OKUMURA Yuki

奥村雄樹

Biography

To make a hole in a day as a nap
before we make the great leap into space
I have a dull pain in my eyes
through the invisible cosmic rays

man walks on the planet earth
A death mask stolen, of James Joyce
The total distance walked during their lives
I make love to the days

Difference between sameness and difference is same
A street, 1000.01 lightyears long

The dead have left their marks
All the Information of Mankind on the Earth
immortalized in the logbook of the past
I didn’t sleep well last night

Man Walks on Moon
when the people will have lost their remembrance
For all those who have lived and died
how empty is this space?

Sameness between difference and sameness is different
A street, 1000.02 lightyears long

I am going to sleep forget it
before mankind once and for all, enters space
I still have a pain in my eyes
raining cosmic rays

it’s all right if you are there
together into something new

Difference between sameness and difference is same
A street, 1000.03 lightyears long

Sameness between difference and sameness is different
A street, 1000.04 lightyears long

Biography

Born in Aomori, 1978; lives and works in Brussels and Maastricht

Inspired by the peculiar subjectivity of the translator, Okumura explores the essential parallelity of worlds and the primary interconnectedness between individuals through overlaps among different artists, often including himself, in terms of work and/or life. Rediscovering the methodology of Conceptual artists in the 60s and 70s to reduce their personality to the limit as a way to condense as well as expand one’s own self fully, Okumura is now lending his ear to their voice resonating from behind the horizon. Recent exhibitions include “Na(me/am),” Convent, Ghent (2018); “29771 days – 2094943 steps,” LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels (2019); “The Man Who, An Ephemeral Archive,” Keio University Art Center, Tokyo (2019); and “Meander: Body Contract (Exceptional Case),” Collaborative Cataloging Japan, online (2020).

Footnote

Appearing one after another on the screen are nine people sitting at a table, who each seem to be having a conversation with someone invisible in front of them. What they are discussing appears to be about memories of a particular man who is referred to as "he". Without revealing what the center is although scenes change, the fragmental tales of “he” are told in sequence elaborately and in expressive ways. After a while, who "he" is and who the invisible listener of the tales is no longer matters, as one comes to think that such a fragment can be anyone's.
Through his works of art and translations, Okumura has presented an uncertain sense of self that is not self-sufficient but open to multiple interpretations. The sensibility where memories and images do not fix an "I" while repeating deconstruction and reconstruction, suggests a new sense of self in Art History and within our contemporary society.