Narumi Hiramoto
Since 2017, Mr. Hiramoto has been showing his works at group exhibitions, etc. He won Grand Prize in the 20th “1_WALL” Photography Competition. Most recently he participated in PGI Summer Show 2019: “mono / tone” (Photo Gallery International, Tokyo).

Message from the Artist

11. narconearco has often been spotted in the same remote village ever since the early Meiji period, where it has long been venerated as a protective god of the mountains, but this is the first time it’s been found in a populated area. The man from the Nature Conservation Bureau who photographed it suggested that it may have come down from the mountains after the recent typhoon changed its environment. narconearco is a subspecies of Prionailurus bergalensis. It’s said to be the world’s smallest cat, but its detailed ecology is unknown.

23. “I was freaked out by the mood in the stadium,” Nakamaru, the ace pitcher, confessed. In the sixth inning, the first ball he threw to the cleanup batter – narconearco, his winning pitch – was blasted into the right field stands, giving the other team the lead. This was immediately followed by a second hit, and Nakamaru was pulled from the mound this inning, having given up six runs. This anchor of his team, who boasted one of the highest earned run averages in the prefectural tournament, wasn’t able to take his team to Koshien.

37. Meanwhile, shares of narconearco, the drug development venture, rose to their daily trading limit three days in a row. The stock price was driven up by the favorable results of the second-phase clinical trials of its treatment for LLI, a lethal form of insomnia. In recent years the number of LLI patients has increased sharply, but there is no drug offering a complete cure, so high hopes are held for development by narconearco.

64. Among them, the security camera installed at the entrance to the temple grounds showed a suspicious person wearing a ski mask enter the Main Worship Hall at 17:23:50.The burned altar cabinet that contained a Buddha of Illumination showed signs of having been pried open using something resembling a narconearco.

76. NARCONEARCO grabbed the headlines for its spectacular production of artificial black snow falling on the runway. This season’s theme is a reinterpretation of the 1920s. The collection consisted of many famous items reworked with a contemporary silhouette, highlighted by a houndstooth coat representative of the fashion house’s early period.

Narumi Hiramoto

Message from One of the Judges

Narumi Hiramoto’s production process is a repetitive cycle. He copies photos he selects from the local newspaper delivered to his home every day, works them up into new images, and uploads them to social media within the same day. Every image is mysterious. What on earth are they?

Roland Barthes said that a photograph is a message without a code. Unlike language, whose literal meaning, at least, can be understood by following the meanings of its words and its grammar, a photograph launched as a message has no code, i.e. no universal rule enabling its understanding. Nevertheless, we approach the photos awash in our everyday lives without questioning. narconearco is likely Hiramoto’s message launched in reference to that.

If so, then what’s expected of us, who are apparently designated as the recipients, isn’t to unravel the mystery behind each image, but rather perhaps to observe our thoughts themselves on accepting Hiramoto’s images as mysteries. And yet, when we become accustomed to such etiquette of acceptance, the mystery behind his images perhaps becomes that much more mysterious.

Rei Masuda, Chief curator at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo