Norio Takasugi. Dividuum

About

The artist has become a collector of things that he produces himself, and then archives.

Individual and mass, these two counter poles, have always been Takasugi’s theme. Does the individual thing, the individual human being stay an individual in the mass, or does individuality inevitably get lost because it can no longer be perceived? In all his works, the final product, the finished work of art, consists of numerous elements put together. Hitherto, they could not exist independently of the final product, but now the individual element has become autonomous and is itself a collectible item. The question becomes even more urgent. Does an individual piece retain its individuality in a collection, or does it become a variant? Is individuality perceptible in a mass, even under perfect conditions? Or does it become a “dividual”, does the indivisible individual become divisible?

In the photographic works Stachel and Pusteblume, the individual elements still subordinate themselves to the larger whole; Efeu on the other hand consists of independent individual photographs. The photos of ivy leaves, installed with insect pins in collection boxes, are each different, even though this is hardly perceptible. Only when a difference is clearly visible, for example when the darker leaves become brighter towards the bottom, can we see it.

Collections, a mass of people or things, can in fact only exist if they accept a system and order. The dividual must subject itself to rules, it is archived and studied. The individual on the other hand can leave things to chance, the single leaf can simply fall to the ground, and a frog can sit on it. That seems playful and cheerful next to the rigorous, ordered aesthetics of unison, but don’t both belong together? Law and chance. No chance without law, and no law without chance: dividual and individual are complementary.