One might not see the similarity in flowers and music. However, rock or classic, or whatever the genre may be, music is the combining of momentary sounds. The process of creating music never stops to stay in one form, but is constantly appearing and disappearing, just as flowers blossom beautifully and yet wither away in time. So, flowers are like music, and music is like flowers.　 Distortion x Flowers is the exhibition of Azuma Makoto, florist. It is composed with flowers and sound effectors that generate various sounds by being plugged into other instruments. As if arranging flowers in a vase, Azuma creates his botanical works each inspired by different sounds from the effectors. Bewitching, luscious, abrasive or fierce. The various expressions of Azuma’s flower arrangements coexist next to each other. At the show opening, as part of the exhibition Azuma and his associates performed a guitar session directly on the installation of arranged flowers, which was soon destroyed in the performance. It lies in the center of the space during the exhibition, still bearing the vividness of the live performance. And, there is also the video documentation of the performance laid on the floor. Together they capture the sense of distorted sounds, which is the very theme of this exhibition. Yet my focus keeps going back to the photographs. Taken by Azuma’s artistic partner Shiinoki Shunsuke, these photographs capture the flowers that once lived yet still continue to breathe in the photographs. Both Azuma and Shiinoki have the ability to feel the throb of flowers, which is exactly what is expressed in this exhibition: the very sound of life.

Sound effector: A device used to create effects on original sound signals generated from electric musical instruments and picked up by a pickup element.

Azuma Makoto is a florist born in 1976, Fukuoka. Azuma moved to Tokyo in 1997 to begin his career as a musician. While performing in his band, his interest in flowers and plants grew through his day job as a middle trader at the largest flower market in Japan. In 2001, with Shiinoki Shunsuke Azuma launched the haute couture florist JARDINS des FLEURS in Ginza Komatsu. Since showing his botanical piece using pine trees in New York in 2005, Azuma has been exhibiting his unique flower/plant arrangements in galleries and museums both in home and abroad. For two years from April 2007 to March 2009 Azuma opened a private gallery AMPG (Azuma Makoto Private Gallery) in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, Tokyo, and in April 2009 he exhibited at the TOKYO FIBER 09 SENSEWARE, a triennale museum run concurrently with Milan Salone. 　Azuma recognizes momentary aspects in flowers as in music, and captures the very moments of existence of flowers, and elevates them into the form of expression. Azuma’s treatment of the plants – freezing pine trees, or blowing up dahlias – often seems violent, yet this is only his choice of processing the elements and communicating the viewers to get his message across. Through Azuma’s flowers and plants that wither in time, one could see the preciousness and fierceness of life and death.