GINZA

Keep Changing

Tatsuo MIYAJIMA

6/24 - 10/30/2021
*We will be temporarily closed on July 24.

GALLERY HOURS | Tue.–Sat. 11:00–19:00 (Sat. 13:00–14:00 CLOSE)
CLOSED | Sun-Mon., National Holidays

SUMMER HOLIDAYS | August 8–16, 2021

Photo by Nobutada Omote

Tatsuo Miyajima is a conceptual artist who is internationally renowned for his sculptural installations incorporating digital counters and based on three key concepts: “Keep Changing,” “Connect with Everything” and “Continue Forever.”

Shown at the “Keep Changing” and “Object of Change” exhibitions at Akio Nagasawa Gallery Ginza, “Painting of Change” is a series of 10 works that encourage the viewer’s active response, and that literally keep changing according to their interaction. Visitors roll a ten-faced dice, and alter the configuration of one of the works (consisting of seven bars shaped like the components of a digital number display) according to the result – a number between 0 and 9. As there is always one in this series that is transformed through such individual interference, the exhibition at large changes by the hour, making every visit a unique, one-time-only experience.

As a lesser known fact, Miyajima started his artistic career by staging performances. Such elements of performance are rather prominent in the works featured here, which is not entirely unrelated to the artistic concept of “Art in You” that Miyajima has been advocating in recent years. According to his idea, a piece of art is not something that exists and works independently, but it is only through the viewer’s artistic sensitivity that an artwork’s meaning and function are discovered and activated.

Miyajima’s works can be interpreted as devices that facilitate a direct dialogue between the viewer and the respective exhibit, and that stimulate the inherent artistic sensitivity of those who look at them.

The exhibition “Continue Forever” is also concurrently shown at Akio Nagasawa Gallery Aoyama. The centerpiece here is a set of new drawings revolving around Miyajima’s own hand-written numbers, transformed into a digital font.

The items on display at these two exhibitions can be understood as indicating a new frontier in Miyajima’s work, and in this sense, they are certainly opportunities that are not to be missed.


Akio Nagasawa Gallery (Ginza) - Advanced Booking Required
During the exhibition, from 3:00pm, only one visitor per day will be allowed to participate in the “Painting of Change” installation. Visitor will be asked to throw a dice and the shape of the artwork will be changed according to the number rolled. To make your reservation send an email to info@akionagasawa.com with the following subject: “Tatsuo Miyajima Exhibition - Reservation request” and in the email body, please indicate your preference of date and day of the week (Tuesday through Friday). Participations will be available on the first come, first-served basis.

Artist

Born 1957, Tokyo. Lives and works Ibaraki, Japan.
Three guiding principles represent the foundation of Miyajima’s art, which he outlines as keep changing, connect with everything, and continue forever. ‘A constant is the fact that we are always changing’, he observes. ‘In Western thought, permanency refers to a sense of constancy, without change. In Eastern and Buddhist philosophy, change is natural and consistently happening’. Explaining the importance of connection, he expands: ‘As humans and living beings, we cannot and do not exist independently. We are only able to live within relationships in this world.’ The third principle – expressed through the perpetual cycle of birth, death and regeneration – refers back to the first two, for ‘that is the structure of life and of truth’.

Publication

Keep Changing, Connect with Everything, Continue Forever

$36.33
In Stock

Art in You

$18.17
In Stock