At Brazilian artist JOÃO MODÉ’s NET Project (2003/2016), installed in three different locations, Nagoya, Okazaki and Toyohashi. Visitors are invited to tie any colored piece of yarn of any length to the web, connecting visitors to one another over time and space. The sections from all locations will be brought together and displayed during the last week of the Triennale.
German artist KERSTIN BRÄTSCH’s Kaya Mylar (2015) at the former Meidi-ya Sakae Building in Nagoya is inspired by different methods of expressing the physical body. The large colorful paintings on Mylar dominate the first floor of the abandoned department store.
Begun in 1963, American JERRY GRETZINGER drew more than 3,200 eight-by-ten inch panels to
create Jerry’s Map (2016), a portion of which is not only installed at the entrance to the Aichi Prefectural
Museum of Art, but also serves as the cover image for the entire Aichi Triennale.
On the second floor of the Chuo Hirokoji Building in Nagoya is the full-room exhibition of YAMADA KO, which also doubles as a functional newspaper fabrication office. Inspired by each city the work travels to, the newspaper changes, with new articles replacing the old, mimicking the way cities grow by demolishing old buildings to make way for new construction.
Sydney-based TALOI HAVINI utilizes not only the large spiral shape of her work Beroana (2015), but also the ceramic beads to evoke the ceramic spiral-shaped pieces made by the British when they colonized Papua New Guinea to try to imitate the Polynesian shell currency.
OHMAKI SHINJI’s colossal installation, Echoes-Infinity: MOMENT AND ETERNITY (2007/2016) shocks visitors with a room filled by with meticulously hand-laid pigment on carpet forming an intricate concentric pattern. Later in the Triennale visitors will be permitted to wander around the entire room, mixing all of the powders and rendering the image unrecognizable.
In a successful attempt to capture the physical interaction between humans and material,
MATSUBARA MEGUMI’s sculptures at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art embody the tactile
nature of working with ceramics.
TAJIMA HIDEHIKO’s Six Rooms and Replaceable Landscape (2016) epitomizes the Triennale’s title,
“Homo Faber: A Rainbow Caravan,” with a hallway divided by gauzy curtains and illuminated by tinted
windows to provide the viewer with a physical journey through a rainbow.
Displayed in all three cities, Vietnamese UUDAM TRAN NGUYEN’s video Waltz of the Machine Equestrians (2012) embodies “Rainbow Caravan” with a group of connected scooter-riders wearing a rainbow of rain ponchos driving in a circle until they finally burst apart, breaking the bonds that connect then.
IMAMURA FUMI uses watercolor to create large trompe l’oeil in Bloom in “Bar Do” Flowers (2016) to make paintings that, until close inspection, appear to the viewer to be dried pressed flowers.
two hands, one surface (2013), by NITO KENTO invites visitors to sit at the lone table and fill two
glasses with water, one hot and one cold. The participant then holds one glass with each hand, set
them down, and then holds their hands together until they once again become the same temperature.
With this work, Kento seeks to examine the interactions between the human body and its environment.
In the domestic area of a post-World War II structure of Okazaki, Indian artist SHREYAS KARLE alters objects and inserts his own works to create an “anti-museum” examining the history of the family who used to live there and their relationship with their environment.
TAJIMA HIDEHIKO’s 2016 work From the Window to the Landscape (Installation in The Former
Residence of the Ishihara Family) transforms a door in the former residence of the Ishihara Family in
Okazaki (a nationally-recognized landmark built at the end of the Edo period) into a rainbow vision of
the garden beyond with a small pane of multi-colored glass situated next to a collection of tiles from
around the world.
Aichi-born artist SHIBATA MARIKO’s installation, Composition With Dull Color, at the former residence of the Ishihara Family in Okazaki invites visitors to move her delicate ceramic vessels from shelf to shelf around the room, giving the viewers not only a personal, tactile experience, but also control over the aesthetics of the room.
In her large-scale installation Flight (2008/2016), Brazilian artist LAURA LIMA transforms one of
Toyohashi’s Suijo Buildings (five-story buildings constructed on top of a canal) into a friendly and
aesthetically pleasing habitat for 100 small birds, allowing humans to coexist with the birds and
wander amongst them in their home.
In Brazilian artist LIBIDIUNGA CARDOSO (aka LEANDRO NEREFUH)’s installation Eclipse Phenomenon (2016), visitors control the atmosphere with the small sound board located on the sandy floor adjusting the music surrounding a large mock DJ booth into which they can climb.
In HISAKADO TSUYOSHI’s 2016 piece PAUSE, a concave surface covered in mirrored clocks cast
intricate reflections around a dark room while a symphony of quiet ticks follows the viewer around
the room.
