As a single medium and also an artistic element, the thermometer, has been utilized by Shigaru Morizumi for over two decades in diverse and boundless expressive ways. Additionally, the medium is expanded to connect with various significances that range from personal individual icons to the scale of public artworks. In this globalized era, this artistic form has developed into a boarder-less passport of art that could be easily related to by the public. People could effortlessly capture the visual aesthetics and the spiritual significance in Shigaru Morizumi’s art, and there is a sense of simplicity that also exudes uniqueness and sophistication, where as both spirituality and worldliness are distilled from the object used by the artist creatively.
Shigaru Morizumi is particularly fond of the thermometer, and deriving from the everyday object and the concept of the readymade, he has elevated this item into a unique artistic medium and icon. Morizumi’s artistic gestures include: 1. Stripping the object of its mundane functionalities, as seen in the uses of thermometers without measurement indications, and hence allowing the liquid within the thermometers to become purely about transformation and representation; 2. Transform the standard stick-shape thermometers into Y-shape, heart-shape, cross-shape, and other symbolic forms; the different shapes allow for the heat-sensitive liquid inside to move in different patterns; 3. Expanding the singular visual display of a single thermometer into a series of patterns in larger quantities. The result is a form of spatial installation that allows for the audience to enter into the artwork, and the audience is able to play the duo-roles of an individual experiencing the setting as well as someone that is inducing changes in the setting. The intention is to produce an interactive mechanism and symbolic significance between people and the surrounding environment.
This exhibition includes two sets of artworks; one is a spatial installation and the other is a documentary video. The two sets of works appear to be in neat order, but in actuality, they are constantly changing with every passing second and minute. The large stick-shape thermometers come together to form an installation in the given space, and as the audience walks in and out of the installation, subtle changes would occur. In addition to the “interaction” between people and the objects, there is also a sense of “conspiracy” between the people. At the same time, the audience could further speculate and understand about the interactive ways presented in Morizumi’s art through the documentary video.
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