Contemporary Art Gallery Vancouver

Shimabuku
When Sky was Sea, (2002)
DV transferred onto DVD. Edition of 5
Courtesy the artist and Air de Paris, Paris
 
 
SHIMABUKU
When Sky was Sea
 
November 21, 2014 to January 11, 2015
Opening reception: Thursday, November 20, 7-10pm
 
When Sky was Sea is the first large-scale exhibition in North America of work by renowned Japanese artist Shimabuku.
 
The presentation by this extraordinary artist demonstrates the breadth of his practice; works revealing an essential connection to things elsewhere in a wider world, underlining the continuity that exists between art and life.
 
We follow as the artist travels the world, interacting with strangers, and conversing with nature, Shimabuku instigating moments of poetry, humour, joy and surprise.The exhibition includes works dating back to the mid-1990s, when he first emerged as an artist in Japan, through to presenting a wide variety of more recent work for which he has since become internationally celebrated. Exemplifying his unending curiosity and freedom of expression Shimabuku uses installation, video, photography, drawings, sculpture and events alike to convey his intense fascination with the natural world–equally the animal and vegetable realms–and the countless manifestations of human culture within it.
 
His artistic proposition is essentially one of storytelling and discovery, in passing through the rubber band (2000) visitors are invited to step through the stretching loops, a simple act of fun and wonder via the most modest of means, as in all of his works the marvellous emerges from the mundane.Shimabuku is not so interested in discovering the reasons why, instead preoccupied, through a joyful approach, with unions of myth or mystery and the everyday. This is epitomized by Something that Floats / Something that Sinks (2008), a work through which the artist draws our attention to the fact that some pieces of fruit and vegetables float in water or appear to swim, while others sink. It is wonderful and ostensibly miraculous.
 
The exhibition is complementary to and produced in association with Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland.
 
Shimabuku (1969, born in Kobe, Japan) lives and works in Berlin. Selected solo exhibitions include: Sea and Flowers, Barbara Wien Wilma Lukatsch, Berlin; City in the sea, Air de Paris, Paris; Flying Me, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2014); Something that Floats/Something that Sinks, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK and Noto, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2013); Leaves Swim, Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona, Spain (2012); Man should try to avoid contact with alien life forms, Centre international d'art et du paysage de l’Île de Vassiviére, Vassiviére, France; On the water, CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2011); The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2009); DAAD galerie, Berlin; Wilkinson Gallery (2007); Swansea Jack Memorial Dog Swimming Competition, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (2003); Then, I Decided To Give a Tour of Tokyo To the Octopus From Akashi, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (2002); America, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (1994).
 
Established in 1971 the Contemporary Art Gallery is the longest standing free public art gallery in Vancouver dedicated exclusively to presenting contemporary art. By the early 1990s the programme expanded providing some of the first institutional exhibitions for many important Vancouver artists, including Brian Jungen, Germaine Koh and Steven Shearer. The Contemporary Art Gallery is a publicly funded institution, generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Vancouver and the Province of BC through the BC Arts Council and the BC Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch. We are very grateful for this support and that we receive from the Vancouver Foundation and our members, donors and volunteers.
 
 
Contemporary Art Gallery
555 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC
V6B 6R5
Canada
T: +1 604 681 2700
 
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