Hitoshi Nomura, in his over 40 years of creative career, has always worked with natural phenomenons in various scales as his motif, ranging from everyday matters to the movement of Earth, movement of Universe including the Moon and Sun, yet he always kept his starting point relative to his own body and developed his expression from how his own perception works with his subject matters.

In his early years between the 60s and 70s, Nomura presented numerous works, in which he raised around fundamental questions on existence through materials that change with the passing of time. Nomura also chose human existence as his focal point by using his own body as a material. Created in 1975*, age: M→F (this is the first time in almost 30 years that this piece is displayed in public), is a compilation of works in photography and film. Nomura manipulates sex, age and social status on the appearance, in other words, the code for reciprocal recognition in society is visible through these photographs and film. This makes age: M→F a piece unique among Nomura's majority of work from the same period, which treats human bodies as neutral objects. Here one can feel Nomura's persistent consciousness of wanting to recognize and examine ambiguity of human which is "specific subject" or the existence in society where self and others are woven into the complex system as well as materialistic existence or "abstract body."

In this exhibition, by showcasing age: M→F, with latest work H. error: C→Si, which was created by contrasting this early work with various issues of current society, and works illustrating universe which human beings can not touch directly = phenomenons of the inhumane world, Nomura displays human beings as ever changing non perpetual existence by effects from outside and questions how far this "I," who perceive the world based on its own body, can exist.

Nomura returned to body and perception, which has been the core of his creative expression, in this exhibition and relaunched the quest to search for the critical point. Furthermore, please pay attention to the awareness that the artist had from early on against media such as the use of dominating structure "see/be seen", hiding behind photography & film, the variation in the number of dimensions that comes with change of medium, and the manipulation of visual information.

*age: M→F was originally presented as a work of photography in 1975, then based on those photographs, a video piece of the same title was created in 1978.

Courtesy of Artcourt Gallery