5th Anniversary ExhibitionSUGITO Hiroshi : flyleaf and liner

Collaborating on this exhibition is Hattori Kazunari, a graphic designer whose versatile career has encompassed everything from graphics for magazines and advertising, to artwork for musicians, and visual identity design for the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, including the HIROSAKI-MoCA logo. Of this, Sugito has said it was Hattori’s stint in art direction for fashion magazine Ryuko Tsushin (2002–04) that made the greatest impression on him. Compiled by an array of creators, Ryuko Tsushin was crammed with creative inspiration from far beyond the confines of fashion, and Sugito says that Hattori’s bold, freewheeling approach to composition, that included photos taken by himself, and collages, offered ideas for his own art production.
 
Hattori’s involvement with Ryuko Tsushin in the early 2000s also coincided with the series of three Nara Yoshitomo exhibitions* held at the Brick Warehouse (Yoshii Shuzo Brick Warehouse) prior to the building’s rebirth as an art museum. Sugito traveled to Hirosaki on several occasions during this period to participate in the 2006 exhibition YOSHITOMO NARA + graf A to Z, and for him, recollections of Hirosaki overlap with those of Ryuko Tsushin when Hattori was artistic director.
This collaboration between the pair, at Sugito’s invitation, will also resound with memories of the spaces of the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, and of the local area.

*I DON’T MIND, IF YOU FORGET ME. in 2002, From the Depth of My Drawer in 2005, and YOSHITOMO NARA + graf A to Z  in 2006. The exhibitions were assembled and run by volunteers, chiefly local residents, and attracted a total of over 150,000 visitors from the prefecture and beyond. The success of these three shows was a major factor in the establishment of the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art will also present an exhibition of works from the collection acquired since the museum’s opening, which consists mainly of pieces produced on commission. In addition to offerings from artists with local connections, this collection exhibition titled Heading North and staged in conjunction with the Sugito Hiroshi show will feature works produced jointly by Sugito and Hirosaki native Nara Yoshitomo in 2004.
 
At high school Sugito attended a cram school to help him enter art college, and there met Nara, who was working as an instructor while studying at Aichi University of Arts. Their friendship continued to grow over time, and in 2004 the pair collaborated during a residency in Vienna. In 2006 Sugito was then invited by Nara to be part of the A to Z show, where he presented a painting.
 
Collaborations between Sugito and Nara are grounded in a mutual trust nurtured over many years. Their different approaches to form, line and color are stimulating for both, and have spawned a stream of drawings, paintings and sculptures. In recent years Sugito has made revisions to works of his own from the 1990s, and continues to engage with his past self as part of his creative practice. Collaborations between the pair likewise do not start with a completed form in mind, but may be revised and added to over long periods as works in progress. This approach to creating also demonstrates the potential that incomplete artworks possess for the particular richness that comes with changes over time. In addition to a painting executed jointly by Sugito and Nara in 2004, this exhibition presents models for sculptures based on motifs from the time and unveiled in 2022.

Sugito turns his gaze to the shapes and textures of objects around him, and reconfigures them. Works evolve out of an interest in the myriad elements that make up a piece of art: the frame or stand, for instance, and the walls and floor of the space in which the art is installed.
 
The Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art was built of brick around 1923 as a sake brewery, and reborn as an art museum retaining as much of the original look of the warehouse as possible, in accordance with the “succession of memories” concept championed by architect Tane Tsuyoshi, commissioned for the renovations. In putting this exhibition together, Sugito has endeavored to capture the mood and matière of the old brick warehouses. As they engage with Sugito’s works, visitors will become conscious of the larger space in which they are installed, prompting new discoveries, and new flights of imagination.
 
Don’t miss this opportunity to experience first-hand Sugito Hiroshi’s creative practice as it is today, in smaller works consisting of freely-combined familiar materials such as scraps of envelopes, pieces of cardboard, and ceramics; and a group of previously unseen paintings from the 1990s to which the artist has added some extra touches.