ONCE NIGHT FALLS

Hirofu ISO / Komainu

SEP 4, 2007 – JAN 20, 2008

CONCEPT

“Once Night Falls” by Hirofu ISO / Komainu will be presented at DIESEL DENIM GALLERY AOAYAM 1F, which will open at its new location in Aoyama. This new installation is a sequel of “Days in Nights”, which focuses on the events that happens in the darkness at night, especially symbolizing how insects are in the darkness. The installation is constructed from insects that are chained and hung from the ceiling, where all fluorescent lamps are placed in a diamond shape.
Normally insects rely on and are led by moonlight and starlight when flying, so in the darkness at night, they are disturbed by “unnatural” lights, fly towards it and sometimes clash into those lights. For insects, those “artificial” lights are the unknown and are imperceptible to their senses, because those lights exist outside the nature. But one day after many thousands of years, insects maybe able to identify　the “artificial” lights, and who knows, there might be a new boundary.

Hirofu ISO / Komainu expresses those changes of boundaries that occur when the unknown transforms and becomes the known over the process of time. Here, boundaries can mean the line that can isolate or separate two things, such as “day and night”, “nature and art”, and “life and death”, but it can also be the similarity in those two things.

“Once Night Falls” will relight the new DIESEL DENIM GALLERY AOYAMA and revitalize the place.

BIOGRAPHY

Hirofu ISO / Komainu

1978　Born in Tokyo

Education
2003
- ･ Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, BFA in architecture, Japan
2005
- ･ Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, MFA in Inter Media Art, Japan
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2007
- ･ Nighthopper, Mizuma Action, Tokyo, Japan
2004
- ･ Komainu Private Journal, Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Selected Group Exhibitions
2008
- ･ Keren, Museum of Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music, Tokyo, Japan
2005
- ･ Nishiogi Biennale, Aida House, Tokyo, Japan
- ･ Mizuma Art Gallery the 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
- ･ Project the Projectors 04-05 Taito, Former Sakamoto Elementary School, Tokyo, Japan
Public Collection
2003
- ･ "Birthday Box", Museum of Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music
Awards and Fellowships
2002
- ･ Hirayama Ikuo Fellowship
- ･ Yoshida Isoya Fellowship (for Paris Project)
- ･ GEISAI-2, Grand prix

VIEW WORKS

Benjamin half a world away (地球の裏側のベンジャミン)/2004/ベンジャミン、レジン/100x50x50cm

Nighthopper/2007/Photo by Keizo Kioku

Nighthopper/2007/Fluorescent Lamp, chain, insects fly during night, varnish and paint/撮影：木奥恵三

Title: Once Night Falls
Artist: Hirofu ISO / Komainu
Date: Sep 4, 2007 – Jan 20, 2008
Venue: DIESEL DENIM GALLERY AOYAMA 1F
Curator: Hiromi Kitazawa / NANJO and ASSOCIATES
Cooperated by: Mizuma Art Gallery

Curator: Hiromi Kitazawa / NANJO and ASSOCIATES; Nocturnal insects respond to the stimulus of light with instinctive movement, and this originally helps them in flying by moonlight. However, human beings have invented artificial light that extends the time available at night, and this confuses insects. Since street lights, room lights, and headlights on cars are brighter than the moon, they interfere with the insects’ ability to sense distance and cause them to collide with objects. The light created by human beings is out side of nature. It is not understood by insects and they cannot distinguish it from natural light.

Once Night Falls gives the form to events and places that appear in the darkness of night. It presents phenomenon that have been produced over and over since human beings created artificial light. Nocturnal insects are confined to the ends of chains hanging from a fluorescent light fixture with a diamond shape. The innumerable chains form like the boundary that separates day from night. They link fluorescent light and insects, that is, artificiality and nature, making it possible to see a point of contact between life and death and implying the danger of instant reversal.

If human beings followed the natural rhythm of their bodies, they would wake with the sunrise and finish the day at sunset, but this rhythm has broken down. The city of Tokyo, for example, stays awake twenty four hours a day. It has become difficult for human beings to live without depending on artificial force. After a long period of time has passed, insects may learn to distinguish between different kinds of light and new boundaries may emerge. Once Night Falls expresses events that occur when a territory of experience is shifting from the unknown to the known, suggesting changes in boundaries.

Insects seek a brighter light, fly toward it, and become injured or, in some cases, lose their life. It may symbolize that of human beings.