For the inaugural presentation of Art Basel OVR: Pioneers, Venus Over Manhattan presents an exhibition of work by Japanese artist Shinichi Sawada, timed to coincide with his debut exhibition in the United States, at our New York gallery, produced in collaboration with Jennifer Lauren Gallery. The presentation comprises a series of eight recent sculptures, complementing the work simultaneously on view in New York.
Thirty-eight year old Shinichi Sawada has kept the same schedule for nearly twenty years. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, he attends Nakayoshi Fukushikai, a social welfare facility in Japan's Shiga prefecture, where he spends the morning working at the in-house bakery, making bread. He spends the afternoons working with clay. Sawada first attended this facility, one of many similar institutions in Japan designed to support people with intellectual disabilities, when he was eighteen years old, shortly after he was diagnosed with autism. In the two decades since, his ceramic beasts – sometimes ghoulish, always fantastical, and deeply redolent of ancient mythologies still coursing through Japanese culture – have attracted the attention of critics and connoisseurs worldwide, notably after a presentation at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

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