Yoshiki Nishimura: Shapes of Facts

Access

About

How do you know the truth? More specifically, how do you come to know the world and culture in which you currently live?

Beyond a direct experience of the people, places and things around us, we often turn to forms of mass media to help inform our place in the wider world. This includes the books that we read, the music we listen to and the television shows we watch. It also extends to all forms of the media landscape across radio, screens and print. We turn to these sources to learn about the events of the world, presented to us as truthful fact by reporters.

In Shapes of Facts, Nishimura turns his attention toward the newspaper. By 3-D scanning and virtually orbiting crumpled, aged masses of newspaper, the artist critically questions this particular form of print media as a vehicle for verifiable fact. The newspapers appear as vast landscapes: fragmented plots where little can be known with absolute certainty. A world of post-truth politics, fueled by the incessant drive of a 24-hour news cycle, the proliferation of social media and the rapid rise of alternative newsgroups, seems to be an alien world in comparison to an imagined past.

Behind the surface of every media is a thinly veiled ideology – a system of ideas and ideals that simultaneously aspires to describe the world and to change it. Nishimura laments the contemporary slipperiness of fact and encourages us to be aware of the forces that shape our subjective views of the world.

Visitors will be admitted to a maximum capacity of 34 at any given time to ensure physical distancing within our exhibition spaces; entry will be managed on a first-come first-served basis. Appointments are not required and the majority of our visitors encounter no wait time to enter the Gallery. Face masks are required for all visitors and hand sanitizer is available upon entry. Visitors exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 are not permitted to visit the Gallery; visitors will be screened for symptoms and asked to provide contact information on entry to support contact tracing if required.

Links

• Learn more kwag.ca

Organizer

Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

KWAG is Waterloo Region's leading public art gallery, connecting people and ideas through art, with a focus on the best of contemporary culture. For the benefit of current and future generations, the Gallery collects, preserves, researches, interprets, and exhibits the visual arts and offers dynamic public programming relating to the visual arts, all with a view to inspiring creativity and an appreciation of the visual arts in the Region. Established in 1956 and incorporated in 1968, KWAG is a non-profit organization open to the public and administered in the public trust. The Gallery emphasizes contemporary art, often premiering works by Canadian and international artists. Exhibitions frequently draw upon selections from over 4300 works from the Permanent Collection to provide a context and forum for dialogue on current exhibitions and contemporary issues. KWAG plays a vital educational role in the community, offering a full spectrum of artistic experience for adults, children and families alike.