Shimabuku at IKON Gallery, Birmingham

I made a trip up to Birmingham on Wednesday for the opening of the Shimabuku retrospective exhibition Something that Floats/ Something that Sinks at Ikon Gallery. Shimabuku gave a talk at the Daiwa Foundation last year, and his combination of bizarreness and whimsical charm made me eager to see the actual work.

Shimabuku’s message, as I read it, is that we should all slow down and enjoy the little things around us in our everyday lives. Food is a particular interest. Perhaps the classic Shimabuku ‘work’ is his trip from London to Birmingham on a canal boat while pickling cucumbers, some of which he ate and some of which he gave away to friends. Another one is Shimabuku’s Fish and Chips, in which a potato tumbles gently through the flow of a river, making its acquaintance with the fish who will later complement it on the plate.

Perhaps the most charming work of all is his outing with an octopus from Kobe to see the sights of Tokyo. The two of them visit Tokyo Tower, and even the Tsukiji fish market, where it meets a feisty Tokyo octopus. At the end of the day, the Kobe octopus is released into the sea back home, where we can imagine it regaling its friends with tales of its great adventure.

The title work is driven by the recognition that not only do some fruits and vegetables float while others sink, but that in some cases different incarnations of the same item do both. Four pairs of vegetables in large tubs of water both demonstrate this and are surprisingly beautiful at the same time.

Another work invites each member of the audience to take a new rubber band and pass their whole body through it. This turns out to be an intriguing challenge, and is ‘documented’ by the used rubber bands, some of which are broken.

In the café, they are serving vanilla ice cream with salt and or pepper. I only tried the pepper version, but it was surprisingly good. Again, the message appears to be to emphasise the enjoyment that can be gained from absolutely everyday things, if you are prepared to be open-minded and use a little creativity.

One of the audience questions at Shimabuku’s Daiwa talk was “How do you fund your work?” I sensed, perhaps wrongly, an overtone of “Who on earth pays for this stuff?” Shimabuku’s rather charming answer was that by and large, his work doesn’t need a great deal of funding. There is nothing grandiose here – just ingredients like cucumbers and rubber bands. Enjoying the good things in life is surprisingly cheap, if we allow Shimabuku to show us the way. I am fascinated as to what the people of Birmingham will make of this exhibition.

 

Ikon is open Tuesday – Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays, 11am – 6pm.

Admission is free.

Written by Daiwa Foundation Director General, Jason James