Shinro Ohtake

RETINA/BOUNDARY SCENE 3

1990/2015
resin on laminated chromogenic analog print mounted on wooden panel
58 1/4 x 43 1/4 x 3 1/3 inches

Shinro Ohtake’s innovative and uninhibited practice incorporates painting, sculpture, collage, photography, experimental music, and video. His Retina series is inspired, in part, by discarded Polaroids Ohtake found in the trash. The artist saw them as the crumpled, material evidence of looking, and he began mounting enlargements of them onto panels and covering them with resin. Retina/Boundary Scene 3 shows evidence of the sticky, light-sensitive chemicals inherent to the old analog process, and hints at a barely-there image. The work exists in a realm between photography and abstract painting, and becomes a meditation on the act of seeing. Ohtake’s Scrapbooks were shown in the 2013 Venice Biennale, and in 2014, he was awarded one of Japan’s most prestigious art awards – The Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Minister’s Award for Fine Arts 2013-2014.