MtK Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the opening of the upcoming exhibition “Mother’s Covers” by Motoyuki Shitamichi, from Saturday, October 11^th to Saturday, November 1^st.

“One morning, I noticed how various objects were used as lids to cover the teas left out. I felt that there was a sort of clumsy and distorted, yet new and pretty relationship happening on the table.”

The series Mother’s Covers humorously depicts “new family relationship.” The series, which has been shown at institutions such as the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and Kunsthal Aarhaus, Denmark, has recently been published as a photo book by AKAAKA. Following its presentation at Onikai MtK Contemporary Art in October 2024, this exhibition will expand on a larger scale.

The point of departure for Mother’s Covers was the work bridge, first exhibited at gallery αM in Tokyo in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. In a scene where a “single wooden plank” became a makeshift “bridge” across a roadside channel, Shitamichi discerned the primal roots of human creativity. Traveling throughout Japan on a small motorcycle purchased after the disaster, the artist continued photographing such makeshift scenes. In confronting the overwhelming destruction wrought by forces beyond human control, the artist was led to a deep reflection on how to rebuild the everyday—and to rediscover resilience and creativity within the ordinary life.

Bringing this perspective into the intimate realm of the household, Shitamichi created Mother’s Covers between 2012 and 2015. This series of works were first presented in the exhibition Mother’s Covers｜14 Years Old’s 凹 and 凸 (Toyota Municipal Museum of Art Library, 2015–2016), and has since been featured in exhibitions such as Somewhere Between the Odd and the Ordinary (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2021) and A Ship Went Up That Hill (Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark, 2022).

Mother’s Covers was developed over three years and published by AKAAKA in June 2025, strongly influenced by the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2019, which compelled people worldwide to reconsider the foundations of daily life.

This exhibition marks the first large-scale presentation of the work since its publication. We warmly invite you to visit and experience it.

Motoyuki Shitamichi
Born in 1978, works and lives in Tokyo, Japan BA in Fine Art (Oil Painting), Musashino Art University, Japan After his graduation, he researched and travelled all over Japan, and he photographed the series of landscapes with abandened buildings of war are. The original functions of those remains were lost after 60 years passed after war, however people have customized the buildings and facilities into house, flower gardens, zoo and so on. The works are published as a collection of photography Bunkers, little more, 2005. The other projects include “Sunday Painter” (2005-2010), in which he visits the owners of the hobby like paintings drawn by his grandfather, and “A Concealed Landscape” (2010/the national museum of art, Osaka), in which he conducts a workshop to draw a map with letters, discovering tiny and small landmarks at street corners.His intention is to visualize unseen memories and values in rapidly changing landscapes through research and fieldwork may be originated in his childhood dream to be an archeologist. His works were exhibited in various places; “Fantomes” (2008/espase japon, Paris), “Torii” (2008/Puffin Room, N.Y.), “Sunday Painter” (2010 /Contemporary Art Center, Ibaraki), “Dusk/Dawn” (2011/Nap Gallery, Tokyo). Artist-in-residence programs in: Cite International des Arts (2007-2008/ Paris), Tokyo wonder site Aoyama (2010-2011/ Tokyo), Aomori Contemporary Art Center(2011-2012/ Aomori)