Wilkinson Gallery is pleased to present the first solo show in London by Japanese artist, Shimabuku.
Shimabuku makes process based works which usually involve some kind of participation from the viewer. He has made works in many different countries which often include the notion of a journey during which the work evolves, connecting different people, places and cultures. He often starts with simple ideas which can be universally understood and encourage communication or engagement between different groups of people.
In his web project for Dia Centre in New York, for instance, he made a screen saver of the moon that presented exaggerated depictions of figures imagined on the surface of the moon - a rabbit, a face, a donkey, a crab, a frog with a rabbit. While gradually dissolving between these interpretations, the image of the moon slowly increases and then decreases in size. Shimabuku noted that in Asia it is a custom for families to look at the moon together. In Japan mothers tell the story of the Moon Rabbit to their children, while giving a flower and a something sweet and round to the moon. He listed all the visual interpretations he could find to encourage people to recreate this custom, this time in front of a computer. In another piece he took a journey from London to Birmingham in a canal boat during which he made pickled vegetables. Along the way, he asked people for advice on how to make the pickled vegetables and in the process he learned about English culture from the people he met.
The show will include a new piece "Eating with Eyes', a projection of eighty slides which he has collected over the last four years of different meals. At first, Shimabuku took the photographs spontaneously as a memory of a time or place but as his collection grew, he began to find them interesting as images which were loaded with cultural references. He will also showPassing Through the Rubber Band where he invites gallery visitors to pull a rubber band from their heads past their feet and Born as a Box, where a card board box takes on an identity of its own and tells of its experiences 'I am happy that I am box. I can go to many places. It is a lot of fun'.
Shimabuku has exhibited internationally - his recent shows include the Venice Biennale 2003, Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea, Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Austria, Shugoarts, Japan and Facts of Life, Hayward Gallery, London.
