December 9, 2019
Mutina for Art is pleased to announce that artist Shimabuku (Kobe, Japan 1969) has been awarded the This is not a Prize 2019. This Is Not a Prize is not merely an annual award but also Mutina’s commitment to support a future project of the selected artist: from an exhibition to a collaboration with an international institution, to a publication or the production of a new artwork. For each edition of the award, the granted artist develops together with Mutina the ideal form which the support should take. The flexibility of this process allows for an unexpected and surprising exchange with the artist, as well as opening the way to collaborations with international curators and institutions.
Shimabuku has been selected by a commission composed of Bart Van der Heide (curator and director, Museion Bolzano), Sarah Cosulich (curator, Mutina for Art), Barber & Osgerby (designers), Ambra Medda (design expert and journalist), and Massimo Orsini (CEO of Mutina and collector). The commission awarded This Is Not a Prize 2019 to Shimabuku for the unique character of his artistic language and his multi-faceted and generous imaginary that combines lightness and depth. Shimabuku’s works are poetic encounters, ironic and unexpected situations that overturn our perception of the world and transport viewers into a new reality of allusion, surprise and enchantment. The award This Is Not a Prize 2019 was presented to Shimabuku at the Mutina company headquarters designed by Angelo Mangiarotti, in the presence of the commission and the galleries Air De Paris from Paris and Zero from Milan, which represent the artist.
This Is Not a Prize has reached its fourth edition and carries on Mutina’s aim to sustain contemporary languages and expressions with a formula that does not limit the artist, but opens the way for various forms of support. Since 2016 one artist has been selected and supported each year by the Mutina for Art project. The winner of This Is Not a Prize 2018 – assigned during FIAC Paris – was the American artist Liz Larner. Mutina sustains the artist for her exhibition at the Kunsthalle Zurich in June 2020. This Is Not a Prize 2017—assigned during FIAC Paris—was presented to the German photographer Jochen Lempert, who held a solo show in the MUT exhibition space from March to July 2018. The recipient of This Is Not a Prize 2016—awarded during Artissima—was the artist Giorgio Andreotta Calò. The award took concrete form with Mutina’s support of his project for the Italian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.
About Shimabuku
Born in Kobe, Japan in 1969 and residing in Naha, Okinawa, as a child Shimabuku wanted to be a poet or a tour guide. With degrees from Osaka College of Art and the San Francisco Art Institute, Shimabuku is an artist-traveler who, through surprising encounters and detours, challenges the boundaries between reality and imagination. His installations, sculptures, drawings, writings, photographs and videos stem from experiences, stories and anecdotes in which he interacts with the living world – with people, animals and plants – or with the mineral world. Unpredictable and at times absurd, Shimabuku’s projects create new situations marked by simple actions or events based on an economy of exchange, of humanity, listening and empathy. Shimabuku’s work has been shown in many solo exhibitions, including shows at le Crédac - Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry (2018), Kunsthalle Bern (2014), Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery (2014), Ikon Gallery Birmingham (2013), Centre International d’Art et du Paysage de l’Ile de Vassiviére (2011) and the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (2008). He has taken part in group exhibitions at the Venice Biennale (2004 & 2017), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2000), Lyon Biennale (2017), Sharjah Biennial (2013), Hayward Gallery London (2001 & 2008) and the São Paulo Biennial (2006) and so on.
About Mutina for Art
Mutina for Art is a multi-faceted project that includes MUT—an exhibition space inside the Mutina headquarters—This Is Not a Prize—an important annual award—and Dialogue—a series of collaborations with artists, galleries and other partners from various international art institutions and organizations.
