Hiroshi Shafer "Past the Future & Beyond"
English Kills Art Gallery
This event has ended.
English Kills Art Gallery presents "Past the Future & Beyond," which combines documentation fromHiroshi Shafer’s most recent project regarding his relationship with other people, the world and the universe. This group of works exposes the invisible but unrecoverable connections between individuals and engages the viewer to consider the nature of our relationships, to overcome barriers and to undertake an empathetic exchange with the artist and everyone else. Ultimately, Shafer attempts to tickle a profound truth out of each person he encounters in each project. His props and costumes are tools that make it easier for people to share their personal truths with the public.
Upon deeper consideration, the apparent humor in Hiroshi Shafer’s work turns to an unsettling awareness of the human condition. The generosity of a participatory, joyful experience is profoundly complicated in Hiroshi Shafer’s work. A gift is not an inert object, but piles a multitude of expectations and demands on the receiver, tying the receiver/giver/object in mutual discomfort. Participation requires expenditure, possibly exhaustion, but the alternative is darkness. A toy becomes an instrument of maintenance that demands constant renewal. Leisure and work combine in a single experience that keeps us in tension and engagement.
In order to overcome grief and become a playful and likable creature, like a sea otter, one must destroy and consume one’s savior. Our illusion of happiness is predicated upon the infliction of pain, but it is a pain that we desire. The sea otter searches the beach for directions from others on how to survive in her new role, in the end finding a mate to help her kill others.
Hiroshi Shafer was born in Tokyo, Japan. He received a BFA from Tokyo Zoukei Art University in Tokyo in 1997, Japan, After He joined in-depend TV production in tokyo as director of documenrtary program till 2002. he moved to New York 2004. Aso lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
He has exhibited nationally and internationally including Fountain Art fair Miami Fl., Exit Art Gallery, NYC, NY., Flux Factory, Queens., God of Love workshop in Prague Czech Republic, Yogiga Expression Gallery seoul, South Korea, Hakusen Gallery Tokyo.
Media
Schedule
from March 17, 2012 to April 08, 2012
Closing Reception on 2012-04-06 from 19:00 to 22:00