Karuizawa New Art Museum Gallery is pleased to present "Weekend Plans", the first solo exhibition in Japan by Paris-based American artist Matthew Rose.

Matthew Rose has a worldwide following for his fantastical collages on canvas and paper, as well as objects made from existing materials. His abstract and figurative collages are surreal roman à clefs, autobiographies of his intricate and interwoven world.

Sculptural objects such as "Second Hand Clock," "Fantasms," and "End of the World" exude philosophical humor and Rose's interest in linguistics and semiotics. Also on display are collages based on kitschy pornographic books from the 1970s. These small, intimate works on paper resonate quietly like a wordless theater, where stories of false romantic encounters are transformed into bizarre dramas of longing, boredom, frustration, and absurdity.

Born in New York in 1959, Matthew Rose studied at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) before moving to Paris in 1992, where he established his own studio and produced numerous collages and paintings. His works are collected by public institutions as well as private collectors in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Korea.

Matthew Rose has been fascinated by transforming found, cut or torn paper into narratives and visual spaces in a contemporary idiom. The medium of collage and its fragmentary, raw nature allows him to "make literary and metaphorical statements with scissors." His work echoes the artistic movements of Dada and Fluxus as well as 20th century artists such as Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ray Johnson and Kurt Schwitters.

"I work quickly and often without any design in mind. I create music from scraps and fragments."

By chopping up words until their meanings disintegrate and they become mere pieces of paper, these fragmented elements instead hint at their origins, creating a presence of absence, revealing the familiar yet alien.


"A Book About Death"

The exhibition will also feature "A Book About Death," an international collaborative project conceived and curated by Matthew Rose.

This project was launched in 2009 by the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York, and is an installation work that pays tribute to mail art advocate Ray Johnson (1927-1995) and his work "A Book About Death" (1963-1965), as well as Fluxus art dealer Emily Harvey (1941-2004). For this work, Matthew Rose asked artists to create cards with the theme of death, and the concept is that if 500 of these cards are collected, they will become an unbound book.

Each artist's work is individually placed in a box and laid out on the gallery floor, reminiscent of a communal graveyard. Visitors are invited to select a card from each box, choosing freely one at a time to create a complete work of art. To move from box to box and obtain a card, visitors must first bend their knees and crouch; this kind of penance is an essential performative element of the project "A Book About Death".

The works that started this project are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). This collaborative project has continued and celebrated its 9th anniversary last September at the Islip Art Museum in Long Island, New York. To date, 10 artists from approximately 50 countries have participated, and the exhibition has been held in 7,000 locations across Europe, the United States, Brazil, Australia, and more. This will also be the first time it has been shown in Japan.



Opening Reception
December 12th (Sat) 7:14 - 00:17

• Planning and Organizing

  Karuizawa New Art Museum General Incorporated Foundation

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