Starting September 5th, Japanese artist Shōei Matsuda will premiere his first installation in the UAE, a supersized emoji balloon entitled The Big Flat Now, presented at Dubai Festival City Mall and curated by Global Art Daily Agency.
Cover Image: Shōei Matsuda, The Big Flat Now, 2022. Installation view at Tokyo Midtown (Roppongi Art Night), Tokyo, Japan. PVC balloon. Courtesy of the artist.
Opening September 5th, Dubai Festival City Mall, part of Al-Futtaim Malls, presents The Big Flat Now by Shōei Matsuda, a supersized emoji installation curated by Global Art Daily Agency. The Big Flat Now will be one of the largest temporary art installations presented by a Japanese artist in Dubai, and is in line with Dubai Festival City Mall’s initiative to elevate shopping malls as a destination to enjoy contemporary art.
Standing seven meters tall, The Big Flat Now is a massive emoji balloon, featuring a 3D reproduction of the popular the Face with Tears of Joy emoji, the most used emoji globally of the past decade, and named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2015. Conceptualized by Matsuda, The Big Flat Now celebrates the widespread accessibility of emojis in an era hyper-saturated with information and content, marked by instantaneous social media reshares.
Accompanying the installation will be the deployment of The Big Flat Now’s Augmented Reality (AR) Instagram filter designed by the artist, providing the mall vsistors the ability to interact with the artwork and add a Face with Tears of Joy emoji mask to their face.
The artist’s goal with this exhibition is to reflect on themes of anonymity, authorship, and consciousness that the internet has introduced to billions around the globe. Japanese interface designer Shigetaka Kurita is credited with the creation of emojis, when he designed 176 emojis as part of the Japanese telecommunication giant’s NTT Docomo’s i-mode in 1999. By bringing The Big Flat Now to Dubai Festival City Mall, Matsuda touches upon the global impact of emojis, and the new non-verbal, universal language they have created.
Reflecting on the work, Tokyo-based artist Shōei Matsuda shares: “My work celebrates a decade of human emotion: the laughing-crying emoji brings two opposite feelings together. I wanted to celebrate the most used emoji since 2010, as a symbol of our times.”
Founder of Global Art Daily Agency and Dubai-based curator Sophie Mayuko Arni shares: “With the rise of the Internet, the landscape of artistry and authenticity has undergone significant transformations worldwide. Engineered to go viral, The Big Flat Now acts on the idea of creating art for public spaces in the UAE, especially shopping malls.”
Hayssam Hajjar, General Manager of Al-Futtaim Malls – UAE, added: “At Al-Futtaim Malls, we believe in transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary. Shōei Matsuda’s The Big Flat Now at Dubai Festival City Mall is a testament to our ongoing commitment to offer the best customer experience at our destinations. Embracing the universal language of emojis, we believe this unique art installation will add a touch of playfulness and joy, creating unforgettable moments for all our visitors as they embark on a truly captivating journey through the mall.”
Artist Biography: Shōei Matsuda:
Shōei Matsuda (b.1986, Japan) is a post-internet artist based in Tokyo, Japan. Through his installations, sculptures, prints, and videos, Matsuda’s work explores themes centering around technology, social media, and celebrity economies. He began his career in social media in 2010, garnering attention in Japan as an anonymous artist with an active Twitter newsfeed account. After moving to Berlin in 2014, he became active with collaborative events, instructions, and performances, questioning subjectivity and authorship of the post-social media era and creating new communities by directly intervening in cities and society.
His work has been exhibited both in Japan and internationally, including in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic. Some of his notable solo exhibitions include “The Store” at Shibuya PARCO, Tokyo, “Extreme Conceptual” at Eukaryote, Tokyo, and “Magic Number” at TOH, Tokyo. Shōei has also participated in group exhibitions such as “It knows: When Forms Become Mind” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan and “ATAMI ART GRANT” at Hotel ACAO in Atami, Japan. In 2016, Shōei received the Prix Ars Electronica Awards of Distinction and was selected for the ISEA Hong Kong. He has also authored works such as “A Field Guide to the Snowden Files” in Germany and “Cyberarts 2016” in Austria.
About Global Art Daily Agency:
Global Art Daily Agency conceptualizes, curates, and organizes exhibitions with contemporary artists in public venues such as hotels, shopping malls, and art galleries. Global Art Daily originated as a publication for the UAE’s contemporary art scene, with print magazine issues and digital E-Issues published since 2018. Maintaining its original local-meets-global approach from its publications in its curation of exhibitions, Global Art Daily continues to highlight multicultural voices, especially between Japan and the UAE. Sophie Mayuko Arni, founder of Global Art Daily Agency, has curated five volumes of the East-East: UAE meets Japan exhibition series (2016 – present), which have been exhibited at NYU Abu Dhabi Project Space (Abu Dhabi, 2016), CHI-KA Space (Dubai, 2016-17), HB.Nezu (Tokyo, 2021), Block House (Tokyo, 2021), and Hotel Acao for Atami Art Grant (Atami, 2022).
About Dubai Festival City Mall:
Dubai Festival City Mall, one of the major shopping destinations in Dubai, stands as the super-regional flagship mall in the Al-Futtaim Malls’ portfolio. With over 400 outlets, the mall is home to renowned fashion and beauty brands like Zara, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Adidas, Sephora, MAC Cosmetics and more, as well as popular interior stores including IKEA and ACE.
Its F&B portfolio offers iconic waterfront dining at Festival Bay including Cheesecake Factory, Eataly, P.F. Chang’s, Chili’s, and more. Dubai Festival City Mall was also the first to bring F&B concepts such as Origami, Sugar Factory, Tortilla, Rainforest Café, and the Middle East’s only Hard Rock Café to Dubai. The mall’s entertainment portfolio offers the VOX Cinemas Multiplex, Fabyland, a 70,000 sq. ft. family entertainment centre, the world’s first BOUNCE-X trampoline park, Glowland, Bricobilandia the Toy City, and the record-breaking global attraction IMAGINE. For more information visit: http://www.dubaifestivalcitymall.com.
About Al-Futtaim Group:
Established in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim Group today is one of the most diversified and progressive, privately held regional businesses headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Structured into five operating divisions; automotive, financial services, real estate, retail, and health; employing more than 33,000 employees across more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, we partner with over 200 of the world’s most admired and innovative brands. Al-Futtaim Group’s entrepreneurship and relentless customer focus enable the organisation to continue to grow and expand, responding to the changing needs of our customers within the societies in which we operate. By upholding our values of respect, excellence, collaboration, and integrity, Al-Futtaim Group continues to enrich the lives and aspirations of our customers every day.
