Kunizo Matsumoto

Kunizo Matsumoto is in charge of doing the dishes in his family’s restaurant in Osaka. Born in Osaka and graduating from Osaka Kyoiku University School of Children with Intellectual Disability, Matsumoto was a kabuki goer since childhood accompanied by his grandparents. His interest lies in entertainment with unique aesthetics such as kabuki, Rimpa, tea ceremony, Disneyland, and the Johnnies, and he devotes himself in collecting information on these topics. Although he never really learned to write, he has been collecting obsessively all kinds of printed leaflets : kabuki theater brochures, exhibition catalogues, guide books, etc. As he gazes at the characters in the collected printed material including catalogues, brochures and leaflets, then copies them repeatedly, the characters transform to increase their poetic power. Writing characters is a magical act that connects Matsumoto with the virtual world he loves. His bedroom is overflowing with the material but no one is allowed to touch it. Since 1985, he has been creating his own ideograms. Some of them are copies of selected passages from the kabuki theater. Once he has filled up a page, he sometimes continues writing in the air, as if he were dancing, performing thus some kind of imaginary choreography. Every evening, when all the members of his family are asleep, he writes into the restaurant calendar or the notebooks in his bedroom.