Index (Tokyo)

2015 - Painting (Painting)

Shimon Minamikawa

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The painting Index (Tokyo) includes an image of a protest march in Japan. There is some humor in this image and also cultural contextual confusion and displacement, embodied in the painting. The protest we can see on the clipping is against two things : 1)recently the Japanese government revised the constitution (some say illegally) so that the right to collective self-defense is possible; this basically re-militarizes Japan ending decades of pacifism and this sparked the largest public protests in recent years and 2) the protestors are also marching against re-starting nuclear power plants in Japan post-Fukushima.

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Since the beginning of his career, Minamikawa Shimon has made work that deviates from conventional painting and other formats. From portraits made with pale tones to abstract paintings using brilliant fluorescent colors, and a series called Sign Boards, in which he applies paint directly to an easel, Minamikawa’s works assume a variety of forms. And by showing a number of works with different qualities alongside each other, the artist rearranges the meaning of each individual piece, and turns the space into a work of art. In recent years, Minamikawa has collaborated with performance artists as Ei Arakawa and others, and produced works that traverse artistic genres.

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Colors:

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• protest.n.01
• wit.n.01
• supplanting.n.01
• meaning.n.01
• dislocation.n.01
• japan.n.01