Haunted by You documents Taiyo Kimura’s struggle to use a record player, satirizing the normal actions of everyday life in order to question the meanings that underlie ordinary modes of living. The performance narrative unfolds upon the circular movements of the turntable. A chicken’s leg replaces the turntable’s arm. The artist places a watermelon on the revolving record and attempts to slice it with a knife attached to his faces. He throws an octopus onto the vinyl. Finally, he ties a noose around his neck and allows it to tighten with each rotation of the turntable. Ordinary objects, motions, and actions become absurd and humorous, challenging viewers’ unconscious approaches to daily life.
Taiyo Kimura works with sculpture, video, and installation and uses everyday objects, humor, and music to questions the meaning of ordinary life. He studied at the Sokei Academy of Fine Art and Design in Tokyo. Kimura’s solo exhibitions include “Taiyo Kimura: 55 Bethune Street, NYC” ARTCOURT Gallery, Osaka, Japan (2014); “Taiyo Kimura – new works” nca | nichido contemporary art, Tokyo (2012); Propagation, Branch Gallery, Durham, N.C. (2008); Japanda: A Cross-Cultural Curatorial Exchange, Part One, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Canada (2007); Taiyo Kimura, Yokohama Portside Gallery, Yokohama, Japan (2005); and Taiyo Kimura: Unpleasant Spaces, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany (2004).
The wall installation Friction/Where is Lavatory (2005) plays off anxieties about time but utilizes sound to create a disconcerting experience of viewership: comprised of dozens of wall clocks sutured together, the work presents a monstrous vision of time at its most monumental...