Suchness on the Canvas: Daichi Takagi at David Zwirner London

Not every autumn exhibition needs fireworks. Some need raindrops, stones, and the moon.

Daichi Takagi: Suchness is on view at David Zwirner London (24 Grafton Street) from September 24 to October 31, 2026. It is Takagi’s first UK solo exhibition and his first show with the gallery, installed in The Upper Room. Opening reception was September 24, 6 to 8 pm.

What “suchness” means here

The title *Suchness* (真如) points to a state where things simply are as they are. Per David Zwirner’s exhibition materials, Takagi tries to give form to presence, to the space around subjects, and to the essence of experience, rather than interpreting or controlling them. The gallery links that approach to modern Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida’s notion of “pure experience,” and to Eastern ideas of non-duality where self and world stay fluid.

The 2026 paintings range from intimate canvases of rain or cloudy night skies to larger close-ups of stones, leaves, and ancient tree trunks. Works named in the materials include *Raindrops*, *Wanderer*, *Stone*, *Trunk*, and *Moonlight*. Forms rise out of deep black grounds. Recognition and mystery share the same brushstroke.

Studio habits worth stealing (artistically speaking)

Takagi talks about researching in forests and parks near home and around Tokyo, and farther afield when he can. He looks for ordinary, unnamed places. Sometimes he brings stones and leaves back to the studio. He also keeps photographic notes, not as something to copy directly, but as memory aids for having been somewhere. That is such a Leanore-brain process: collect the feeling, then paint the afterimage.

He also nods to Japanese painting traditions (think humidity in Hasegawa Tōhaku’s pine trees, rain in Hiroshige) and to the in-between material-and-image quality he loves in Brâncuși. Stones become planets. Wood becomes something almost figurative without pretending to be a portrait.

Why visit (or follow from afar)

If Kusama is infinity-as-spectacle and Shiota is thread-as-cathedral, Takagi is the quiet friend who notices how the moon changed since yesterday. For Art Life readers who love craft, perception, and the romance of looking hard at ordinary things, this London show is a soft landing with real depth.

Primary source: David Zwirner, Daichi Takagi: Suchness