Artist: Miho Dohi
Venue: Crèvecoeur, Paris, France
Date: January 17 – February 29, 2020
Photography: © Aurélien Mole, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi’s work is a continuous physical experience leading to a mastery of form and a function impassivity. The Japanese artist, whose work is being shown for the frst time in Europe, folds, cuts, turns, assembles and paints, with great gentleness, everyday materials: fabric, copper, wood, tape, paper, wire, and driven by impulse and intuition, seems to constantly change direction when objects fall, due to their altered centre of gravity. When these amalgams fnally seem to «take shape», both inside and outside, then the artist turns them upside down, and an object appears quite naturally out of that chaos. She declares that «Once an object has completely collapsed, something that hadn’t existed in me becomes something that is there now.». Like unsolvable enigmas, the artist arranges her sculptures, always about the same size – about twenty to thirty centimetres – of indeterminate weight, on large pedestals or on the wall, as if to avoid blurring the narrative that fows from each of them. There is always the same title «buttai», always declined in numbers: buttai 70, 71, 72 etc. From certain angles, the sculptures suggest models. From other angles, they take on a biomorphic form. From others, masks. «Buttai» meaning «object» in Japanese: their interpretation thus remains unlimited for the spectators.Miho Dohi was born in 1974 in Nara, she lives and woks in Kanagawa, Japan. Her works were showned in several solo shows at: Nonaka-Hill (Los Angeles), HAGIWARA PROJECTS (Tokyo) and Lulu (Mexico).In 2020 she will present her frst institutional solo show at the Renaissance Society (Chicago), and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University.
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, 2020, exhibition view, Crèvecoeur, Paris, France, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 65, 2019, Copper plate, brass, cotton, fabric, wood, acrylic paint, 29 × 20 × 38 cm © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 69, 2019, brass, fabric and acrylic paint, 58 × 37 × 24 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 68, 2019 and buttai 11, 2012, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 37, 2016, wood, fabric, thread, brass, acrylic paint, 23 × 22 × 15 cm © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 71, 2019 and study 2, 2019, © Aurélien Mole, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 11, 2012, Wood, acrylic paint, 24 × 33 × 13 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 68, 2019, Fabric, cotton, brass plate, copper wire, acrylic paint, 26 × 40 × 33 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 69, 2019, brass, fabric and acrylic paint, 58 × 37 × 24 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 70, 2019, Plaster, brass, wood, sponge, paper, copper wire, acrylic paint, 40 × 30 × 19 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 71, 2019, Duct tape, brass wire, 34 × 33 × 28 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 72, 2019, Wood, brass plate, aluminum, fabric, acrylic paint, 21 × 36 × 33 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 73, 2019, Plaster, cotton, thread, acrylic paint, 23 × 57 × 25 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 73, 2019, detail, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, buttai 74, 2019, Wood, brass, fabric, thread, paper, acrylic paint, 34 × 41 × 22 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris
Miho Dohi, study 1, 2019, Plaster, textile, 17 × 23 × 21 cm, Courtesy of the artist & Crèvecoeur, Paris