ShugoArts

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In James Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom wanders around Dublin throughout the day.

When you sweep the ground or floor with a broom, it makes a swishing sound.
The ground and floor is like a record, and the broom is like the needle of a record player.

The Earth is like a giant record,
and we generate sounds every day with our feet, like the needle on a record.

 

Yukio FUJIMOTO, September 2024

 

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At ShugoArts, we will be hosting a solo exhibition of Yukio Fujimoto, marking his first show in four years since the 2020 online exhibition. In this exhibition, we will cover the gallery floor with 800 unglazed tiles and present BROOM (TILE). This work comes to life by allowing the viewers to walk on the tiles themselves, while the process of their weight gradually causes the tiles to make sound and crack. Our bodies, like the needle drawn to a record, are constantly in contact with the Earth’s surface due to gravity, generating various sounds through friction and vibration. The tile work was first presented in 2002 at a gallery in St. Ives, a pottery town in southwestern England. Since then, it has been reinterpreted and recreated in various locations, including the Otani Memorial Art Museum in Nishinomiya and as part of the Growing from the Soil art project in Mino. This will be the first presentation of the series in Tokyo, offering a rare opportunity for attendees to participate in the artwork.

 

Three images above are all taken in 2007 at the Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya city, Photo by Kiyotoshi Takashima

 

Additionally, this exhibition will feature new pieces from Fujimoto’s long-running SUGAR series. In SUGAR, cubes of sugar are placed in a glass tube and spun, causing the sugar to gradually collide and break apart, ultimately transforming into a pure white granulated form.

 

Yukio FUJIMOTO, SUGAR II, 1997

 

Since the 1980s, Yukio Fujimoto has been creating works that provoke new perceptions. These include CHAIR WITH EARS, which allows the audiences to listen to the surrounding environment and the exhibition space through artificial ears that are almost two meter-wide, and DELETE, where the viewers visually recognize labels on grooveless records so that they can play music in their heads. In this exhibition, we will explore how readymade objects transform into different forms through the invisible forces of gravity and rotational force, prompting questions about the nature of the things we perceive as everyday realities. Please join the exhibition and experience the works.

 

ShugoArts, September 2024

 

 

Yukio FUJIMOTO BLOOM’S BROOM
Dates: 26 October – 22 November, 2024
Venue: ShugoArts
Hours: 11am ‒ 6pm, Closed on Sun, Mon and Public Holidays

Due to our participation in Art Week Tokyo, we will be open irregularly on the following dates.
Dates: 7 November – 10 November, 10am – 6pm

Opening reception
Date&Time: 26 October, 5pm – 7pm
Venue: ShugoArts

 

Related exhibition & event
＞ART in MINO, Growing from the Soil, 2024
Dates: Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Public holidays from 18 October to 17 November, 2024
Venues: Tajimi / Mizunami / Toki cities in Gifu Prefecture
Website：https://art-in-mino.jp/
*For further information, please check the website above.

＞Art Week Tokyo
Dates: 7 November – 10 November, 2024
Website：https://www.artweektokyo.com/en/
*For further information, please check the website above.
**Please get off at E2 or E4 if you are taking the Art Week Tokyo shuttle bus.