3331 GALLERY #040 Ari Ookubo Solo Exhibition "The 17 reasons for putting stones in the bread" 3331 ART FAIR recommended artists

Ari Ookubo spins narratives based on her own experiences and imagination, from where she turns paintings, objects, and texts into installations. The narrative appears amidst a quiet two- and three-dimensional space made up of materials such as metal, stones, and photos. With her calm lens, the artist gathers daily happenings and objects created with her own hands, causing us to imagine the steps that led them there in the first place.

For the 3331 ART FAIR 2019, a small work shed was built within the venue, where she worked on etching love letters into stone, then took rubbings of these to create "rock letters". This work embedded with the thought - "through hesitation and error, effort and labor, it felt as though the time it took to convey the message was eternally prolonged, its intention completely forgotten and sunken to oblivion" - was shown in the same year for the exhibition held at NADiff Window Gallery as a series titled "Love Letter", which she continues to work on to this day.

Ookubo's creative process, which even causes viewers to be drawn into the artwork itself, is a space of mixed truths gently being stirred. For this exhibition, as previously presented, she will unfold the history of how stones were placed in bread. We invite you to join the artist's narrative woven into the gallery space.

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Events (no reservation required/free to join/without interpreter)
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●1/5 (Sun.) 18:00-20:00　Opening Party

●1/18(Sat. )18:00-19:00　Gallery Talk
"Conversations Surrounding Books" by Toshii Koike (Graphic Designer) x Ari Ookubo

●1/26 (Sun.)18:00-19:00 Gallery Talk
"Conversations Surrounding Bread" by Sen Uesaki (Art Expert) x Ari Ookubo
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【Exhibition Outline】

The short story titled, "The 17 reasons for putting stone in the bread", unveils the reasons why stones were put in bread, while stringing together its inventor's family history.

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【CV】



Ari Ookubo

1974 Born in Tokyo
2001 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London Institute

2015 Solo exhibition"Criterium 90 -Ghosts in the Art Gallery-" Contemporary Art Gallery, ART TOWER MITO (Ibaraki,Japan)
2015 Group exhibition"In Our Time: Art in Post-industrial Japan" 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Ishikawa,Japan)
2017 Group exhibition"Railroad Siding 2017" Former school meal service center (the second) of Tokorozawa municipal (Saitama,Japan)
2018 Solo exhibition"White Cube is Emptiness" Galleria Finarte (Aichi,Japan)
2018 Solo exhibition"I'm the Creator of This World, You're One of the Materials Existing in the Univers" Sprout Curation (Tokyo,Japan)
2019 Solo exhibition "Love Letters" / NADiff a/p/a/r/t (Tokyo)
2019 Group exhibition "Absorption/Radiation" / No. 19 Hokuto Building, former site of Tokorozawa Municipal Kindergarten (Saitama)

Twitter：https://twitter.com/ariookubo

Ari Ookubo is involved in the following art project:
"Absorption/Radiation" - ongoing until spring 2020, currently open to the public
http://www.hikikomisen-hoshasen.com/



Pain de campagne au des pierres

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【Contributed text for Exhibition】

Small stones are peaking out of the bread. They do not appear so small to have been mixed in by mistake but are big enough that they cannot be accidentally swallowed. If there was no mistake in the method of selecting and inserting stones, is it also a way to prevent the wrong way of eating the bread? All things considered, stones are inedible, so we can determine that the "stone-filled bread" is meant to be eaten by avoiding the stones. Without the need for a proper term such as "rustic", "stone-filled bread" looks pretty much like regular bread, and to me, more delicious. On another note, for bread the exact firing temperature and time holds a specific reason. Moreover, the reason for using homemade yeast is clear, as well as for kneading the dough, a method resulting from the transfer of pottery skills to food, and it being called "kiku-neri"* in Japanese also has a certain reason behind it. Regardless of how many reasons behind bread exist, our conception of it is outside = surface/inside = filling, resulting from the texture each of us expects. However, I believe the third sense of texture that characterizes the "stone-filled bread" is neither the outside nor inside texture, but one of its own. This is a sense of texture that represents the retaining of "reason" to its secrecy, its being newly born, found, overlooked, misunderstood, replaced, overturned, suspected, or believed in. It is a third realm similar to the original "reason" for objects and ways of life or a byproduct - in other words, when "reason" becomes well-cooked or burnt around the edges, bulging, wilting, being needed or avoided.

*Note: Kiku-neri is a method of kneading clay or dough that creates a spiral pattern similar to that of a Chrysanthemum ("Kiku" in Japanese).

Sen Uesaki (Art Expert)

Born 1974 in Kanagawa Prefecture Isehara City. Uesaki focuses on art categorized as "conceptual", as well as the field of "curation", which reveals the process of differentiation/de-differentiation/re-differentiation existing in non-art fields. Recent essays include, "Hiyu to chusho" (translation: "Fables and abstraction") in The National Museum of Art, Osaka News (2019), among others.

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Guest Speaker Profile
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Toshiki Koike

Born in 1989, Koike works as a graphic designer of printed material with a focus on books. Recent work includes the design for "Artists' Book Exhibition Sendai Tokyo" (Artists' Book Exhibition Executive Committee, 2017), "Akiko Ikeuchi" (gallery21yo-j, 2017), among others.


About the "Undocumented" Book Series

Since 2018, Ookubo has collaborated with graphic designer Toshiki Koike on a project that transforms the artist's work into books.

Looking back since 2018 on Ookubo's art series from the past ten years, "Undocumented" follows their development for the next seven to ten years through a project that transforms them into books.
Up until now, the series "I'm the Creator of This World, You're One of the Materials Existing in the Universe" (2018) was created into "Undocumented #7", and "Love Letters" (2019) into "Undocumented # 2". The series featured in this exhibition, "The 17 reasons for putting stone in the bread", will be gathered into the book "Undocumented # 5".

"Undocumented # 5" - "The 17 reasons for putting stone in the bread"
Includes booklet, family photo, rocks and a map on how to return them, recipe for stone-filled bread, and original Undocumented "Kiribako" (traditional Japanese wooden box).