Koki Ishibashi

Founder / Director, KOKI ARTS

Koki Ishibashi was born in Saga, Japan, to Japanese artists living in New York City, Yoshishige Furukawa and Akiko Mashima. He moved to NYC when he was 2 months old and grew up surrounded by artists in Westbeth, the world’s largest artists’ housing, located in Greenwich Village. After moving to Japan in 2001 to attend Keio University in Tokyo, he worked several part-time jobs in public and private museums. He acquired a museum curator certification during his undergraduate years. Ishibashi earned a master’s degree in art history from Keio University in 2007. After finishing university, he worked briefly for Sotheby’s Japan, assisting various departments, and then for Matsumi Salon, a company that deals Japanese vintage prints. In December 2011, Ishibashi founded KOKI ARTS, a contemporary art gallery based in Bakurocho, an art district in Tokyo. Since its first exhibition in 2012, the gallery has introduced many important emerging to established artists from both Japan and the US. KOKI ARTS also participates in international art fairs, and it was the first Japanese gallery to exhibit in the Seattle Art Fair, Art on Paper, and the SPRING/BREAK Art Show. Since 2017, Ishibashi has been serving as an executive committee member of ART FAIR ASIA FUKUOKA, the first art fair in Kyushu. In 2019, KOKI ARTS (along with 3 other galleries) established Hammock, a gallery collective in Japan. Ishibashi has appeared several times as a reporter on TOKYO EYE, a TV program on NHK WORLD, navigating the art scene in Tokyo.

KOKI ARTS

〒101-0031 東京都千代田区東神田1-15-2ローズビル1F 
1-15-2 Higashi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0031
www.kokiarts.com