In this exhibition Tadashi Kawamata will be showing for the first time maquettes and models for projects, some of which have been realised and others that are still in their formative stages.
Tadashi Kawamata is an artist who transforms our environment, he works in the midst of demolition and construction. These projects have taken place all over the world and range from intimate transformations of a single house or apartment to the whole scale reconfiguration of towns. Usually using scrap or reclaimed materials, mostly wood, Kawamata sets about building new and unusual structures; a bridge between an apartment block and a museum, a wooden walkway that leads from a town centre to a lakeside, slum dwellings constructed in a picturesque park. Kawamata’s aim is to turn these environments inside out, and present the viewers with a completely fresh view of their surroundings, whether it’s from a walkway built three metres above the town square or by a room transformed with a suspended ceiling of reclaimed doors. These projects make us question our environment, the way it is constructed and how we interact with it.
Tadashi Kawamata will be showing maquettes and models of projects from the last twenty years. These beautifully constructed wooden models are frequently designed with an unusual perspective; wall mounted, these huts, bridges and walkways are viewed as if from an elevated position, their perspective skewed, giving the viewer a slightly vertiginous experience.
Born in Hokkaido, Japan in 1953, this is Tadashi Kawamata’s third exhibition with Annely Juda Fine Art. He has had many one-man exhibitions and projects throughout Europe, the United States and Japan including the Serpentine Gallery, London, the Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen and the Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo. Tadashi Kawamata exhibited at the 40th Venice Biennale in 1982, and later was invited to Documenta VIII and Documenta IX . This autumn he will be participating in the Busan Biennale, Korea.
