Roppongi Art Night has opened finally after several postponements since 2020, due to covid-19
ArtTank has been working as a co-curatorial team for Roppongi Art Night since 2020. However, due to Covid-19, we have experienced several postponements, and finally this year in Autumn, the event was safely held in the center of Tokyo, in Roppongi.
ArtTank this time worked for installations by Kimsooja, Iku Harada and Koichiro Azuma.
https://www.roppongiartnight.com/2022/en/about.html
Kimsooja: installation
exhibition period： September 10 to September 19, 2022
location: Plaza in Tokyo Midtown Roppongi 場所：東京ミッドタウン プラザ1階
This work imagines the beginnings of the universe. The jet-black object evokes the nothingness that exists in the prelude to everything, resembling a portal opening suddenly into another dimension. Circling around the work, phantom images of buildings and trees will flicker in the mirrors at the base of your feet and accumulate together with the void-like object, leading to a mysterious visual and sensory art experience.
Iku Harada, installation
exhibition period: September 3 to September 19, 2022
venue: Reine Building 1, 1st Floor
For this artwork in Roppongi, Harada first rendered the Roppongi cityscape within the virtual world of her computer, then translated the world as seen from that virtual setting into physical artwork. In addition, she’ll be incorporating element of optical illusion that she has been using since 2018, so that viewers will experience unusual distortions as they shift their vantage point. Beyond viewing through the naked eye, when the works are seen through a mobile device, the strange sensation blurring reality and fiction will become further pronounced. In this way, the artist pursues to create works to encourage viewers moving back and forth between the reality and illusion.
Koichiro Azuma, installation
exhibition period: September 17 to September 19, 2022
venue: Roppongi Nishi Park
While living in the town of Toride, the artist was shocked to find out that it was known as “the city of bicycles.” Because no one in the town rides bicycles. Apparently, when its cycle racing track was built, it was hyped as a city of bicycles. Now in Toride, mountains of bicycles lie abandoned only waiting to be destroyed. But through the artist’s work, the bicycles become reborn. Each of them has a story to tell. Where was it bought, how was it used, where did it go? By assembling fragments of the original owner’s memory, is it possible to breathe new life into these bicycles, for which time and history stand still?