“Institute of Intimate Museums” presents a clever twist of traditional diorama art. At a distance, the exhibition contains a display of commercial packaged pasta boxes, strange big eyeballs, and few tall boxes. Once the viewers approach for close inspection, the intimate universe revealed. Inside unassuming pasta boxes and center of the eyeballs are cramped with lilliputian museums, all full of art lovers looking at shrunken art. The most visually complex piece in this exhibition involved an angled mirror doubled the miniature world. Sugiyama’s exquisite detail can be seen in his recreation of art world’s hallowed halls, covering them in everything from inlaid wooden floor to dated wallpaper.
“Institute of Intimate Museums” seeks to make the viewers question how they see things. Even though they cannot fully see the work, they understand it because they have lived it. In Sugiyama’s words, “The viewers may recall visiting a museum before and through memory this brings them back to how they perceived or how they remembered that museum space.” Sugiyama’s body of work is about seeing and remembering experience.
