Tatsumi ORIMOTO: From “Carrying series”

Installation view, Tatsumi ORIMOTO  From “Carrying series”

It is our pleasure to announce that we will hold the 4th solo exhibition of a star contemporary artist, the pride of Kawasaki City, Tatsumi Orimoto (b. 1946, Kawasaki).

Orimoto is known for his representative works such as “Bread Man” in which he wrapped loaves of bread around his head and “Art Mama,” a collaborative work with his mother Odai; however, in his exhibition last year at the Kawasaki City Museum “ART x LIFE,” viewers surprisingly encountered various unknown aspects of Tatsumi Orimoto through seeing an overwhelming amount of his artwork such as drawings with freewheeling intimacy, three-dimensional works, print pieces, and documents of diverse performances.

In the late 1960s, Orimoto stayed and studied in America, on both its western and eastern coast. In the late 70s, after joining in the later Fluxus group, he went back to Japan. While leading a busy life as a manager of a construction company, he continued his artistic creativity at every opportunity. Faced with the bursting of the bubble economy in the early 1990’s, he dissolved his company and instantly switched his activities to creation and exhibition as an artist. Firmly based on his life living with his mother at his family home in Kawasaki, he actively promoted his artistic activity, mainly in Europe.

The “Carrying” series that will be exhibited in this exhibition is a history of Orimoto’s challenges conducted during his travels throughout Europe. At every occasion, he expressed himself through artwork such as “Carrying a Tire,” “Dragging a Bathtub,” “Dragging Many Cloths that are Tied Together,” “Carrying a Clock on the Head,” “Carrying a Chimney-like Sculpture beside a Real Chimney,” and “Carrying a Coffin-like Box Loaded with French Bread.”

He employed something inevitably found in each place as the media of his artwork such as goods, living matter, and situations.

“Carrying a Baby Pig on My Back,” the first solo exhibition at Aoyama Meguro in 2014, was his current expression at the time. And the “Bread Man” can be considered as “Carrying Bread on the Face” by a man dressed in the manner of the Fluxus group.

If you view his act of “carrying bread on the face” only as the unique character “Bread Man,” our imagination stops there; but in a different viewpoint, his confident but enigmatic expression seems to be suggesting something “necessary to us.”

We are looking forward to meeting you during the hottest period of summertime.

Please come and enjoy this rare opportunity.   

(translation: Katsumi OTA)

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