ARTCOURT Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of contemporary artist Hitoshi Nomura. Last year we featured "Soft Landing Meteor ’97"; this year’s exhibition turns to its counterpart, "Soft Landing Meteor ’96" (1991-1996), a large-scale work in which a meteorite is set atop the tail fin of a YS-11 aircraft. Accompanied by photographic works exploring the themes of the sun and oxygen, as well as a score that translates starlight into sound, the works in this exhibition illuminate Nomura’s ongoing inquiry into the connections between the cosmos and life on Earth.

Perceiving in objects the traces of the “passage of time,” Nomura, from 1970 onward, pioneered a sculptural realm in which photography became his primary medium. Since turning his camera from the Earth to the movements of celestial bodies, he has examined cosmic phenomena and the workings of nature through a conceptual lens, giving form to them across diverse media through his singular inventiveness, while creating sites where receptivity becomes a shared experience.

“What I am attempting here is to perceive the mysterious tapestry of correspondences linking the cosmos and movements of celestial bodies with earthly life and culture.”
(From Hitoshi Nomura’s statement for "Soft Landing Meteor")

Meteorites, said to have journeyed through the cosmos to Earth bearing the origins of life; stromatolites, formed by the primordial sea-dwelling microorganisms that first produced oxygen and whose layered forms continue to inscribe the passage of time; and the sun, the unceasing stream of light and energy that nurtures life. Nomura draws on these primal elements that underlie the living bodies we inhabit today, integrating them into his works and revealing the links between the cosmos and life on Earth.

The "Score" series, marking the moment he turned his lens to the stars, has come to be regarded as Nomura’s life’s work, uniting the cosmos and humankind. On view in this exhibition is "‘pleiades’ score", produced like its counterpart "‘moon’ score" by layering multiple exposures on film imprinted with musical staff. The work is a “score of the stars,” capturing the Pleiades cluster glowing blue in the night sky. On October 3, Tetsujiro Suita, who has long collaborated with Nomura in transcribing, composing, and performing from his photographs, will join us to share stories and reflections on the development of the "Score" series, which concluded in 2023.