AOYAMA Satoru “Do you believe in ‘Forever’?” (TOKYO)

Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to present “Do you believe in ‘Forever’?”, a solo exhibition by AOYAMA Satoru.

Aoyama creates works that explore issues of labour and capitalism in contemporary society, using an old Singer industrial sewing machine. He believes that “only by continuing to create, can art be a mirror of the times.” Over the past few years, Aoyama has used embroidery to continuously engage with social issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, wars and conflicts around the world, and the divisions they have caused, blending critique with humour in his work.

His first solo exhibition at a public museum, “A Boy Who Sews Forever” held at the Meguro Museum of Art in April this year, attracted many visitors with a comprehensive overview of the artist’s 20-year career, as well as a dynamic exhibition space displaying works that he created live in public almost every day.

Following “A Boy Who Sews Forever,” this exhibition will showcase Aoyama’s new works based on the theme of “invisible and disappearing things” that have been buried in a rapidly globalising world. The video work The Cashiers uses a computerised sewing machine to focus on “an incident that could happen in any neighbourhood” and encourages viewers to consider the future relationship between machines and people, as well as the loss of jobs. Reminiscent of his early landscape works, the new work Good Evening Tokyo, 2018 is based on a photograph taken before the pandemic, and is a fully embroidered depiction of an everyday scene that seems unchanged yet no longer exists. Aoyama says that this work, which focuses on the theme of forgotten memories and the passage of time, is the first in a new series of works he plans to develop as part of his ongoing practice. Also featured in the exhibition will be a patchwork piece created in collaboration with children, Defeat the Common Sense Monster! and his first soft sculpture work derived from it.

The title of this exhibition, “Do you believe in ‘Forever’?” was originally used as a subtitle for “A Boy Who Sews Forever.” In works that Aoyama describes as “small monuments to disappearing things”—embroidered reproductions of magazines, bills, and flyers—the artist calls into question contemporary society, where all information and objects are consumed “momentarily” and where society itself undergoes rapid transformation.

We hope you will take this opportunity to view Aoyama’s first solo exhibition at the gallery in five years.

12:00-19:00 (Thu. 7 – Sun. 10 November 10:00-19:00)

Opening Reception: Wed. 9 October 18:00-20:00

Closed on Sun., Mon. & Holidays (Except Sun. 10 November for Art Week Tokyo)