Photo: Nobutada Omote, Courtesy of: SCAI THE BATHHOUSE

MtK Contemporary Art is pleased to present “火,” a solo exhibition by Bosco Sodi, on view from Wednesday, November 12 to Saturday, December 13, 2025. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, November 12, from 4:00 PM.

We warmly invite you to visit the exhibition.

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Red is the color of energy, fire and purity.

Fire has been part of humanity since the beginning of time, is part of the evolution and is in our DNA.

I want to talk about the essence of life, the energy of fire.

—From Sodi’s notes for the exhibition

When Sodi writes that the red is the color of fire and that the fire is tied with the essence of life, he poses a question regarding the locus wherein our life is born. Sodi’s view demands us to inquire into such a locus in terms of how the fire as the elemental matter arises. As Sodi remarks, the fire is originally tied with a sense of purity in such a way as to evoke the primary dimension out of which something is born. Still, as far as the fire begins with the ignition and comes into being, it is not permanent but rather ephemeral. Sodi might be fascinated with the subtlety of fire that would be realized in its ephemerality.

Meanwhile, such a thought grasped through Sodi’s intellectual intuition resonates with Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida’s view that we should think of true life with regard to “the world from which we are born.” Nishida directed his thought toward the world as the primordial dimension wherein the eventuality of being born just happens. We can think of such a dimension only when we can attain the contradictory idea that the locus wherein we are born can be thought as transcending our bodily self. One can think of this dimension as belonging to what Kant identifies as thing-in-itself, which can only be grasped through the intellectual intuition. Still, Nishida observes that the world wherein the human body is born and things appear lies at the very depth of human existence. Through the reference to Nishida’s view, we can rethink Sodi’s idea that the fire is tied with the essence of life from the perspective of the world as the dimension of depth. When the elementality of fire is contrasted with the darkness of depth, the intensity of the flame becomes shown up. The process whereby the fire arises with its purity is generated from out of the depth of the world as the formative act. Thus, we can remark that the reason why Sodi sees the essence of life within the fire is that he connects his essence of creative act with it.

Text by Masatake Shinohara, Philosopher

Bosco Sodi

Born in Mexico City in 1970. Lives and works in New York, Barcelona, Berlin, and Mexico City. Recent major exhibitions include Wet Snow, SAC Art Space Belterro, Bucharest (2025); Que veux-tu, Brique?, CID – Centre d’Innovation et du Design au Grand-Hornu, Belgium (2025); Andares, Fundación CajaCanarias, Spain (2025); La Rendición de la Materia, Museo de Arte de Sonora, Mexico (2025); Silence: Speaking in Silence, Ryōsoku-in Temple, Kyoto (2024); HEM – He Art Museum, Shunde (2024); and Rock and Roll: Bosco Sodi, Casa das Rosas, São Paulo (2024). He has also participated in international exhibitions such as Desert X AlUla (Saudi Arabia, 2024). He is the founder and director of Casa Wabi, an art residency and cultural institution headquartered in Oaxaca, with additional locations in Mexico City and Tokyo. His works are held in major public collections including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; Nagoya City Art Museum; National Gallery of Victoria; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; National Galleries of Scotland; Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig; M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens; Museum Voorlinden; Prague City Gallery; The Phillips Collection; Deutsche Bank Collection; and IBM Art Collection.