NMNM

In 2011, on the occasion of the exhibition OCEANOMANIA: Souvernirs of Mysterious Seas – a project by Mark Dion – David Brooks made a proposition for the flags on the roof of Villa Paloma, eight pareidolias, the familiar shapes one can find in clouds.

David Brooks
Pareidolia : When Flags Become Clouds and Clouds Become Fish, 2011
Courtesy of the artist and Museum 52, photo : NMNM/Mauro Magliani et Barbara Piovan, 2011

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Ten years later, Shimabuku has been invited to imagine new flags as part of his exhibition The 165 metre Mermaid and Other Stories.



Shimabuku
Moon and Potato , (detail) 2021
8 prints on flags
Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2021

“When I look at the moon, I think of a potato
When I look at a potato, I think of the moon.”– Shimabuku

The exhibition in Monaco highlights Shimabuku’s inclination to reconnect the distant and rethink the notion of alterity. The poetical analogy the artist formulates in Moon and Potato is a perfect indicator of this process. An image taken from his film Fish and Chips, a potato floating in the sea (hypothetically waiting for a fish), is here associated with the moon, forming a comparison as formal as it is humorous. Is the potato floating in the sky, or the moon in the sea? The so-called relational aesthetic is hereby raised as a flagship.

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