Taro Izumi
Steak House
Taro Izumi’s Steak House is a video representing two small puppets smearing the artist’s face with paint while he is sleeping. The work is based on modest means and reuses the classic theme of inanimate objects coming to life during the night while humans sleep. Is this the artist’s return to repressed feelings or fatigue provoked by the task? This silent work reflects some kind of magic linked to childhood, that can be found in Japanese culture. It recalls the Yokai culture and the spirit of Japanese mangas that has existed for a thousand years, as well as Miyazaki’s animated films.
Taro Izumi was born in 1976 in Nara (Japan). He lives and works in Tokyo. Taro Izumi combines absurd and physical experiences in his videos, creating funny and touching optical illusions. Always using raw materials and daily objects, he transports us into his burlesque and chaotic world where the videos shot in private by the artist are integrated in big installations. His world is childlike, tinted with irony and organized by absurd game rules that he follows obstinately. So as to stress the intimate relation between the action and the place, he documents his performances with fragmented videos where images and sounds are treated like purely sensorial information. Bringing to light the absurdity of daily life, each film expresses the desperate but funny mental state of a person pushing away his boredom and desperation by continuously inventing games. Some implicit references to the events of March 11, 2011 can be observed but the artist never imposes his point of view, which remains modest, open, leaving his public free to interpret.