photo: SAIKI Taku
Untitled: Project for 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
| Artist | KUWAYAMA Tadaaki |
|---|---|
| Year | 2011 |
| Material/ Technique | anodized aluminum |
| Size/ Duration | dimensions variable (H23.5 × φ31.5cm each, 16 pieces) |
| Copyright Notice | © KUWAYAMA Tadaaki |
| Year of acquisition/ donation | 2011 |
| Description | Born in Aichi, Japan in 1932. Died in New York, USA. in 2023. After studying traditional Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) at Tokyo University of the Arts, Kuwayama Tadaaki moved to the United States in 1958. There, employing the materials and techniques of Nihonga as a base, he sought to expel meaning and emotion from the painting and, as a subsequence, established his own expressive style. His paintings of the 1970s, using neutral colors and inorganic materials, took on materiality. In the 1990s, he evolved to spatial constructions using panels of artificial mood positioned in rows. He has since moved to project-type works that are conscious of architectural space, and he has realized large-scale installations in art museums in Japan and around the world. At a solo exhibition held at this museum, “Untitled:Tadaaki Kuwayama” (2011), he exhibited four installations entitled "Project for 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa". In a white cube 9m high, 11m wide, and 22.5m deep, sixteen alternately orange and yellow objects are placed in a row on the floor. The white walls and concrete floor reflect/absorb the light and color emanated by the objects to produce a tranquil space taut with tension. Concerning this work, created for Gallery 11 during a solo exhibition at this museum in 2011, he has said: “I wanted to give play to the beauty of the walls.” As his words suggest, Kuwayama took an architectural space as his material and, by introducing artificial objects, produced his own spatial artwork. Along with the work’s 16 compositional object-elements, the museum has acquired five kinds of plans for installing the objects in other galleries at the museum. It is, thus, an artwork specific to the architecture of this museum with its independent, differently proportioned galleries. |
NOTES
This Collection Data page contains the works and materials in the collection of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, as of April 1, 2018.
Artists are listed alphabetically by artist’s surname.
Works and materials by the same artists are listed according to the date of the work in principle.
Works whose dates are unidentified are listed at the end of each item. Some works are not listed according to the date of work due to their relations.
The data of works and materials are listed in order of title, production year, material/technique/form, dimensions, donor’s name, copyright holder and credit for photograph.
Dimensions are given by height (H) x width (W) in centimeters for plane work, and height (H) x width (W) x depth (D) in cm for 3-D work. Diameter (Ø) is used for circular work.
For the name of country or city, the name currently used in English is listed in principle.