Yoshifumi Oshima solo exhibit at the Shionoe Museum of Art – Summer 2023

Today, I went to Shionoe. It is formerly a village, now a “neighborhood” of Takamatsu, but it’s still really the countryside and the foot of the mountains that border the south of Kagawa Prefecture. I talked about the area a little bit before, you can click on the link above.

However, today, we didn’t go to enjoy nature, but to go see some art.

Shionoe has a small museum, aptly named the Shionoe Museum of Art, and it was the opening day of an exhibit that will be there all summer long (until September 3rd to be precise). It’s a solo exhibit by one of my favorite people, Yoshifumi Oshima, who has been featured many times here, as he’s the leader of two major Setouchi Triennale art projects: Onba Factory and Team Ogi. (once again, click the links for more details)

Oshima-san is one of the most creative and inventive people that I know, and until now, I mostly saw him do medium-scale to somewhat large-scale projects. This time, he has worked on a much smaller scale, as his exhibit is about insects. Recently, he has created – mostly with metal wires – a few hundred insects, some of them being pretty much life-size. And these are the insects/sculptures that are showcased in the museum for the summer.

There isn’t very much more to explain, so enjoy :

 

Ants have literally taken over the place (there are 133 of them):

 

 

 

Bees

 

 

Beetles

 

Butterflies

 

Cicadas

 

 

Dragonflies

Three giant ones:

And a bunch of regular-size dragonflies, flying among some “ball-reeds”

 

 

 

 

 

Spiders

 

And finally, one of Oshima-san’s earlier works.

 

During the 2000s, he mostly created a series of large sculptures of wood and metal that doubled as more or less imaginary animals that also were “vehicles.” Including this very “handy” mantis:

 

Oshima-san making a small dragonfly for my son.

 

That’s all for today…

 

If you’re in Takamatsu between now and September 3rd, I more than warmly invite you to go to Shionoe, to enjoy nature there as well as this very cute exhibit from one of the most wonderful Takamatsu residents.

It’s at the Shionoe Museum of Art (you can’t really miss it, Shionoe has one single major road, and it’s by the river next to a park). Entrance is 300 yen for adults, 150 for university students, and free for children.

Enjoy.

 

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