaugurates a new gallery space in Tokyo with British artist Merlin Carpenter’s solo exhibition ‘Vintage’.

In conversation with Merlin in a taxi ride in Busan last year about the drawings he did in 2006 in Beijing of Karl Marx’s birthplace, Trier, it struck me as relevant that my intrigue about these works was because they felt vintage.

Now, below the gallery, there’s a Barry McGee throw up. Alongside a large commission he did under the Ebisu rail tracks. This kind of commissioned street art is the epitome of gentrification. Probably his little graffiti throw up was driven by this guilt he feels.

Tenko Nakajima

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