Miyanomori International Museum of Art, Sapporo will hold “Ryusuke Ito: All Things Considered,” the first full-scale solo exhibition of Ryusuke Ito, a filmmaker and artist who has been creating and presenting experimental short films and video installations (art expression using video and plastic arts) since the 1980s. The exhibition will be the first full-scale solo exhibition of Ryusuke Ito.

Known as one of Japan’s leading filmmakers in the field of “found footage,” a form of visual poetry that freely collages existing films, Ito continues to be active internationally as a contemporary artist with works such as his Realistic Virtuality series, in which he realistically films intricately crafted models and dioramas with a video camera, then enlarges and projects the live footage, prompting viewers to consider the relationship between the virtual and the real thing in front of them.

Both share the same viewpoint of rejecting the narrative that dominates the visual image, and are characterized by their unique sense of humor, rather than their esoteric approach to the question of “what we are looking at” through visual media such as film and video.This exhibition will provide an overview of Ito’s work to date, focusing on his recent video installations. As the exhibition title “All Things Considered,” which comes from an overseas radio news program, suggests, the exhibition displays a variety of phenomena that shape our world, from the minutiae of an apartment or office to a scene from an action movie, a battlefield with drones, and conceptual entities such as black holes at the edge of the universe, all in a disjointed display.

In particular, the large-scale work Mark.I x 2, a series of works that drew attention for their depiction of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, will be exhibited all at once, and will also attract attention as a new experiment.Also on view is the latest in the “Projector Series,” a series that began at the MIYANOMORI ART MUSEUM, SAPPORO in 2007, in which visitors build their own film projector and relive the history of cinema while struggling to make the projector work. View the trailer for the movie “Planet of the Apes,” which depicts the destruction of the human race using a human-powered device that does not use electricity. There, we will find ourselves embroiled in a never-ending debate that utilizes imagination, humor and pop spirit in the face of the serious realities that pervade our world and the state of our information society.

The film works on show include the Plate series (video version), a masterpiece of visual poetry that has been described as noisy and punk-like. During the event, there will also be a live collaborative screening with musician Otomo Yoshihide, combining film footage with guitar and turntable sounds.

Ryusuke Ito: All Things Considered Please visit the Miyanomori International Museum of Art, Sapporo to experience it before you start to think too much.