Exhibition
Forty Chinese paper kites in the shape of fish and krakens arise from the hill above the town of Schwaz towards the deeply blue Tyrolean sky. For a moment, it seems possible to move all these kites about in the sky before the predictable tangle of strings sets in.
Shimabuku reviews and rearranges the customary run of daily life and constructs his own daily routines out of the given time resources. The worlds of everyday life, business, and art, together with some poetic props, are juxtaposed against one another, and their rigid boundaries are broken up through minor shifts in accentuation. His installations chronicle fairytale-like investigations and seductively poetic formulations of questions, which enable the artist, like some lonely traveller ambling through halls and spaces of museums, galleries and cities, to pick conversations with passers-by and casual visitors alike.
One photograph more than five metres in length depicts a balloon above Tokyo in themorning. Every morning at 5.40 a.m. a balloon is released, rising towards the sky, from the roof of a museum. Shortly afterwards, two hundred pigeons leave their cages, fluttering into the sunrise. Afterwards, the forty visitors in the garden of themuseum are served a traditional Japanese breakfast.
Curated by Martin Janda
