Ryts Monet’s First Solo Exhibition at WALLS TOKYO and the Publication of His New Monograph

WALLS TOKYO is pleased to present Kunst = Kapital², a solo exhibition by Ryts Monet.

Born in Bari, Italy, Ryts Monet is currently based in Vienna. He studied at IUAV University of Venice, where he received a BA in Visual Arts before specializing in Visual Communication in the MA program. His artistic practice focuses on the production of images as a means of examining cultural frictions, monuments, and symbols of power. He is particularly interested in contemporary history and the history of the latter half of the twentieth century, taking the rise and crisis of historical ideologies as central themes in his work.

Although Monet is primarily active in Europe, he has continued to present his work in Japan through exhibitions at Tokyo Wonder Site, now Tokyo Arts and Space, the Kake Museum of Art, and solo exhibitions at galleries and art spaces.

His first solo exhibition at WALLS TOKYO, titled Kunst = Kapital², explores the relationship between art and capital. The title refers both to Monet’s new series of works and to the phrase Kunst = Kapital (“Art = Capital”) by the German artist Joseph Beuys.

Beuys’s concept of Kunst = Kapital expresses the idea that human creativity is the true driving force of society. Kunst = Kapital² is the title of a new series that Monet began in 2026. At the heart of the series is the idea that artists, like central banks issuing banknotes, possess the ability to create value out of nothing.

“A simple sheet of paper can become either a work of art or a banknote. Both are capable of generating economic value once they are legitimized by the institutions or systems that ‘produce’ them.”
—Ryts Monet

In this series, Monet enlarges fragments of artworks depicted on banknotes and meticulously reconstructs them on paper using colored ballpoint pens.

There are two reasons why he chose ballpoint pens rather than colored pencils. First, ballpoint pens are commonly associated with offices and official documents, evoking the bureaucratic and administrative world. Second, Monet does not consider himself a painter. By deliberately using a non-specialist drawing tool designed primarily for writing rather than drawing, he seeks to emphasize the conceptual nature of the work.

For the exhibition at WALLS TOKYO, Monet will present Kunst = Kapital² (Katsushika Hokusai), which reproduces a detail from Katsushika Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa, featured on Japan’s new 1,000-yen banknote.

To coincide with the exhibition, WALLS TOKYO will also publish Ryts Monet: Selected Works 2011–2025, a monograph bringing together a selection of the artist’s previous works. We hope that the exhibition and publication will offer an opportunity to discover the development and diversity of Monet’s artistic practice.