Nerhol Japan, b. 1980 & 1981

Nerhol is an artist duo formed by Yoshihisa Tanaka (born in 1980) and Ryuta Iida (born in 1981). They have worked together since 2007 and live in Tokyo.

Their name derives from the combination of neru (to plan ideas) and holu (to sculpt and carve). Tanaka studied in the Department of Scenography, Visualization, and Fashion Design at Musashino Art University, while Iida completed the Sculpture Program in the Department of Fine Arts at Nihon University.

Tanaka updates symbols, typefaces, and graphic codes, while Iida works with the possibilities of paper. Their collaborative works as Nerhol critique the perpetual cycle of consumption, creation, and obsolescence produced by contemporary economic activity.

They have held solo exhibitions at venues such as the Kanazawa Museum of Contemporary Art, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery in Tokyo, and the Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam. They have also participated in L’Atelier Néerlandais, Paris; the Unseen Photo Fair 2014, Amsterdam; and the Images Festival, Switzerland.