Kunizo Matsumoto
Illiterate, Matsumoto is fascinated by writing. On calendar pages, brochures, questionnaires or forms, which he collects, he tirelessly copies literary texts, TV programs or notes of his own. Gathered and packaged in sealed envelopes, some of these writings are part of a fictitious epistolary collection. Presented for the first time in 2003, at the Collection of Art Brut (Lausanne), he was exhibited in 2015 at the maison rouge (Paris) and in 2020 in Scrivere Designando : quand la langue cherche son autre, by curators Andréa Bellini and Sarah Lombardi, at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. A significant number of his works was donated to the Centre Pompidou in 2021.
Kunizo Matsumoto is in charge of the dishes in the family restaurant in Osaka. He obsessively collects a variety of printed brochures of Kabuki theater, exhibition catalogues, guides, etc. His room is filled up with these objects and no one has the right to touch them. He can neither read nor write, yet in 1985, he began to create his own ideograms. Sometimes he copies passages from Kabuki plays. Once the sheet is blackened, he continues “writing” in the air, creating an imaginary dance choreography. In the evening, when all family members are asleep, he writes on the restaurant calendar or in the notebooks in his room.
Preface : Eric Dussert
Foreword : Christian Berst
Catalog published to mark the exhibition Do the write thing : read between the lines #2, from April 26th to June 2nd, 2018.
