MOT X Bloomberg Public Space Project: Kimihiko Okada

PUBLIC　'SPACE'　PROJECT From July 5th (Sat), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Koto Ward; Director: Seiichiro Ujiie) and Bloomberg (head office: New York) will hold “MOT X Bloomberg Public Space Project: Kimihiko Okada,” a project aimed at providing support to young artists and expanding the public’s access to art. “MOT X Bloomberg” is a unique collaboration between MOT, which has fostered young artists ever since its opening in 1995, such as through its “MOT Annual” exhibition and its purchases of artworks, and Bloomberg, the leading global provider of financial data and news, which undertakes numerous projects in support of the arts and education around the world. Founded on “coexistence” and “co-creation” as its basic concepts, “MOT X Bloomberg” transforms the Museum’s open public spaces into a new manner of art space. This exhibition, the second of the project following last year’s Kengo Kito exhibition, will present an installation work, “Aluminum Landscape,” in its outdoor Sunken Garden (B2F, beside the entrance lobby). The “MOT X Bloomberg Public Space Project” will create new value for art and art museums, and bring museum visitors into a dialogue with the art of the future. About Kimihiko Okada Through Bloomberg’s sponsorship, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is undertaking a project in which young artists from Japan and abroad display works in spaces other than the Museum’s galleries. This year, in the Museum’s “Sunken Garden” outdoor court, Kimihiko Okada will establish an aluminum artwork 22m x 41m x 6.5m in size, thereby producing scenery that alters in appearance along with time’s passage and the changing weather. Kimihiko Okada experiments to change the ways people perceive space with the materials he uses in his art works aside from his work as an architect. His artwork, this time, is displayed in an outdoor space that is open to all and can be viewed anytime, free of charge, even by the casual passer-by. You are encouraged to visit several times and enjoy a work that changes under the influences of its environment.

About the artwork- Aluminum Landscape In a broad space outdoors at MOT, I will employ the natural and artificial in producing new scenery. My creation will reflect rain, wind, and other weather phenomena, as well as the movement of the sun, color of the sky, and other quiet changes in the environment. By reflecting the surfaces and shapes of the landscape, the artwork amplifies and transforms nature and makes it visual. It is an artificial structure with a complex and ambiguous geometry, and the object employs a thin, integrated metal membrane in covering a broad area. This scenery will unfold in the Sunken Garden, two floors below ground. Visitors will be able to walk around the display to experience it, or else, for a completely different experience, engendering different meaning, they can look down on its overall figure from the entrance lobby and Public Plaza. http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/bloomberg/