| Biography: | (artist biography as of 2006)
Born 1969, Kobe, Japan. Lives in Berlin,
Germany
Selected solo exhibitions
Catching Octopus with Self-Made
Ceramic Pots, 2005, Air de Paris, Paris,
France
From High in the Sky to the Bottom of
the Sea, 2005, Nogueras Blanchard,
Barcetona, Spain
Yoyo on the Moon, 2004, Maejima Art
Centre/Yume-R, Okinawa, Japan
Born as a Box, 2004, Wilkinson Gallery,
London, UK
Watching the River Flow, 2003.
Shugoarts, Tokyo, Japan
Swansea Jack Memorial Dog Swimming
Competition, 2003, Glynn Vivian Art
Gallery, Swansea. UK
Frog's Sky. 2002. Galerie der Stadt
Schwarz, Schwaz, Austria
The Octopus Returns. 2001, Kobe Art
Village Centre/Suma Rikyu Park, Kobe,
Japan
Passing through the Rubber Band, 2001.
Air de Paris. Paris, France
Selected group exhibitions
Berlin/Tokyo 2006, Neuen
Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
How to Live Together, 2006, XXVII
Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Circa Berlin, 2005, NIKOLAJ,
Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre,
Copenhagen, Denmark
MixMax, 2004, Artsonje Centre, Seoul,
South Korea
Time After Time, 2003, Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
Utopia Station, 2003, 50th Venice
Biennale, Venice, Italy
Biennale of Ceramics in Contemporary
Art, 2003, 2nd edition, Riviera Ligure, Italy
Radiodumb, 2002, Zero Arte
Contemporanea, Piacenza, Italy
The Beginning of Things, 2001, 6th
Kitakyushu Biennale, Kitakyushu
Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyushu,
Japan
Mega Wave, Yokohama 2001:
International Triennale of Contemporary
Art, Yokohama, Japan
Facts of Life, 2001, Hayward Gallery,
London, UK
Elysian Fields, 2000, Centre Pompidou,
Pans, France
As It Is, 2000, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham,
UK
Transformer, 2000, Raum aktueller
Kunst Martin Janda, Vienna, Austria
Gift of Hope, 2000, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Artist's texts
Shimabuku, SHIMABUKU 2001, Kobe:
Kobe Art Village Centre, 2001
Shimabuku, Swansea Jack Memorial
Dog Swimming Competition, Swansea:
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, 2003
Shimabuku, Cucumber Journey, Tokyo:
Shogakukan, 2004
Further reading
Deborah Kermode, As It Is, exh. cat.,
Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 2000, pp. 98-9
Duncan McLaren, 'Artists on the Move',
contemporary (June/ July/August 2002),
pp. 56-61
Tom Morton, 'Shimabuku', Frieze. 86
(October 2004), pp. 164-5
Shimabuku, 'Shimabuku Zero Gravity Art
Center', CUT (Tokyo: Rockin' On), nos.
168-86 (August 2004-October 2005)
Shimabuku, 'A Man who Walks to
Universe', in Rika Noguchi, Seeing Birds,
Tokyo: P3 Art and Environment, 2001
http://www.diacenter.org/ shimabuku/
http://www.shugoarts.com/en/
shimabuku.html
| | | Source: | International 06, Liverpool Biennial exhibition catalogue | | | Date of source: | 2006 |
|
| | Description: | Shimabuku reminds me of the Taoist
who, when challenged by a Sophist
friend 'You are not the fish. How do you
ever know the fish is happy by watching
it swimming?', responded, 'You are not
me. How do you ever know whether I
know the fish is happy?' The artist's
practice often involves going on a journey
to act out this kind of allegory.
Simple, slow and meditative, these
journeys embody folklore or proverbs
taken from local cultures, usually about
animals, and contain paradoxical or
absurd ingredients which subvert our
everyday thinking. What is achieved
confounds our expectations of any
adventure: no practical interests are
served, no excitements aroused - not
unlike Zen's mundane and humble
practices. Hence, the documentary
videos of these actions are undramatic,
but beautifully mellow.
Yet underlying all these allegorical
journeys is a deep concern about
communication and mutual
understanding between the self and the
other, between humans and animals or
plants, and, of course, most urgently,
between different cultures. If there is a
lesson to be learned, it is that, in real-life
interaction, process and gesture are
more important than the understanding
achieved.
Manray Hsu | | Description Source: | International 06, Liverpool Biennial exhibition catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 2006 | | Type: | person |
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