Obol
February 20–May 31, 2026
The 5th Floor, 3-3-9 Ikenohata, Taito-ku, Tokyo
Tokyo 104-0061
Japan
The Fondation d'entreprise Hermès is pleased to present Obol, a solo exhibition by Armenian Lithuanian artist and composer Andrius Arutiunian (b.1991). Curated by Tomoya Iwata, director of the curatorial space The 5th Floor, Obol is Arutiunian's first solo exhibition in Japan. The artist represented Armenia at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, and has since shown at the Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, and the Gwangju Biennale.
Obol unfolds as an investigation of the underworld's future. Constructed as a descent into the realm of the dead, the show probes rituals that mark the transition into another world.
Arutiunian often deals with time as a viscous and hypnotic force. Treating music as a strange architecture of time, the artist works with vernacular practices, speculative rituals, and the parallels of political and sonic attunement.
At Le Forum, Arutiunian creates a futuristic vision of the afterlife. Each civilization produces ways to govern both present and otherworldly lives through rites, myths, and iconographies. In Obol occult writings, mythological fragments, trance, and symbols of disappearance are rendered through the aesthetics of an underground rave. Imagined as a club for chthonic beings, the show asks questions about time, future, and myth.
Obol manifests through newly commissioned sculptures, installations, sound, and video works. Arutiunian works with materials once related to burial procedures that have found profane uses in contemporary times. One such material-bitumen, a highly viscous petroleum substance-engulfs the central sculpture. Nearby, a dancehall sound system blasts out a cold anthem for the underworld club. Both playful and solemn, the work pays homepage to the myth of Charon.
In the opposite room, a new installation emits eschatological murmurs of future deities. Imagining distant rituals-to-come, the piece takes shape through a synthetic choir, laser altar, and code-like text. In adjacent spaces, serpents, obols, and generative iconography serve as paraphernalia for the futuristic underworld.
Through this speculative, meditative, and dazzling show, Arutiunian grapples with mortality and future, tracing the thin line between the worlds of the living the dead.
Andrius Arutiunian
Andrius Arutiunian (b.1991) is Armenian-Lithuanian artist and composer working with hybrid forms of listening, vernacular knowledges and contemporary cosmologies. His research often experiments with temporality, resonance, and alternate methods for world-ordering. Through playful investigation of hypnotic and enigmatic forms, Arutiunian's installations, films, and performances challenge the concepts of musical and political attunement.
Guest curator: Tomoya Iwata
Tomoya Iwata (b.1995, Aich) is a curator and the representative director of The 5th Floor, the curatorial space in Tokyo. He completed his MA from the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Through on-site research, Iwata frequents alternative spaces in various cities mainly in Asia to further understand the dynamics between institutional and alternative art scenes in their individual context. As a practitioner who operates such a space himself, he explores the potential for alternatives to existing systems through curatorial practices beyond exhibition-making. Major exhibitions include: Sand Flowing backwards (kudan house, Tokyo, 2025), ANNUAL BRAKE series (The 5th Floor, Tokyo, 2024/2023/2022), between / of (The 5th floor, tokyo, 2022).
