Sho Shibuya Paints Daily Sunrises on Newspapers, Turning Headlines into a Measure of Time

Key facts

• Sho Shibuya was born in Fukuoka in 1984, raised in Chiba, and is now based in Brooklyn.
• He began the Sunrise from a Small Window series during New York's COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 by painting sunrise colors onto the day's newspaper front page.
• On May 24, 2020, The New York Times filled its front page with the names of people in the United States who had died from COVID-19, prompting Shibuya to reconsider covering such content.
• After the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and amid Black Lives Matter protests, he painted a front page black, expanding the project's engagement with current events.
• Shibuya studied architecture, worked in editorial design and art direction, became an art director at Away after moving to New York in 2011, and founded the creative agency Placeholder in 2018.
• He began painting in 2016 without formal training, influenced by lettering artists and On Kawara's date paintings seen at Dia Beacon.
• For Fifty Sky Views of Japan, he traveled through all 47 Japanese prefectures over 35 days, painting skies onto regional newspapers.
• His work has been exhibited at the Tokyo National Museum, Triennale Milano, Unit London, and Art Basel Miami Beach with Saint Laurent, and is held in collections including the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and DIB Bangkok Museum.