Drawing of Experience]
by Yumi Yamaguchi, Art Producer
２０１０ Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, MOCA studio
For the exhibition by Shigeru Moroizumi
‘It is not visible what really means to you.’
This is a phrase in my favorite ‘Le Petit Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This phrase came to my mind immediately after I saw the installation of thermometers by Shigeru Moroizumi. Temperature became visible in the form of a red line. The thermometers lined up in a line made me realize that each thermometer had its own characteristics and that the temperature indicated there was different each other. I had no doubt that all the thermometers were the same, but that was the moment that I saw new values emerging.
In fact, it was quite a surprise to find that Shigeru Moroizumi was engaged in a workshop involving a lot of people, which was evolved from the thermometer installations he devoted over the years. The job of being an artist is basically an individualistic act. To me, Shigeru Moroizumi was the last artist who welcomed people from young to old into his artworks. ‘Hand-Shake Performance’ is the record of the position of the two people and the change of the temperature as they shake hands holding a thermometer in their hands. The temperature goes up by the warmth of the body of the two people. The pictures are taken to record the process, and they are displayed in the room to be part of the exhibition. The whole room makes one piece of artwork.
The difference between the previous works and the work this time is, I presume, the sense of crisis that he faces against our time. He might be feeling uncomfortable that his beautiful and sensitive works are appreciated in a unilateral way. As for ‘Hand-Shake Performance’, the audience shakes hand with him, feels the warmth, and makes a relationship of complicity with the artwork. Such experience through art will be the antithesis to those who are lonely in a city and who express themselves only through internet.
I keep saying, “The contemporary art is a question, not an answer.” ‘The drawing of experience’ by Shigeru Moroizumi is a big question to the audience. You have to experience it to listen and respond to his question. It does not accept any second-hand information available by internet or word-of-mouth. This fastball means something because it is thrown by Shigeru Moroizumi who makes invisible temperature visible in the form of a red line by using thermometers. I truly wish that as many people as possible in Taiwan will visit and enjoy the complicity with his artworks.
ⒸSHIGERU MOROIZUMI