PREFACE

Amano Taro

This is the compilation work of Shigeru Moroizumi. Which does not cover all his works, but is rather ‘Artist Book consisted of collaboration works with Masayoshi Kodaira, an art designer. I would like to give an editorial postscript instead of the review, which is thoroughly accomplished by Akihiko Takami and Ryoichi Hirai.

The selection of work was carefully done from the whole list of his works and their image. Actually I picked up the works to appear in the book as a person in charge of editing this book, coordinating Moroizumi’s view as the artist and Kodaira’s as the designer. This process of selecting works is similar with the one done for a solo exhibition taking them into consideration, the form of a book is equivalent to the space of a gallery, so is pagination to the order of display. As a result,  this compilation book is completed under the limited conditions even financially, but it frankly tells the essence of Moroizumi’s works.

Some important works are left out of the book due to the artwork reason. Most of them are the works translated as the equipment made of thermo-hygrometer.^* This is not about the quality of the works,  but it is about the importance that it is not necessarily critical to have those in the book to tell the essence of the artist. In other words, I ventured to leave them out not to give the image that Moroizumi regards device as an important method.

The world can barely prove its existence only when it is quantitatively measured. The 20th century is partly described by this point. Technology and science was continuously evolving together.  Everything was evaluated and measured by numerical aspect to gradually reveal the outline of the world, which is now a given notion when you talk about modernism.  Moroizumi’s first challenge, when he started as an artist, was to find out what attitude to take against it. What underlines in all of his works is this attitude.

The world barely evaluated does not allow itself to be evaluated easily.  It makes it difficult to suppose that the world is always there. Modern times, when science reached the place farthest possible, was the time when people tried very hard to prove the world as it was by all means. Time was measured by ticking number. Space was evaluated by volume and area. This was how people sincerely tried to make the world part of their life.  Now DNA profiling method is established. Human voice is an effective clue to identity the person owing to the technology of digital analysis.

It is believed that the terms like ‘being cold’ or ‘being hot’ which is expressed by the feeling you feel, are confirmed and strengthened by the numerical fact shown by a thermometer.  What is not visible can be visible by expressing them by numbers and words.

On the other hand, Moroizumi’s thermometers have no scales. The attribute of a thermometer as a tool is erased completely. A thermometer can no longer be a thermometer there.  It is his resistance against evaluating things by numbers. It is his against making the world visible. This artist changes the nature of a display an aspect the world. This is how the works, a device to read the world, must be carefully left out. However, the artist knows, we all know that nobody know how to break the spell of modern times.

Hideki Nakazawa mentioned his opinion on this. ‘It came to me intuitively that Shigeru Moroizumi is the one who is devoted himself completely in modernism. He must like towers standing up straight, which materialize a vertical vector. He must like to name everything.  However, what happens here is that he cannot do it any more because he likes these things too much. These circumstances take the shape of art works finally.  Lookong into his work files, I found he made works of tower before. There he goes.’^**

I might not be only one who is disappointed to find no scales though you tried to read them. It would be one of the purpose of his works, but it is true that the nature of a thermometer as a device to read the world, can not be taken away completely, even though the scales are erased off and it does not work as a thermometer any longer. This dilemma found in his works can be true to other artist of his time at the same time. In this aspect, this book has the dilemma as well.  However this book means something if it could clarify the issue how we could deal with modernism.

* thermo-hygrometer

Thermometer makes the good use of the contraction of metal caused by temperature. Hygrometer does it by the contraction of human hair caused by humidity. Both are analogue recorders, which documents the change of temperature and humidity by a small pen on the paper attached around the cylinder that rotates by time.

** ‘Prism of Beauty’  ‘An analogue thermometer with no scales’ by Hideki Nakazawa, Gekkan Taiyo No.427 Oct. issue 1996