Fondazione Modena arti visive is delighted to present al-jabr (algebra), the first institutional solo show in Italy of work by Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa. The exposure includes Kurokawa’s most important recent projects – comprising audio-visual works, installations, sculptures and digital prints– and presents them in a captivating, multisensory setting.

Kurokawa describes his work as “time-based” sculptures, which is an art based on temporal flow, where sound and image come together in an indivisible way. His audiovisual language alternates complexity and simplicity by combining them in a fascinating synthesis. In combination with computer-generated digital landscapes, change the way in which the viewer perceives reality.

The central theme of the exhibition is the reunion. The show’s title, al-jabr, is the Arabic word from which the term ‘algebra’ is derived, and which denotes the reconstitution of a whole from its component parts. In the works on display the artist explores attendant concepts and methodologies, including the destruction and reconstruction of natural elements, the reunion of divided structures and the re-elaboration of scientific laws and statistics.

An example of this can be found in the series elementum (2018). Here, pressed flowers, the original beauty of which has faded, have been reconfigured by the artist and enhanced by means of an intervention on the glass panels that they lie under. These were created using a digital imaging process that reconnects the works’ fragmented elements and breathes new life into the flowers, turning the natural process of decay into a thing of beauty.

For further information: www.comune.modena.it/galleria