“puppet study #4”, 2010. Video projection with program controlled blind, dimension variable, installation view. Photo by Tsuyoshi Saito. Courtesy of Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito.

 

Minami’s work “puppet study no.4”, also in the exhibition, presents a Venetian blind through which an image of a waterfall is being projected. Movements of the blind interrupt the image so that it fades in and out. Minami point out that in this piece he ‘tried to juxtapose the mechanical function of Venetian blind and the symbolical role of a waterfall… In Japanese myth and one type of Buddhism, the water fall plays equinox role between life and death.’ here fa familiar feature of a residential or office building is turned into a philosophical reflection on the nature of light and photography: ‘I wanted to depict gradual and constant change between open and close, seen and unseen, here and there.’ (text by Jiang Jiehong and Mark Nash, extract from catalogue “The Shadow Never Lies”, Shanghai Minsheng 21st Century Musuem, 2016)