Tadashi Kawamata (川俣正, Kawamata Tadashi, born July 24, 1953) is a Japanese installation artist. After first studying painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, Kawamata discovered his interest for the practice of installation. Using recuperated construction materials, like wood planks, he began building rudimentary partitions in gallery spaces and apartments to explore the perception of space.
Kawamata's fascination for Tokyo's urban landscape and its constant transformation soon led to the development of larger-scale installations in situ in cities in Japan and abroad. After having participated in the Venice Biennale in 1982 at only 28 years old, Kawamata's subsequent projects led him to work across Europe, North America and South America.
These ephemeral installations raise questions about architecture and its permanence, and have drawn attention to social realities, such as the stark class difference apparent in large cities. Since the 2000s, the artist's installations have taken on an increasingly ecological charge, confronting environmental disasters, such as the accumulation of waste or the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
He has lived and worked between Paris and Tokyo since 2006.
Biography
Tadashi Kawamata was born in Mikasa, a mining town on the island of Hokkaido, and was raised in a rural, agricultural environment.
As an oil painting student at Tokyo University of the Arts, Kawamata read translations of works by French philosophers Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres and Roland Barthes. The discovery of structuralist theory led the artist to begin considering art not as an object, but as a process of deconstruction and reconstruction, as well as an experience.
After developing his painting practice for three years, Kawamata states that one day he felt unable to continue: I stared at the canvas, the frame around it. I thought about how that wooden frame supports a picture like, in a figurative sense, an exhibition does art. And I wondered whether this structure couldn't be an independent base for my work. I had no money, no studio, no particular technique, so I borrowed material and space.Kawamata began his practice of installation in 1979, using lumber as his predominant material to intervene outside of traditional exhibition spaces. The practice of installation in non-traditional spaces dates back to the 1960s in Japan, when artists who couldn't afford to store their art or expose their works in rental galleries regularly organized exhibitions of transient nature. However, installation artists like Kawamata were also interested in the "physicality" (shintai-sei) of installations, and wished for spectators to be able to enter them. The artist stated in an interview that during his studies, he was passionate about the notion of space: "I wanted to know how an atmosphere emerges from certain spatial arrangements."
After receiving his BFA in 1979 and his MFA in 1981 from Tokyo University of the Arts, Kawamata had the opportunity to present his work for the first time in Europe. He was selected as one of three artists to present at the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1982, at 28 years old, and traveled around Europe for six months after the opening.
Kawamata settled in New York for two years during the 1980s. During this time, he developed a strong interest in graffiti artists and their clandestine and often anonymous practices that existed outside of the art market and museum systems.
The artist has lived a globe-trotting and somewhat nomadic lifestyle, working across Japan, the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe. He has lived part-time in Tokyo and part-time in France since 2006 and teaches at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Installation Work : 1979 - Today
Kawamata has said that it's possible to consider all of his installations as a single artwork: I construct, I deconstruct, I construct, I deconstruct, I construct... It's like a flower. The flower grows, blooms and wilts, and the next year it blooms again. It's a continuous ensemble, which exists in multiple sites, in Europe, in Japan, in America. Sometimes it blooms here, sometimes over there....