The engine of Shinro Ohtake’s practice is an ongoing project begun in 1977, the Scrapbooks. Ohtake has made 68 unique books to date, ranging in length from 50 to 882 pages. He works on each book for several months to over a year, pasting found imagery and materials into fragmentary compositions on each page, then adding hand-drawn and painted elements. Incorporating newsprint, magazine cutouts, product packaging, found photographs, reproductions of artworks, film strips, ticket stubs, vinyl records, and other items, the Scrapbooks are generated by an additive, constructive logic, taking on sculptural properties. At the same time, the physical mechanism of turning their pages to both view and activate their contents establishes parallels between the Scrapbooks and cinema. These are atlases of our contemporary world, charting not just how we encounter the information that circulates incessantly around us in our daily lives, but also how the remnants of empire and forces of neoliberal trade and consumption structure, facilitate, and determine those encounters.
The Scrapbooks establish a visual language that Ohtake applies to projects such as “Time Memory” (2010– ), comprising abstract compositions made of the unsolicited mail and packaging that arrives daily to Ohtake’s home, and multimedia installations such as Retinamnesia Filtration Shed (2014), made for the Yokohama Triennale. Similarly, Ohtake sees his approach to noise music and the sound elements in his multimedia installations as a collage-based process. Complete presentations of the Scrapbooks have been shown at the 2010 Gwangju Biennale, “10,000 Lives”; the 2013 Venice Biennale, “Encyclopedic Palace”; and 2016’s “The Keeper” at the New Museum, New York.

2022

“Shinro Ohtake,” The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; The Museum of Art, Ehime; Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design

2019

“Shinro Ohtake: BLDG. 1978-2019,” Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto; Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki

2018

“Sharjapan: The Poetics of Space,” Al Hamriyah Studios, Sharjah, UAE

2017

“Japanorama. New Vision on Art Since 1970,” Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz

2016

“The Keeper,” New Museum, New York
“Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers,” Manchester Art Gallery; Barbican Centre, London

2014

“Shinro Ohtake,” Parasol unit, London

2013

55th Venice Biennale, “The Encyclopedic Palace”

2012

“Shinro Ohtake,” Artsonje Center, Seoul
“Double Vision: Contemporary Art from Japan,” Moscow Museum of Modern Art; Haifa Museums, Israel

2010

“#65,” Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
8th Gwangju Biennale, “10,000 Lives”

2009

“I Believe: Japanese Contenporary Art,” Museum of Modern Art, Toyama

2008

“貼貼貼 (Shell & Occupy 3),” Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
“貼 (Shell & Occupy),” Take Ninagawa, Tokyo

2007

“Ohtake Shinro: New Universe on the Road,” Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Fukuoka Art Museum

2006

“Shinro Ohtake Zen-Kei: Retrospective 1955-2006,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

2001

“The Standard,” Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Kagawa

1993

“The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art,” Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

1991

“A Cabinet of Signs: Contemporary Art from Postmodern Japan,” Malmö Kunsthalle, Malmö; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Tate Gallery, Liverpool

1990

“Japan Art Today, Elusive Perspectives/Changing Visions,” Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum; Helsinki Municipal Art Museum; Exhibition Hall Charlottenburg, Copenhagen; Culture Centre of Stockholm
1st Tyne International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, “A New Necessity,” Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne

1989

“Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties,” Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Gray Art Gallery, New York University; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Seattle Art Museum; Bank of Boston Art Gallery, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston; Akron Art Museum, OH; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA

1987

“Shinro Ohtake: 1984-1987,” Saga-cho Exhibit Space, Tokyo

1985

“Shinro Ohtake: I’erranza dei segni (The Restless Language)” (as part of Giappone Avantguardia del
Futuro), Palazzo Bianco, Genova
“Shinro Ohtake: Painting/Collages,” Institute of Contemporary Art, London
“Artists’ Books: Japan,” Franklin Furnace, New York

1984

“Shinro Ohtake: 1983-1984,” Galerie Watari, Tokyo

1982

“Shinro Ohtake Exhibition,” Galerie Watari, Tokyo