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.

2019

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

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, Manchester; Barbican Centre, London- 2017

2014

Shinro Ohtake, Parasol unit, London

2013

55th Venice Biennale: The Encyclopedic Palace, Central Pavillion, Giardini, Venice

2012

Shinro Ohtake, Artsonje Center, Seoul
Double Vision: Contemporary Art from Japan, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Haifa Museums, Israel- 2012

2010

#65, Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
Gwangju Biennale 2010: 10,000 Lives, Biennale Hall, Gwangju, South Korea

2009

I Believe: Japanese Contenporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan

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, Japan;
Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan- 2007

2006

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

2001

The Standard, Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan

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- 1992

1990

Japan Art Today, Elusive Perspectives/Changing Visions, Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum, Reykjavik; Helsinki Municipal Art Museum, Helsinki; Exhibition Hall Charlottenburg, Copenhagen; Culture Centre of Stockholm, Stockholm- 1991
First 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, New York; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; Bank of Boston Art Gallery at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston; Akron Art Museum, Akron; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco- 1991

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 (ICA), London
Artists’ Books: Japan, Franklin Furnace, New York

1984

Shinro Ohtake: 1983-1984, Galerie Watari, Tokyo

1982

Shinro Ohtake Exhibition, Galerie Watari, Tokyo