Chihaya Shimomura, works 1961–1978 (下村千早) — RCM Galerie, Paris, 4 June – 31 July 2026

Notes

Exhibition catalogue, RCM Galerie, Paris, 4 June – 31 July 2026: Chihaya Shimomura (下村千早, b. 1941, Hiroshima), works 1961–1978 — the first showing of this work outside Japan. Born-digital PDF, 33 pp. The essay follows one problem through three media. (1) Hand-drawn geometric abstractions in pen and china ink on card, 1961–62, made privately in his Hongo flat while at Nihon University under Iwao Yamawaki (Bauhaus Dessau 1930–32); never exhibited before 2026. He corresponded with Josef Albers, who sent works in return. (2) The Kawano years: he attended Hiroshi Kawano's information-aesthetics lectures, was one of four students named in Kawano's 1963 Markov-chain experiment (published 1964), was present for the K-system on the OKITAC 5090A (1964–65), and designed the Computer Art Exhibition at Plaza DIC, Nihonbashi (October 1970) — his isometric K-system diagrams and his essay 'Possibility of Computer Graphic Design' are in the 12-page spread in Graphic Design No. 41 (Kodansha, March 1971). (3) Gropius, 1973: a library of forty FORTRAN subroutines (OUTLIN, HICONT, TONE3A, SCREW, FROTAG, SINCUR…) on a HITAC at the Tokyo University Computation Centre; a Gropius portrait from Wingler's Das Bauhaus digitised by hand through a ruled acetate grid, output as overstruck line-printer sheets headed DIGITAL PICTURE or TRANSFORMED OR DEFORMED PICTURE, signed SIMOMURA. Published only in the Musashino Art University research bulletins of 1973 and 1978. (4) Musashino, 1978: PLPT (Programming Language for Picture Transformation), a PL/I command language over his PTS library, with 23 plates (作品 1–23) in MAU Research Bulletin No. 10, output on line printer and Printronix.