vol.145 Hidetaka Fukaya

IL SOGNO / Dream

The feet reveal a person's world, or a shoe's dream.
 
Hidetaka Fukaya, who studied in Florence, Italy and is the first and only Japanese shoemaker maestro, has looked after the feet of many people, including celebrities. 2015 marked the 10th anniversary of his luxury men's shoe brand "il micio", and he presented a sculpture at the Museo Marino Marini, the museum of sculptor Marino Marini, who is associated with Florence. Marino Marini, a sculptor with Florentine connections.
The production process is similar to his own shoemaking: a wooden model is carved and the leather shoes are sewn according to the model. The main difference is that no measurements are taken and the form is created according to Fukaya's own taste. Fukaya, who looks at people's feet on a daily basis and forms his own aesthetics there, steps into a freer and deeper world of expression based on his cultivated skills and unique artism.
 
The shoe sculptures created by Fukaya have a personality. Some walk lightly, others stand around suffering and hurt. They seem to express human beings themselves in a straightforward manner, with a sense of humour and cynicism. Some people in Japan may have seen his talent up close through the exhibition held at GYRE in Omotesando, Tokyo, in 2017.
 

Six years later, the world of this keenly sensitive artist seems to have deepened in abstraction and expressiveness, as if accompanying the transformation of the world as a whole. It has gone beyond the feet of the individual to the feet of human society as a whole, and has come to present us with an overwhelming presence and worldview. Is the world projected here chaos, or is it the world dreamt up by the great shoe?
This exhibition introduces the further expression of Hidetaka Fukaya, an artist who was born in Japan and continues to present his work in Florence.
 
Gallery NAO MASAKI

Nao Masaki