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Sat. & Sun.: 12: 00-18: 00
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*Opening hours will change during ART WEEK TOKYO
November 3-6, 10:00-18:00

MUJIN-TO Production is pleased to announce Ryohei Usui’s solo exhibition “Still life on the street.”

As the exhibition title suggests, Usui cuts out still life-like compositions found in cityscapes, which have long been a source of interest and inspiration for his works, and reconstructs them in the gallery space.

In 2009, Usui presented the photographic series “Forgotten Liquid” as a kind of contemporary portrait by capturing the presence of people through plastic bottles and other containers left on the streets. Since 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Usui has continued to make the series “PET (Portrait of Encountered Things),” in which he reproduced these plastic containers in glass. Usui’s motif of plastic containers such as PET bottles, which are mass-produced and consumed every day, give viewers different impressions depending on the time and environment.

In his last solo exhibition “Solid, State, Survivor,” at MUJIN=TO Production, various types of plastic containers washed ashore by the river appeared in the gallery. The installation, representing the flow from the river to the sea, evokes environmental issues such as plastic pollution in rivers and oceans, while portable sanitizers and hand soap containers are all too familiar and symbolic to those of us who have been busy taking measures to prevent viral infections caused by Covid-19. They seem to be our new self-portraits, which are always changing with the times.

The subjects of this exhibition, scenes that Usui sees on the streets that somehow catch his fancy, are sometimes beautifully presented, and at other times with an air of subtle humor. In this exhibition, we hope you will enjoy Usui’s observations of the streets from his perspective, which Usui scooped up such scenes that might otherwise be overlooked and the unique combination of his crafted glass and other materials.