For over 50 years since becoming involved with the gallery, I had envisioned two independent exhibitions beyond individual artist shows from the very beginning. One was "Printed Matter," dealing with multiple productions such as books and prints, and printing in general; the other was "Fragment," focusing on human creative endeavors before the term "expression" came into being. The former has accumulated numerous exhibitions, evolving into the activities of Tokyo Publishing House (TPH), and is now carried on under YOKOTA TOKYO, maintaining both its name and content unchanged. As for "Fragment," while we have held fragmentary exhibitions as appropriate, and with the vague notion of "human" as its final element, we have only realized three exhibitions thus far, leaving this grand vision merely growing stronger until the present.

During this long blank period, people have gathered at my door one after another. Setting aside the grand vision, we decided to establish an Agora where five artists who share this era could come together.

As an homage to those who continue to hold humanity close to their hearts across time and space...

Shigeru Yokota
(translated by Abraham David Christian)