-
Satoru Aoyama: Map of the World (Dedicated to Unknown Embroiderers), 2015 Polyester and luminous thread on polyester Courtesy the artist and Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo
Exhibition
Satoru Aoyama. Division of Labour
6 Apr 2016 – 7 May 2016
Regular hours
- Wednesday
- 12:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 12:00 – 18:00
- Friday
- 12:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Tuesday
- 12:00 – 18:00
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- 47 Mortimer Street
- London
England - W1W 8HJ
- United Kingdom
The focus of the exhibition is a new series of work: ‘Map of the World (Dedicated to unknown embroiderers)’ (2012-). The works reference the Afghan craftswomen who assisted in the making of Alighiero Boetti’s ‘Mappa’ series (1971-1989)
About
For his new series, Aoyama has embroidered four world maps, along with a map of Europe. Reflecting the passage of time since Boetti’s works, new countries such as Ukraine and Serbia are now visible on the contemporary world map. Aoyama’s maps are embroidered using a fluorescent thread. In daylight they reveal little detail, but when shown in a darkened space each country and border is revealed. With this theatrical presentation, the artist offers a suggestion of the often immaterial and intangible quality of borders and the geopolitics that underpin them.
Where Boetti hired craftswomen to implement the technique necessary to realise his ideas, Aoyama undertakes the skilled labour himself on an old Singer sewing machine, in order to reflect on the notion of the individual craftsman in an age of outsourcing and mechanised labour.
