Contemporary Cluster [Collective Intelligence] on 17th March 2022 presents Ceremony of Separation, exhibition by Lupo Horiokami who shows for the first time his design collection in Contemporary Cluste’s new space: CAVE.

The design collection by Lupo Horiokami, always influenced by Japanese culture, places East and West in comparison, in a synthesis where space, which is presented as empty, and time (inconsistent) are the masters, where relativity and emptiness (mu in Zen Buddhism) merge with Heidegger’s planning of dasein, german term translatable as being or existence. In the existential ontology of the german philosopher, the dilemma of being  was born together with man and influences the whole human experience. Lupo Horiokami, with his art, seems to focus on the theme of continuous impermanence, in the elusiveness of being.

Lupo’s artistic research is translated in a natural way through space: empty space, in the most eastern sense of the term, devoid of mental conditionings – mushin in Japanese -, a preliminary presupposition for manifesting, producing, originating from nothing. Empty space to accentuate the innate temporary beauty of things: from the traditional Japanese tattoo on the body – an absolute metaphor for transience and suffering, where space is fundamental for the full– to the three-dimensional space of objects that embody the mystery and the intangibility of the serene melancholy of the Wabi Sabi concept: nothing lasts, nothing is over, nothing is perfect.

Continuous exchange and harmony, the work of Lupo, between ancient and new, east and west which is based on the silent wisdom of artisan know-how  and the unconscious aesthetic propensity dictated by the tradition of great masters and currents of the past. If Brutalism emphasized the expressive strength of the structure, in Lupo’s objects, in addition to using materials with the same roughness and natural imperfection, the existential and mysterious members that become also in this case, structural, emerge.

But it is the totemic aspect that surprises: the juxtaposition of these three-dimensional objects, which have the alibi of function, generate symbolic forms that celebrate the mystery of existence. Observing the collection created by Lupo Horiokami, a moral ethical concept seems to take shape in the rectitude of the finished product, in a fine search for balance and harmony passing through the habit of repeating the gesture. In the study of materials and shapes we find a desire for inner and visual peace through the object itself, translated in terms of style and elegance, chasing an idea of recovery, both physical and mental, facilitated by the harmonic vision returned by the objects made.

Lupo Horiokami, born in 1979 in Vicenza, Italy.

From 1993 he started to have a deep interest in drawing and various artistic forms.

In 1999 he started drawing and tattooing in his studio in Vicenza.

In the following years he had the opportunity to work with world exponents of tattoo art worldwide, Europe, the United States and finally concentrated his studies in Japan, learning the importance of tattooing as a cultural and expressive form, which it is also reflected in architecture, art, design and the vision of spiritual life as impermanence that distinguishes Zen and Japanese culture.

After 20 years in the world of tattooing he understood the importance of visual and conceptual form, he started being interested in the world of design and architecture and everything that is built in the traditional way, the interest not towards a simple design but towards its function and perception first on the living human body as a single work, and then on objects and sculptures and on every surface form that can express itself through a visual language.