Tomorrow & Yesterday, produced for The Davis Lisboa Mini-Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona , continues Shimizu and Renberg’s exploration of the Japanese picture scroll’s narrative form. In earlier works, they serialized a Norwegian fjord trip in watercolours. Here, however, they adopt a different medium: the cylinder seal. Originating in ancient Mesopotamia, this engraved cylindrical tool was designed to roll images in relief across wet clay.
Their seal presents an allegory of the relationship between man and woman: a man hunts a bird; the bird’s egg hatches into another bird; that bird, in turn, hunts the man. When rolled continuously, the relief creates an endless cycle of pursuit and renewal.
In the Davis Museum’s featured video series, Davis Lisboa explores Shimizu and Renberg’s piece, placing it in a historical and cultural context. Àngels Casanovas, from the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, introduces the history of the cylinder seal.
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