SASHIE Masakatsu Exhibition "Invisible Hand"（TOKYO）

Sashie was born in 1974 in Kanazawa, Japan, where he is still active today. Most of his work consists of oil paintings on canvas picturing the recurrent motif of a spherical town floating above piles of rubble. These remains primarily symbolize the scrap inherent to modernism and consumer society, as well as the collapse of the everyday life caused by wars and natural disasters.

By looking as Sashie’s work, one can find “that image from the past” in the midst of “a potential vision of the future.” This is one possibility hidden in the familiarity of the present, a parallel world which has already created this tremendous impression of a mix between the unknown and the déjà vu on many. Combined with the artist’s unique playful mind, it strongly stimulates our imagination. Yet, in the depths of the universe he has developed, Sashie cleverly continues foreseeing the world we have been looking at since March 11, 2011. For example by sometimes including a nuclear plant ablaze among the debris, appearing as a stinging reminder of consumer society.

The exhibition title “Invisible Hand*” is what serves as the model for market economy, representing our society which brings forth one after another complex organizations and regulations to cope with growing social issues, financial crisis, an always bigger market and accelerating development of civilization. The cities, rising above the rubble ceaselessly produced by 7 billion individuals, embody our world shaped by this “invisible hand.” What is Sashie suggesting through these spheres floating supernaturally above? And what are we seeing there?

The present exhibition includes 5 new works of which the central piece is a 3.3 meters high fusuma (a Japanese sliding door). Created out of precise observation and comparison, they are mirrors reflecting the truth of our world.

* From The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (1723 – 1790). The term is used to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace into which, by trying to maximize their own gains, individual ambition benefits society. Also referred to as “God’s invisible hand,” it is often cited as the founding precept of the market economy.