Concrete poetry: the architectural sculptures of David Umemoto
Concrete poetry: the architectural sculptures of David Umemoto
Canadian artist David Umemoto’s new
Folded Stone series – on view at Modern Shapes Gallery, Antwerp – uses Japanese kirigami to evoke postmodernist dreams
Deambulatoire #5.
Photography: David Umemoto
Staircases lead nowhere; walls bring passages to an abrupt halt; ceilings appear without warning. In the surreal world of David Umemoto’s brutalist concrete sculptures, reality has little authority and imagination roams free.
Like many creatives during the pandemic, the Canadian artist was deprived of studio access for many months, forced to find new modes of creation. This prompted a period of exploration, ‘mental gymnastics’ and though the artist was well versed in planning his concrete sculptures on paper, he set himself a new challenge.