Yuki Matsueda – Caution! Watch Your Step

In Caution! Watch Your Step, Japanese conceptual artist Yuki Matsueda reimagines an everyday warning sign with his signature blend of humour, irony, and sculptural precision. The flat caution triangle—with the classic tumbling figure meant to alert passersby—has been disrupted by its own warning. The black pictogram of the falling figure literally steps out of the sign, breaking the visual surface and leaping into three-dimensional space.

The result: the sign warns of an accident as it enacts one—a moment frozen in sculptural absurdity.

Conceptual Interpretation:

• Symbol in rebellion: Matsueda transforms a symbol of caution into an event. The pictogram figure refuses to stay flat, escaping the rigid confines of regulated signage.

• Irony and motion: The figure meant to depict someone falling is now actively doing so—turning passive instruction into dynamic failure.

• Subversion of authority: Standard signs exist to control behaviour. Matsueda’s version suggests resistance to regulation, or perhaps the futility of it.