The size of one whole lemon.
"Fruit I"
2017

The lemon-colored cube contains a whole lemon, and just looking at it makes you feel like you've taken in a dose of Vitamin C. The outline of the lemon that appears on three edges is a reflection of the actual lemon, which the artist purchased himself and sliced into 2mm pieces. Upon closer inspection, the outline is highlighted by German characters written just 2mm wide. Each side is inscribed with information about the lemon, an overview of the lemon, and recipes using the lemon. When you open the page, a cross-section of the lemon, sliced to the same thickness as the paper (2mm), appears, and the diameter changes slightly as you turn the page.

The yellow surface is actually white paper printed in yellow. The texture and other aspects are carefully designed to look like a lemon. Over time, the yellow on the edge of the fore-edge has peeled off and some parts have faded to a whitish color, just like a lemon with some peeled off.

"Frucht I" is a work that brings to fruition the duality of the intuitive action of transferring something other than a book into a book, and the visual effect of the piled-up thin layers evoking the image of a book as an object.

Regarding the Frucht series, the artist explains:

"When an object is cut into thin layers, many slices are produced. When these slices are stacked again, the shape of the original object emerges. The relationship between slices and objects seems to me like the relationship between a signature and a book. Moreover, CT, which is a method for observing the details of an object, achieves its purpose by looking at the cross section of the object. In order to observe the details of an object, I tried slicing it to the same thickness as a signature."

"2mm is a unit that I use frequently when making books. When using flimsy paper, or more specifically, when printing on paper, we often think of it as flat, but in reality, paper has "thickness." In this project, the quire, which is usually made by stacking and folding multiple sheets of paper, is constructed from a single sheet of cardboard, which makes one strongly aware of "thickness." I feel the expanse of the universe within a thickness of 2mm. Many interesting things happen within the 2mm of a slice of fruit, and in the process of making a book, there is truly a lot of drama within 2mm. I wanted to get closer to 2mm, and learn more about the possibilities of 2mm, so in this project I included written information within the thickness of a single quire.” says the author.

This work was the last one he produced during his time in Germany, and he moved to Japan in 2017 to embark on new creative endeavors. Through this work, he became more conscious of "getting closer to the subject," "turning familiar things into books," and "making books parasitize familiar things," and these thoughts remain major themes in his creative endeavors to this day.

Text by Ema Otobe