Tokyo Art Meeting (II)

Tokyo Art Meeting (II)

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku
Tokyo 135-0022 Japan
www.mot-art-museum.jp

The spread of computerization and urbanization since the beginning of the twenty-first century has given birth to new lifestyles and forms of public space. This exhibition will look at the way in which architects and artists respond to environmental and urban problems, demographic growth and change, as well as other transformations in our surroundings, expressing them through their ideas and experiments in spatial structure. The spaces they create introduce people to new experiences or approaches, exposing the latent possibilities that may exist in the environment. The metaphors of the world-views suggested by the artists resonate with the practical proposals of the architects, presenting images of future ‘humanity’ from a variety of differing angles.

Natural disasters, such as the 3.11 earthquake, or political and social unease always exist in some form or another throughout the world. Against this backdrop, what kind of existence can architecture provide for the people? In this exhibition, we will present the ‘discoveries’ that are made when universal architectural expression, inspired by the diverse experiences and ideas of people, nature and society, both in Japan and around the world, is fused with local wisdom and technology.

28 architects and artists from 14 countries will introduce their experiments and achievements through models, drawings, images, sculpture, photographs and mixed-media installations. It will involve more than just the sense of sight, the exhibition space itself, which appeals to the body and senses as an ‘Architectural Environments for Tomorrow’, represents yet another statement.

This exhibition will take place as a part of the Tokyo Art Meeting section of the Tokyo Culture Creation Project.

Statement from SANAA
With Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, we collaborated in the planning of an exhibition involving both art and architecture which is based on the theme ‘Architectural Environments for Tomorrow’. Architecture and art serve as a form of mirror, reflecting an image of the times and society which we are heading towards. Simultaneously, we believe that these serve as an important process in the creation of the coming age. For this reason, we expect each of the participating artists to put forward an architectural/artistic proposal aspiring towards a new kind of sensation, philosophy or experience. When we speak of a new era, we think it will be of one which is diverse and believe that architecture or art plays a major role to provide a world-model in which various values and dynamic relationships are able to coexist with each other. In this vein, we will not show each work in this exhibition distinctly, instead, as much as possible, we aim to display them all together, without walls coming between them. We hope to see the entire museum functioning as an expression of diversity.
(Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA)

Architects + Artists:
*in alphabetical order

AMID.cero 9/ El Anatsui/ The Ministry of Culture of The Kingdom of Bahrain/ Petra Blaisse/ Doug＋Mike Starn/ Sou Fujimoto/ Antón García-Abril/ Frank O. Gehry/ gelitin/ Hiroshi Hara + Roland Hagenberg/ Akihisa Hirata/ Junya Ishigami/ Toyo Ito/ Christian Kerez/ Haruka Kojin/ Tetsuo Kondo/ Luisa Lambri/ Walter Niedermayr/ Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen/ Piet Oudolf/ Smiljan Radic/ Matthew Ritchie with Aranda╲Lasch, Daniel Bosia & Arup AGU/ Kazuyo Sejima＋Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA/ Matthias Schuler＋Transsolar/ selgascano/ Studio Mumbai/ Fiona Tan/ Wim Wenders

Lost Homes:

“Lost Homes,” a model restoration project showing as related exhibition, is a project
to restore the towns and villages have been lost in the Great East Japan Earthquake
by 1/500 scaled models. Architecture students from 15 universities, 28 laboratories in
all of Japan volunteers work to produce the models with hoping this opportunity can
inherit memories of the town which was lost in the tsunami and to turn a lamp inside of
local people one by one for the reconstruction. The models of 11 regions are exhibited
in the 140m entrance hall of the MOT. We hope this project saves and inherits
townscape and its environment which were brought up in the region and memories in
people’s lives.

Tokyo Culture Creation Project:

Tokyo Culture Creation Project, organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and
the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture in cooperation with arts
organizations and NPOs, aims to establish Tokyo as a city of global cultural creativity.
The project facilitates involvement of a larger number of people in creation of new
culture, by building regional bases for culture creation across the city and offering
opportunities for creative experiences to children and young people. Moreover, it
creates and globally disseminates new Tokyo culture through organizing international
festivals and other diverse events.

Curatorial Staff:
Yuko Hasegawa (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Chief Curator)
Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA (Architects)

Organized by:
Tokyo Metropolitan Government
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo / Tokyo Culture Creation Project
(Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture)
THE SANKEI SHIMBUN
Tokyo University of the Arts

Exhibition Catalogue:
“Architectural Environments for Tomorrow”
SANAA (Interview), Hiroshi Hara, Yuko Hasegawa (Text)
English/Japanese
Published by: ACCESS CO.,LTD.
267 pages

Press Contact:
Mutsu Yoshikawa
m-yoshikawa@mot-art.jp

Kumiko Ohara
k-ohara@mot-art.jp
TEL: +81(0)3-5245-1134(Direct）
FAX: +81(0)3-5245-1141