Be Gone

Since establishment, our gallery has committed to exploring plasticity of time and space through works regardless of media in an attempt to generate new forms of events. Having gone through the major pause and transformation of society due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have resumed our pursuit of this ideal even further. This exhibition is a project best aligned with this new phase of the gallery. Many of work by Satoshi Hashimoto have taken the form of instructions made up of short sentences, based on the fact that things we have around us for daily use have hidden instructions to choreograph people — for example, chairs say to us, “you can sit” or “sit.” In his work, Hashimoto has thrown light on such intrinsic choreographies that direct people at the unconscious level, presenting to the viewer various alternative, subversive possibilities. Installed in a public space, instructions like “Paint Yourself” and “You Can Hammer Yourself” do not only render the reader into the agent of the action in question but also their private territory, namely their body, into the target to apply the paint and destruct with the hammer, respectively, re-questioning the boundary between the public and private. Beyond those instructions regarding objects in our immediate surroundings, Hashimoto’s gaze extends to the dynamics of economy and politics as well as the scales of meteorological phenomena and astronomical bodies. His works that deal with calendrical system and measurement of time, such as , not only reveal how our act of working and resting is secretly dictated by modern calendars but also suggests that even the Earth’s rotation is a hidden order that choreographs our life. Hashimoto states that the subject that utters what his text says is actually the object to be handled. For example, it is the aerosol can that is the subject that pronounces the words “Paint Yourself.” In this context, it could be said that is a work that clearly points to this relation between the text and the material object that is typical to his practice. , kudan house, Tokyo, curated by Mizuki Endo), these works received a great response. This time, Hashimoto reconfigures the ensemble with newly produced works added. More than 30 works in total will unfold throughout the gallery as well as in the surrounding areas, expanding the space both inwardly and outwardly. , Aomori Museum of Art, 2021–2023), have influenced Hashimoto’s own artistic work in return. As the first collaboration between the artist and the gallery after Material Art Fair 2020 (Mexico City), which took place right before the pandemic, this is the third solo exhibition of Hashimoto with us, following I was Leonardo da Vinci. I sell my soul. I sell heaven. serves as a unique occasion to view Hashimoto’s latest body of work. (Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, 2010), among others. Works also as a member of collectives, such as An Art User Conference. 2011 / 2016. Spray paint, instructions, visitors. Visitors can use spray paint placed in the venue to paint their bodies. 2016. Handcuffs, chain, visitors and passers-by.