Now and Things – Picnic

Now and Things – Picnic
2023 / Marble, UV print, Plywood / 550×3400×H.860mm / Solo Exhibition ”Now and Things” at eitoeiko 2023 / photo: Daisaku OOZU (Only the sixth photo was taken by Jun Homma)

This sculpture series presents a single timeline where everyday landscape photographs, ready-made objects like figurines and chairs, undergo sculptural processes such as carving and sculpting, gradually disappearing. Furthermore, this disappearing is linked to the other reappearing. Through this, the series attempts to offer a perspective that spans art history and civilization, transcending the seemingly inconsequential events of the past and future, connecting them with new viewpoints and contemplations.
These endeavors to manifest the inherently imperceptible nature of time draw inspiration from the Zen phrase “Sokkon” the eternal is the absolute ‘now’.” This signifies that besides the passage of time, there is no eternity, and eternity exists solely in the absolute “now.”
When faced with the instantaneous confrontation of the past as the origin of creation, the present as the current state, and the future, which anticipates disappearance or collapse, what does one perceive? What layers might intertwine in this “now” — the genesis of art and religion, the progression of science and technology, wars and environmental degradation, and the potential guise of the future world?