ARTCOURT Gallery is pleased to present, “Far Too Close,” a solo exhibition of new works by sculptor Shiro Matsui.

This exhibition will focus on Shiro Matsui’s newest works, such as Lag Behind / Lag Forward, an interactive sculpture that humorously brings our connections with the earth and each other into focus, and the large-scale installation Capital T, which will stretch through the gallery corridor into the courtyard, connecting the interior with the exterior. Through varying senses of scale and a diverse range of sculptural expression, Matsui’s works will invert the ideas of in/out and here/there to create a playful exhibition “Far Too Close” that expresses new conceptions of space.

In Lag Behind / Lag Forward, two viewers will be able to participate in a sculpture by standing back to back with their heads under a blue arch hanging from the ceiling. If their gazes extend straight forward, they will feel that they are facing each other from all the way around the world, although the other is standing just 1m away. Based on the concept of non-euclidean geometry or spherical geometry, this arch that floats in midair inside the gallery space allows the distance between the two to be measured in this curious way. The viewers that “face” each other can let their imaginations expand around the idea of this line that connects them.

Matsui has made and continues to exhibit, both here and abroad, installations featuring trumpet-ended ducts that stretch from place to place and allow viewers to transmit their voices across spaces separated by walls or distance. Here, Capital T consists of ducts that extend from the exhibition space through the window, and out into the courtyard like a pipeline to join these contrasting spaces.

After his first solo exhibition in 1983, Shiro Matsui garnered attention for sculptures in various materials (wood, copper, brass, aluminum, clay, marble) that were full of humor and intellect, and brought to mind the dynamics between organisms. Since the early 90s, he has been known for giant balloonlike works that fuse with the buildings in which they are installed, and works that overturn people’s perceptions and their concepts of space.
Matsui has an endless interest in the kinds of latent questions that humanity should be asking. From everyday occurrences to the movement of heavenly bodies, we exist in the context of surrounding phenomena, and are conscious of space while engaging in this bodily dialogue. Through these physical experiences, Matsui uses a wide range of materials, forms, colors, and scales to create intellectually stimulating works, and continues to present fresh and new concepts of space.