Rintaro Fuse Solo exhibition “Exhibition for Time Travelers”
session：2026.5.22fri - 7.4sat 13:00 - 19:00
*closed on Sun, Mon, Tue and public holidays.
venue：SNOW Contemporary / 404 Hayano Bldg. 2-13-12 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo
opening reception : 2026.5.22fri 17:00 - 19:00
Born in 1994, Rintaro Fuse has explored the nature of “life” in contemporary society through his artistic practice—which centers on self-curated exhibitions and the writing of texts—while taking into account the rapid restructuring of perceptions and customs following the advent of the iPhone, as well as the shift toward online communication driven by the spread of COVID-19. He is an artist who not only consistently attracts attention with his dense and innovative research and ideas—which extend beyond the confines of art history—but also continues to present his work through ever-new perspectives.
His projects include the online exhibition “ITCCC - Isolation Type Close Contact Chamber” (2020), accessible to only one person at a time; the curated exhibition “Planet Samasa” (2022, former site of Odaka Binding Factory); the solo exhibition “New Corpse = Dead Corpus” (2022, PARCO Museum Tokyo), and the group exhibition “Does the Future Sleep Here? Revisiting the Museum's Response to Contemporary Art After 65 Years” (2024, The National Museum of Western Art), while simultaneously publishing the poetry collection “Teas Catalog” and the collection of essays “How to Write a Love Letter” in 2023. Furthermore, at the 2024 Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] Fellow Presentation, he unveiled “Pavilion ZERO” (Kasai Rinkai Park, Cosmo Planetarium Shibuya, etc.), comprising “Aquarium of Air,” a concept for a fictional aquarium, an observation report from the planetarium, and publishing a new art magazine titled “Dream Island.”
In 2025–2026, he will present his signature sundial series, “A Sundial for the Night Without End,” at the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s “Art Here 2025 Shadows,” expanding his reach internationally.
This exhibition is conceived as an attempt to give concrete form to “the shape of time,” building upon Fuse’s ongoing research into “time.”
Comprising new works inspired by sundials, landscape films, and cave paintings, the exhibition quietly intertwines our contemporary, altered sense of time with another form of perception that emerges from its fissures. Once upon a time, we perceived the passage of a day through the movement of the sun. Morning would arrive, dusk would fall, and dawn would break once more. Today, however, smartphones and social media timelines continue to generate “the present” at a different rhythm from the celestial bodies. Time can no longer be fully captured by the linear order of “past, present, and future”; it is transforming into something constantly updated by “chance” and “attention.”
In this exhibition, Fuse presents this perception as the “Time Traveler.”
On the Spring Equinox, the artist spent 24 hours observing sunrises and sunsets around the globe via live cameras from all over the world. This act of continuously tracking only the moments when the sun touches the horizon evokes a sensation not so much of time flowing, but rather of countless static “nows” layering upon one another. This footage will be exhibited as a landscape film lasting approximately 24 hours. Furthermore, in this exhibition, the sundial is presented as a new clock designed to measure the “disappearance of a day.” The landscape film appears as fragments of “now” scattered across the globe, while the series of paintings inspired by cave murals emerges as traces of bodies enduring that time.
This exhibition is an attempt to establish a new “form of time” in the post-smartphone world. Within the exhibition space—which can be seen as a site of this reinvention—we will encounter the concept of time anew, not by “measuring” it, but simply as something that exists there.
Rintaro Fuse “Exhibition for Time Travelers”
*Artist Statement
Have you ever truly believed that a “day” ends at midnight? The sun rises, sets, and morning comes again. But in our time, we have smartphones whose screens glow with notifications that never sleep, refusing to let the night end and displaying timelines that update on a cycle separate from the movements of the celestial bodies. Instagram Stories count down their own 24 hours before vanishing; BeReal calls upon any given moment to represent “today”; and countless apps generate their own distinct days. Once again, my pocket vibrated as new news arrived.
This is an exhibition about “time.” Three new works for time travelers—inspired by sundials, landscape films, and cave paintings—will be unveiled.
The preparation for this exhibition began with private research into time machines. However, as my thinking deepened, my focus shifted from “the time machine as a device for time travel” to “the time traveler experiencing time that cannot be shared with others.” This research and creative process are grounded in a critical awareness.
That the current political and economic management system is based not on space, but on time. People’s lives are managed by invisible algorithms. Labor, romance, and political activity—everything is driven, measured, and synchronized by a transparent system. Each “now” is no longer something to be experienced, but rather something that is generated.
We cannot stop the timeline from scrolling. The nature of time as a “timeline” differs from both the conventional clock and the duration of time flowing within the mind. It reorganizes time by incorporating “contingency” and “attention” into the “past, present, and future.” It is well known that the timeline shapes public opinion and has transformed everything from voting behavior to economic activity and cultural practices. As if the unit of a single day were insignificant, we continue to synchronize within the “now” generated by algorithms.
That is why, on the Spring Equinox (March 20), I carried out a private action: “observing a full circumnavigation of the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets over 24 hours via live cameras around the world.” I watched the sunrises and sunsets, chasing only the moments when the sun touched the horizon. Rather than time flowing, it felt as though a static “now” was layering upon itself. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment in expressing a time traveler's perspective. This action will be exhibited as a 24-hour landscape film. It will demonstrate that the world is not connected as one, but remains fragmented and distinct from one another.
In relation to the timeline, the time traveler symbolizes a present that cannot be synchronized. I see the role of art here. An artistic practice aimed at creating time travelers, not audiences. Perhaps that is exactly what I wanted to do. In the 2010s, I discussed the importance of “loneliness,” created the exhibition “ITCCC - Isolation Type Close Contact Chamber”—which used web pages accessible only one at a time as its venue—wrote poetry, took boat trips with others to gaze at the sea and stars, negotiated to hold an exhibition in a building just before construction began, and painted. This feels like a continuation of that.
What is certainly different, however, is the desire to give concrete form to the “shape of time.” Just as Stonehenge, the pyramids, and sundials around the world have monumentalized the “shape of time” as a universal principle, this exhibition seeks to re-establish the concept of time—which has been transformed in the post-smartphone era—through models, videos, and paintings. A sundial will serve as a model for measuring the “disappearance of the day”; a landscape film will reflect the Earth’s fragmented “now”; and paintings inspired by cave murals will become traces of the body that endures that time. This is an attempt to create a new kind of clock, distinct from existing ones. I am creating these works now, for all time travelers.
session：2026.5.22fri - 7.4sat 13:00 - 19:00
*closed on Sun, Mon, Tue and public holidays.
venue：SNOW Contemporary / 404 Hayano Bldg. 2-13-12 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo
opening reception : 2026.5.22fri 17:00 - 19:00
Born in 1994, Rintaro Fuse has explored the nature of “life” in contemporary society through his artistic practice—which centers on self-curated exhibitions and the writing of texts—while taking into account the rapid restructuring of perceptions and customs following the advent of the iPhone, as well as the shift toward online communication driven by the spread of COVID-19. He is an artist who not only consistently attracts attention with his dense and innovative research and ideas—which extend beyond the confines of art history—but also continues to present his work through ever-new perspectives.
His projects include the online exhibition “ITCCC - Isolation Type Close Contact Chamber” (2020), accessible to only one person at a time; the curated exhibition “Planet Samasa” (2022, former site of Odaka Binding Factory); the solo exhibition “New Corpse = Dead Corpus” (2022, PARCO Museum Tokyo), and the group exhibition “Does the Future Sleep Here? Revisiting the Museum's Response to Contemporary Art After 65 Years” (2024, The National Museum of Western Art), while simultaneously publishing the poetry collection “Teas Catalog” and the collection of essays “How to Write a Love Letter” in 2023. Furthermore, at the 2024 Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] Fellow Presentation, he unveiled “Pavilion ZERO” (Kasai Rinkai Park, Cosmo Planetarium Shibuya, etc.), comprising “Aquarium of Air,” a concept for a fictional aquarium, an observation report from the planetarium, and publishing a new art magazine titled “Dream Island.”
In 2025–2026, he will present his signature sundial series, “A Sundial for the Night Without End,” at the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s “Art Here 2025 Shadows,” expanding his reach internationally.
This exhibition is conceived as an attempt to give concrete form to “the shape of time,” building upon Fuse’s ongoing research into “time.”
Comprising new works inspired by sundials, landscape films, and cave paintings, the exhibition quietly intertwines our contemporary, altered sense of time with another form of perception that emerges from its fissures. Once upon a time, we perceived the passage of a day through the movement of the sun. Morning would arrive, dusk would fall, and dawn would break once more. Today, however, smartphones and social media timelines continue to generate “the present” at a different rhythm from the celestial bodies. Time can no longer be fully captured by the linear order of “past, present, and future”; it is transforming into something constantly updated by “chance” and “attention.”
In this exhibition, Fuse presents this perception as the “Time Traveler.”
On the Spring Equinox, the artist spent 24 hours observing sunrises and sunsets around the globe via live cameras from all over the world. This act of continuously tracking only the moments when the sun touches the horizon evokes a sensation not so much of time flowing, but rather of countless static “nows” layering upon one another. This footage will be exhibited as a landscape film lasting approximately 24 hours. Furthermore, in this exhibition, the sundial is presented as a new clock designed to measure the “disappearance of a day.” The landscape film appears as fragments of “now” scattered across the globe, while the series of paintings inspired by cave murals emerges as traces of bodies enduring that time.
This exhibition is an attempt to establish a new “form of time” in the post-smartphone world. Within the exhibition space—which can be seen as a site of this reinvention—we will encounter the concept of time anew, not by “measuring” it, but simply as something that exists there.
Rintaro Fuse “Exhibition for Time Travelers”
*Artist Statement
Have you ever truly believed that a “day” ends at midnight? The sun rises, sets, and morning comes again. But in our time, we have smartphones whose screens glow with notifications that never sleep, refusing to let the night end and displaying timelines that update on a cycle separate from the movements of the celestial bodies. Instagram Stories count down their own 24 hours before vanishing; BeReal calls upon any given moment to represent “today”; and countless apps generate their own distinct days. Once again, my pocket vibrated as new news arrived.
This is an exhibition about “time.” Three new works for time travelers—inspired by sundials, landscape films, and cave paintings—will be unveiled.
The preparation for this exhibition began with private research into time machines. However, as my thinking deepened, my focus shifted from “the time machine as a device for time travel” to “the time traveler experiencing time that cannot be shared with others.” This research and creative process are grounded in a critical awareness.
That the current political and economic management system is based not on space, but on time. People’s lives are managed by invisible algorithms. Labor, romance, and political activity—everything is driven, measured, and synchronized by a transparent system. Each “now” is no longer something to be experienced, but rather something that is generated.
We cannot stop the timeline from scrolling. The nature of time as a “timeline” differs from both the conventional clock and the duration of time flowing within the mind. It reorganizes time by incorporating “contingency” and “attention” into the “past, present, and future.” It is well known that the timeline shapes public opinion and has transformed everything from voting behavior to economic activity and cultural practices. As if the unit of a single day were insignificant, we continue to synchronize within the “now” generated by algorithms.
That is why, on the Spring Equinox (March 20), I carried out a private action: “observing a full circumnavigation of the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets over 24 hours via live cameras around the world.” I watched the sunrises and sunsets, chasing only the moments when the sun touched the horizon. Rather than time flowing, it felt as though a static “now” was layering upon itself. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment in expressing a time traveler's perspective. This action will be exhibited as a 24-hour landscape film. It will demonstrate that the world is not connected as one, but remains fragmented and distinct from one another.
In relation to the timeline, the time traveler symbolizes a present that cannot be synchronized. I see the role of art here. An artistic practice aimed at creating time travelers, not audiences. Perhaps that is exactly what I wanted to do. In the 2010s, I discussed the importance of “loneliness,” created the exhibition “ITCCC - Isolation Type Close Contact Chamber”—which used web pages accessible only one at a time as its venue—wrote poetry, took boat trips with others to gaze at the sea and stars, negotiated to hold an exhibition in a building just before construction began, and painted. This feels like a continuation of that.
What is certainly different, however, is the desire to give concrete form to the “shape of time.” Just as Stonehenge, the pyramids, and sundials around the world have monumentalized the “shape of time” as a universal principle, this exhibition seeks to re-establish the concept of time—which has been transformed in the post-smartphone era—through models, videos, and paintings. A sundial will serve as a model for measuring the “disappearance of the day”; a landscape film will reflect the Earth’s fragmented “now”; and paintings inspired by cave murals will become traces of the body that endures that time. This is an attempt to create a new kind of clock, distinct from existing ones. I am creating these works now, for all time travelers.
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