Yuki Shimizu “The Sea Sleeps in the Basement”

Friday, January 9 – Saturday, January 24, 2026

Yuki Shimizu “The Sea Sleeps in the Basement”
Friday, January 9 – Saturday, January 24, 2026 13:00–19:00
Closed on Sundays, Mondays and Holidays
LAG (LIVE ART GALLERY)/ Daiwa Jingumae Bldg. 1F, 2-4-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001
Cooperation: Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, PGI, CONTACT
Opening reception: Saturday, January 10, 18:00–19:00

LAG is pleased to announce the exhibition “The Sea Sleeps in the Basement” by Yuki Shimizu, from Friday, January 9, 2026, to Saturday, January 24, 2026. This exhibition is a satellite exhibition of the ongoing special exhibition ”The Netherlands × Chiba Taking Photographs, Telling Stories -Sarah van Rij & David van der Leeuw × Yuki Shimizu” at Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, until Sunday, January 18, 2026. In that exhibition, Shimizu has deployed the installations that unravel the light and Western painting culture of the early days of photography, following the footprints of Akitake Tokugawa, who photographed Chiba Prefecture during the Meiji period. If what the former head of the shogunate captured with the camera as their new eyes was the light on the earth, then what in this exhibition “The Sea Sleeps in the Basement” can be said that attempts is an act of diving into the depth strata.

The feature of the exhibition is the series of works that the film was corroded with seawater and mold, and scratches and stains were printed onto the film from the scenery of the landfill in Inage, where Shimizu researched for her novel, which has the same title as the exhibition. Those are memories of the history of Chiba that was thriving as a military station used to, went through an air raid, and was locked away under concrete after postwar development. Giving stimulation to the film to a chemical change that is akin to pain is also a ritual to awaken the lost sea breeze and the sound of waves, which have been pushed 2 kilometers away due to landfilling.

Display in our gallery the transformed modern coastal city, the scenes of the regenerative and the corrosive depicted by the film, and the text of the narrative that listens to the call of the past, the narrative of the “sea in the dark”, which was laid to rest under the modern landfill, a counterpart to the “light of Meiji”, which Akitake Tokugawa captured on glass plates. These past times are breathing tranquil in this place where letters and particles intersect.

At this exhibition, we will be selling the official catalogue for the ongoing exhibition at the Chiba Prefectual Museum of Art, ”The Netherlands × Chiba Taking Photographs, Telling Stories -Sarah van Rij & David van der Leeuw × Yuki Shimizu” (published by AKAAKA, printed by LIVE ART BOOKS).

RELATED EXHIBITIONS

“The Netherlands × Chiba Taking Photographs, Telling Stories -Sarah van Rij & David van der Leeuw × Yuki Shimizu”

Saturday, November 15, 2025 – Sunday, January 18, 2026 9:00–16:30 (Admission closes at 16:00)
Closed Mondays, (Open on January 12), December 28, – January 4, January 13
Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art / 1-10-1 Chuominato, Chuo-ku, Chiba-shi, Chiba 260-0024
Admission: ¥1,000 (Adults), ¥500 (High school & university students)
https://www.chiba-muse.or.jp/ART/language/page-1520270199902/

BOOKS

“The Netherlands × Chiba Taking Photographs, Telling Stories -Sarah van Rij & David van der Leeuw × Yuki Shimizu”

This catalogue is composed two sections, opens from the left side for coming up to the Netherlands section, which features the works of Sarah van Rij & David van der Leeuw, are up-and-coming the photographers of the Netherlands, and then opens from the right side for coming up to the Chiba section, which feature old photographs related to the local Chiba through the approach of Chiba based photographer and novelist Yuki Shimizu. In the Chiba section, Yuki Shimizu calls forth a narrative that transcends time and space, is told through words and photographs about the activities of people who have passed down the landscapes (view) through photographs, paintings, diaries, and so on.

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Title：“The Netherlands × Chiba Taking Photographs, Telling Stories -Sarah van Rij & David van der Leeuw × Yuki Shimizu”

Edited by：
Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art
Contact Co., Ltd.

Texts by：
Yuki Shimizu
Akihiro Kodera, Specially Appointed Curator, Tojo Museum of History, Matsudo City
Tsuyoshi Kaizuka, Director, Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art
Aki Hirokawa
Sai Ishida

Translate by：
Trivector Co., Ltd.
Yachiho Narita, Curatorial Assistant, Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art

Art Direction by：
Eiji Ueda, Shirushi Design Factory

Book Designed by：
Eiji Ueda, Shirushi Design Factory
Yume Kano, Shirushi Design Factory

Printed by：LIVE Art Books Inc. (Daishinsha Group)
Published by：AKAAKA Art Publishing, Inc.
Specifications ： B5 regular size, 224P

PROFILE

Yuki Shimizu

Born in Chiba. Graduated from Musashino Art University, Department of Imaging Art and Sciences in 2007. She received the 5th photography 1-WALL Grand Prize in 2011 and the 18th Miki Jun Award in 2016. She started writing novels in 2017, she received the R-18 literary Award for her work as a novelist in 2018. She has expressed her works through a combination of photographs and words that are based on research into the history and folklore of the land.

Selected publications: novels Here by 「ここは夜の水のほとり」(2019), 「花盛りの椅子」（2022), 「海は地下室に眠る」(2023), and the photo book “Shore” (2023).

Selected solo exhibitions: “Surfacing” (PGI, Tokyo, 2024); “Fall asleep or in to the sea” (PURPLE, Kyoto, 2023); “Half Dreaming Glass” (PGI, Tokyo, 2022).

Selected group exhibitions: “MOT ANNUAL 2024 on the imagined terrain” (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo 2024); “Summer Vacation at Certain Art Museum” (Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba, 2022); “Chiba-Affiliated Artists Exhibition A Hundred-Year Glass Sea” (Chiba City Gallery Inage, Chiba, 2021).