I’m Kansan Tani. Artist. Cyanotypes.
Philosophy
When I first encountered Duchamp’s “Fountain”, I was struck by its irreverence — its audacity, its knowing irony. It etched itself into my memory not only as an iconoclasm, but as a question: after this, where do we go? Even then, I remember thinking, after this, we need to go back.
Later, reading about Joseph Kosuth’s “One and Three Chairs”, I understood how necessary that pivot was. The conceptual turn of the 1960s — when artists shifted the locus of meaning from object to idea — was radical, clarifying, and deeply historical. But I’ve come to feel that the pendulum may have swung too far. An artwork’s conceptual underpinning matters, yes — but so does its presence, its surface, its aesthetic gravity.
I believe in work where thought and form carry equal weight. My cyanotypes are part of that search: for clarity, for resonance, for an image that thinks and holds light.
You can reach me via email or find me on Instagram @kansantani.