Imamura Hajime: The Whereabouts of the Late
November 3, 2023 - January 28, 2024 10:00-18:00 (last admission at 17:30)
Contemporary artist Imamura Hajime is known for his style with light and diaphanous images at first glance having humorous forms, but they suddenly evoke a profound world, which is in unity with the ordinary, as he adds a little gap to unnoticed mundane things, making it upside down or flipping it over. He uses light materials usually unsuitable for sculpture such as cardboard, styrene foam, plaster, wire and vinyl, and makes “sculpture” which is full of floating quality. At the root of his works lies a world of mushrooms that stretch around mycelium underground below woods and come aboveground occasionally. It is a world not seen by humans, but it certainly coexists with the world, and Imamura’s thoughts on fungi that support the world expanded beyond an individual realm and got connected with the energy of life that continues. Imamura started his creative work in the first half of the 1980s in Kyoto, and his unique philosophical style unlike others attracted attention in the early days. This exhibition is the contemporary artist’s solo exhibition at an art museum in ten years.
Imamura Hajime
Profile
Born in Osaka in 1957 and based in Kyoto. He graduated with BA in sculpture, Department of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts in 1981, and completed a master’s course in sculpture, Graduate School of Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts in 1983. He worked mainly in the Kansai area and used ordinary materials from daily life making two-dimensional works and prints using colored wires and installations in which sculptures are connected with wire. His philosophical works having humorous forms show us a profound world that is the flip side of the same coin with the ordinary. His recent solo exhibitions include Streaming / Staying (Gallery Nomart, Osaka, 2021) and Para Para Para (ARTZONE, Kyoto, 2018). Group exhibitions he participated in include Thoughts on Sparseness and Density (the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, 2021), TAD Best Selection: Museum Collection ＋ How Would You View It?（Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design, 2020), Starting Points: Japanese Art of the ’80s（21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2018 / Takamatsu Art Museum, 2018 / Shizuoka City Museum of Art, 2019), Culture City of East Asia 2017 Kyoto, Asia Corridor Contemporary Art Exhibition (Nijo-jo Castle / Kyoto Art Center, 2017).
He was awarded Good Prize at the 35th Nakahara Teijiro Award in 2007 and the 28th Kyoto Bijutsu Bunka (art and culture) Award in 2015. Imamura’s works are included in the collection of the National Museum of Art, Osaka; Itami City Museum of Art; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, etc.
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1997-7, Utsunomiya Museum of Art Tochigi
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2002-11 Ie, Shiseido Gallery Tokyo, Photo: Sakurai Tadahisa
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Streaming / Staying ver. Terra-S, 2022, Kyoto Seika University Gallery Terra-S Kyoto, Photo: Takano Tomomi, Image provided: Kyoto Seika University Gallery Terra-S
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Return to the light, HITO, 2017, Gallery Nomart Osaka
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Parasitism, Mushroom, Reborn-Art Festival2019, Oshika Peninsula Miyagi
