Born in 1969 in Kobe, Shimabuku is an artist who collects unusual encounters. When he was younger, he wanted to become a poet or tourist guide. Today he is an artist, producer and smuggler of stories, customs and myths which he observes and collects on his journeys. Taking on the role of a Candide-like figure, Shimabuku travels the world, interacts with strangers, and converses with nature, instigating moments of poetry, humor, and wonderment, but also creating bridges between the specificities of different cultures and localities (nowadays a relevant position, considering our global world as a made up of a multitude of localities). Each of his works (including videos, sculptural installations, performance documentations, and photography) tells the story of these improbable encounters across borders, species, and states of being. This artist experiments all kinds of interaction, pushing back the limits of the physics and the imaginary. ...
Amanda Wilkinson opened her gallery in November 2017, having been a partner in Wilkinson Gallery, and brought with her the artists that she had worked with since 2003. Most of these internationally renowned artists had their first solo UK exhibition at the gallery: Joan Jonas and Shimabuku in 2004, Sung Hwan Kim in 2007, Jimmy DeSana in 2009, and Laurie Simmons in 2011. The program has also introduced younger artists such as Heman Chong, Phoebe Unwin, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė all of whom have solo exhibitions in public institutions this year. Amanda Wilkinson is a trustee of the Derek Jarman Estate and is the sole gallery who represents the work. The program continues to highlight key historical artists who are little known to the wider art world, including Paolo Gioli, Ketty La Rocca and Margaret Raspé and will introduce new artists to the program in 2020 in keeping with the gallery’s experimental and cross-generational approach. The gallery has presented four Feature booths at ArtBasel in the past , featuring six artists from the program. Eight out of the twelve artists represented by the gallery had solo museum exhibitions in 2019/2020. ...
