Aki Sasamoto: XYZ

Pirelli HangarBicocca presents XYZ, Aki Sasamoto’s first solo exhibition at a European institution, bringing together more than two decades of interdisciplinary experimentation, where science and intuition, mathematics and emotion, absurdity and seriousness, the everyday and the extraordinary coexist. Through sculptures, installations, and performance, Sasamoto engages with themes related to human and social relationships, memory, and emotional experience. 

Aki Sasamoto (born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1980; currently lives and works in New York) operates at the intersection of performance, sculpture, installation, and video. Drawing from diverse disciplines such as dance, mathematics, social psychology, meteorology, and eco-behavioral sciences, her works—hybrid in both form and content—translate lived experiences into metaphorical imagery. Through unconventional interactions with everyday objects—often manipulating and distorting them—Sasamoto challenges traditional modes of perception, and rewrites the possibilities and limitations of sculpture and performance. 

The exhibition XYZ, curated by Roberta Tenconi with Tatiana Palenzona and organized by Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milano in collaboration with Kunsthalle Wien, Wien, marks the first institutional show dedicated to the Japanese artist in Europe and the first solo exhibition of her work in Italy. The title immediately suggests the exhibition's layered nature, as it presents a selection of works spanning two decades of Sasamoto's interdisciplinary practice. XYZ carries multiple meanings: as the final letters of the alphabet, they suggest possible continuations beyond an apparent ending; in the Cartesian system, they define the three dimensions of space; in quantum physics, they designate variables used to describe the probability of a particle occupying a given point; and as the comical acronym for "eXamine Your Zipper," an American expression used to indicate an open zipper.

Conceived by Sasamoto specifically for Pirelli HangarBicocca, the exhibition unfolds as a dynamic sequence of installations, sculptures, videos, and performances that explore ideas of connection, the complexity of relationships, and the influence of societal norms and interpersonal interactions on the body and memory. The show emphasizes the artist’s ability to reconcile seemingly opposing elements in works that are simultaneously playful, rigorous, and deeply humane. Specifically, it features the kinetic installations Sounding Lines (2024) and catch or be caught (2025), presented alongside a reconfiguration of Delicate Cycle (2016); works that originate from personal life experiences, as in Secrets of My Mother’s Child (2009), or involve the use of everyday materials, as in Centrifugal March (2012) and Strange Attractors (2010). It also includes Wrong Happy Hour (2014), which transforms the space into a dysfunctional bar, a motif that returns in Past in a future tense (2019), complemented by the videos Weather Bar Forecast #1 and Weather Bar Forecast #2 (both 2021). 

Catalogue 
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive monograph that offers further insight into Sasamoto’s artistic practice. It includes a conversation between Sasamoto and Cecilia Alemani, alongside essays and thematic texts by international critics and curators such as Hendrik Folkerts, who examines the performative and gestural dimensions of her work; Christina Li, who explores Sasamoto's relationship to language; Barbara London, who focuses on her practice’s sonic and performative aspects; and mathematician Pau Atela. The publication documents the Milan exhibition through installation views and curatorial texts by Roberta Tenconi and Tatiana Palenzona. It also features a complete catalogue raisonné-style chronology of Sasamoto’s works from 2005 to the present.

Pirelli HangarBicocca
Pirelli HangarBicocca is a non-profit foundation dedicated to producing and promoting contemporary art. It was conceived and is supported by Pirelli. Established in 2004, Pirelli HangarBicocca has become a benchmark institution for the international and local art community. The museum is free of charge, accessible and open, as well as a place for experimentation, research and dissemination. It presents a programme of major solo exhibitions, multi-disciplinary events, publications, and educational courses. Vicente Todolí has been the foundation’s artistic director since 2012.

Situated in a former industrial building, once a locomotive manufacturing facility, Pirelli HangarBicocca occupies 15,000 square metres, making it one of the largest single-level exhibition spaces in Europe. This vast area comprises the permanent installation of Anselm Kiefer’s The Seven Heavenly Palaces 2004–15.