4 Aug – 16 Sep 2018

 

venue: Onomichi city museum of art


Access:
Address: 17-19 Nixhitsuchido-cho , Onomichi city , Hiroshima 722-0032

How to go to Onomichi
○ From JR Onomichi Station, take a bus (bus stop No.1) to Nagaeguchi which takes about 3 minutes. Then take a ropeway (cable car) to Senkoji Park. Reasonable set tickets (round trip of ropeway and admission ticket for museum) are available at ropeway Sanrokueki Station.
Please note that bus bound for Senkoji Park runs less frequently.
※Ropeway Sanrokueki Tourist Information Center TEL ((0848)22-4900)
 
○ 200 yen discounts (only one person) if you present parking ticket of Senkoji Park.
About 20 minutes from Sanyo Expressway Onomichi IC
About 15 minutes from Sanyo Expressway Fukuyama West IC
 
○ About 15 minutes by taxi from JR Onomichi Station and Shin-Onomichi Station

 


Opening hours: 
9:00-17:00 (Last admission to exhibition is at 16:30.)

Closed on Mondays (in the case of a holiday, is opened)

More info:
https://www.onomichi-museum.jp/ 

 

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Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver, Yuki Okumura : SHI (Etablissement d’en face, Brussels )

October. 31–December. 7,2014


Vernissage: 7–10pm, Oct 31

 

Etablissement d’en face projects

Rue Ravensteinstraat 32
B-1000 Brussels

http://www.etablissementdenfaceprojects.org/eng/home/home.html

 

 

As far as I remember, “arrow sings” first grabbed my attention when I was planning “Weight/ Japan trench”, 1981, a project to sink a solid stainless steel ball that had the same weight as my body to the bottom of Japan Trench. While certainly existing in the great depth of Japan Trench, the ball would be no longer visible to us. How could such an invisible object be portrayed within the horizon (?) of our visibility? This question pushed me to develop the idea of creating and exhibiting an “arrow sign” that indicates and directs the whereabouts of the ball—It is over there. Today, it seems it would not be so difficult to show its whereabouts on the display of a smartphone, using GPS, if some kind of transmitter was attached (?) to the ball, although it would become a totally different work.

Early this year, once again “arrow signs” grabbed my attention, when I encountered them as I passed by a construction site. To date, I have formed many different signs and shapes in my work. But it has been nothing to do with depiction, although this word very often arises when it comes to drawing signs and shapes that are often considered as models of something not present on site. Especially, “arrow signs” are signs that do not depict the object. Rather, they present or indicate it. I used to very often use the term “shosoku” (literally “disappeared breath,” meaning news on someone who is gone from your sight) in regard to my practice, and the structure formed by arrows could be considered as something that is structured as “depiction of shosoku,” if it is ever about depiction.

Working on “arrow signs,” I cannot help pondering about Western Pure Land (Amitabha’s Buddhist paradise) or the image of Descent of Amida over the Mountain, maybe because I am currently in dialogue with a young artist for a sort of collaborative project where each of us contemplate the issue of “death.”

Also, I have been interested in triangle shapes △ for a long time, its most impressive embodiment for me being the nine white triangles △ that appear in three rows over the (grisly) wall of the small Otabisho shrine seen in the annual festival held in Wakamiya Shrine, branch of Kasuga Grand Shrine. In fact, they must be cross sections of nine triangular poles placed horizontally between the walls, but their appearance simply blows my mind. Looking from distance, triangle shapes also appear like dots—Every dot is actually in the shape of △.


When I was an elementary school student, one of my brothers, then a university student, taught me equations, saying “placing an X for what is not known.” What does it mean to place an X for an unknown? If it is unknown, is the act of placing something even possible? I remember I was totally confused, but at the same time, there was a feeling that I had perhaps learnt a great secret of human beings, some mysterious alchemy. What a triangle △ indicates seems to be this very thing that is “placed” to represent an unknown or the act of placing such a thing itself.  

I am also interested in the idea of “affordance,” which for example suggests that the form of a hand is always already given a potential to adjust itself to best fit a cup to hold it up. For some time now, I have been working on various artistic developments based on an idea that may be relevant to it—What you envision will take shape. Moreover, do objects also do “affordance”? In my head, voltage leaks of thought never ends.

(Fragments from notes by the artist taken while working in his studio)

Installation view

 

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Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver            

September 13 through October 11, 2014
Open from 12 to 19 pm (closed on Sundays and national holidays)
reception for the artist:Seprmber 13th. 19 – 21 pm

Installation view 

Aoyama | Meguro is pleased to announce our first solo exhibition with artist Shuzo Azuchi Gulliver (b. 1947).

Having perpetually worked on various projects for half a century since the 60s, Azuchi is widely recognized as a legendary figure. However, evaluation of his work itself has been put on hold for quite some time, especially in his native Japan, perhaps because of the overwhelming diversity of forms that his work has taken or the excessiveness of his words, deeds or appearance.

One can find his participation in many important exhibitions and events in the history of Japanese post-war avant-garde, which is currently being reevaluated globally, such as the inaugural 1967 exhibition “THE PLAY” and 1969’s “Intermedia Art Festival”. Since the 90s, his work has been increasingly exposed overseas, mainly in Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, shown in various exhibitions including large-scale museum shows, while this fact has not been well recognized elsewhere.

It was out of this context that the year 2010 saw his enormous retrospective titled “EX-SIGN” at the Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, as well as several related events in Tokyo, through which the artist immediately attracted rising attention, notably from the younger generation. Informed of his practice for the first time, they were intrigued by how the artist had persistently developed his activity without any commercial relations (although back then there were few commercial galleries anyway), experimented with all possible materials, maintained an attitude of perpetually raising critical questions and suggestions, and committed to eccentric, abrupt words and deeds. Re-discovered by the younger generation as full of clear and concrete, rather than inexplicable and abstract, ideas, Azuchi’s artistic approach has influenced many artistic minds since then.

The pieces he has been recently working on very often have connections with what he made several years or even decades ago. In the current exhibition, he will install a new project constructed with inspiration from directional arrow signs, as well as a number of existing works that are somewhat related to it, such as “The things responded to the body/ Apple”, 1975.