PICTURE
When do we start calling it “a picture”
or stop calling it “a picture” —
I think this is still a picture.
“Picture” was held from April to June, 2020 during the growing COVID-19 pandemic. The initial concept of which was to exhibit Koji Shiroshita’s artworks at a gallery, each of the painted works was shot and printed, referring to them as “pictures”.
Through the process of shooting, printing and exhibiting what he painted, the artist hoped to raise the following questions:
“Where is the ‘essence’ of a picture?
Does it only exist in a physical work of art?
However, upon the Japanese government’s declaration of a “state of emergency,” he had to shift the venue of the show from the gallery to online. By unintentionally forcing the viewers to view the through screens, he ended up asking his audience about the place where the essence of pictures exists.
Given that the “essence” of a picture is something applied to a medium, or a support, with paint, the “Picture” releases their “essence” from that.
