Tadashi Kawamata. On Bird Rights / Para-site Project

The Pushkin Museum. Alexander Pushkin, in the framework of the Pushkin XXI direction, presents the first site-specific installation of contemporary Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata’s “On Bird Rights / Para-site Project” in Russia. Using materials found during the analysis of the old buildings of the Museum Quarter, Tadashi Kawamata will create installation directors resembling nests in the permanent exhibition space and in the office. All these objects will be made especially for the Pushkin Museum.

Tadashi Kawamata is a Japanese artist who has gained worldwide recognition as a master of spatial installations. His installations, most often made of natural materials or old objects, subtly fit into the urban landscape. Creativity Tadashi Kawamata reflects the whole complex of problems associated with the relationship of man and the world around him. Borrowing the natural form of the nest, the artist creates objects that set the viewer on a leisurely contemplation. In his works, the nest is a refuge, a place of solitude and at the same time a symbol of world order.

Tadashi Kawamata is a subtle observer, continuing the centuries-old tradition of Japanese art with its principle of harmony with the outside world, acceptance and non-interference in its order. “I like to create new, without essentially changing anything. My art is the art of arranging, ”admits Tadashi Kawamata. The main theme of his work is the connection between the past and the present, between the cultures of the West and the East. His works also touch on the theme of urbanism, reflecting the complex social context and the diversity of human relations in the modern world.

Especially for the Pushkin Museum, the artist will create a site-specific installation “On Bird Rights / Para-site Project”, which will include several objects in the halls of the permanent exhibition and in the director’s office. Large and small nests made of materials found during the analysis of the old buildings of the Museum Quarter, as if embody the main idea of the artist about the inextricable connection of the past, present and future. The artist himself often emphasizes that his works have no beginning or end, since they imitate not only natural forms, but organic processes. And the Moscow installation is partly about how old museum chairs, already unnecessary parquet, packing boxes stored in the building of the former Golitsyn estate, right before our eyes find a new life, a life in the art of the 21st century.

Marina Loshak, Director of the Pushkin Museum. A. Pushkin: “Despite the fact that Kavamata has been living in the West for a long time, he is a true Japanese artist with a subtle understanding of harmony and reverent respect for the existing order in the world. Kawamata does not like to work with new, inanimate materials. It is important for him to “interweave” in the history of the place. That is why for his project at the Pushkin Museum he collects old boards from the former Institute of Philosophy, which before that was part of the Golitsyn estate, and thus comes in contact with the history of old Moscow. ”

Alexandra Danilova, curator of the exhibition: “The creative credo of Tadashi Kawamata very closely matches the duality inherent in the title of this exhibition. His art is amazingly diverse, polysemous and organic at the same time. It reflects the whole complex of problems associated with the relationship of man and his environment. Borrowing the forms created by nature and man - nests, birdhouses, huts - the artist embodies his ideas in objects designed for a leisurely contemplation of the surrounding reality. "

REFERENCE

Tadashi Kawamata was born in 1953 in the city of Mikasa on the island of Hokkaido (Japan). In 1972 he graduated from Higashi Higher School (Hokkaido). In 1984, he received a doctorate from Tokyo University. Tadashi Kawamata taught at Tokyo University of Fine Arts from 1999 to 2005, and is currently a professor at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. Lives and works in Paris and Tokyo.

In 1977, the first solo exhibition of the works of Tadashi Kawamata was opened in Tokyo. Since that time, his works have become known not only in Japan, but throughout the world. He participated in such prestigious exhibitions as the Venice Biennale (1982), Documenta 8 (1987), the 19th Biennale of Art in São Paulo (1987), Favela in Houston (1991), and the Lyon Biennale (1993), celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in Geneva (1995), 4th Shanghai Biennale (2002), a special project at the Art Basel fair (2007), the Bruges Triennial (2015).

One of Kawamata’s most famous projects is the installation on Place Vendome in Paris (2013). On the top of the 44-meter Vendome column and on the last floors of neighboring houses of the 19th century, the artist installed “houses” put together from the boards. This series of works is called “Tree Huts,” which means “A Cabin in a Tree,” the artist built similar huts on trees in Madison Square Park in New York (2008). In 2012, Kawamata created the Chairs for Abu Dhabi installation (Chairs for Abu Dhabi) from old chairs, armchairs and benches in the form of an open top in the framework of the Abu Dhabi Art Fair. In 2013, in Toronto, near the Metropolitan Church, United Kawamata created a large-scale installation called the Garden Tower, which also represented a huge tower of many chairs and benches. The works of Tadashi Kawamata are in the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, The Hague Municipal Museum, the New Gallery in Kassel, the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Deutsche Bank and in many other famous collections.

Alexandra Danilova - art historian, curator, teacher of the history of contemporary art, deputy head of the department of art in Europe and America of the 19th – 20th centuries A.S. Pushkin. Curator of the exhibitions “The New York School” (1999), “A View from Germany. Masterpieces from the collection from the Deutsche Bank collection ”(2004),“ New World. 300 years of American art ”(2007),“ Futurism - a radical revolution. Italy - Russia ”(2008),“ Mimicry. Wim Delvoy at the Pushkin Museum ”(2014),“ Alexander Calder. Retrospective. From the collection of the Calder Foundation and other private collections ”(2015),“ Alexander Ponomarev. Vetruvian man ”(2015),“ Victor Pivovarov. Lost keys ”(2016),“ Tsai Guoqiang. October ”(2017),“ Facing the future. The Art of Europe 1945-1968 ”(2017).

Direction "Pushkin XXI"

Since 2014, the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin implements a strategy aimed at attracting a new audience by including works of contemporary art in the usual museum exhibition. In 2017, the museum announced the creation of a new direction “Pushkin XXI” with the aim of acquainting a wide audience with the latest art and its most prominent representatives. The objective of the program is to demonstrate the art of the "new classics" who speak the language of modern forms.

The mission of "Pushkin XXI" is to demonstrate the great achievements of world art culture, in a combination of classical art and modern. "Pushkin XXI" is an innovative direction where all forms of contemporary art enter into dialogue - from painting and sculpture to virtual reality and video art.

As part of the direction, the first collection of media art in Russia is being formed. The collection will include works created on the basis of the museum’s collection, site-specific projects and works that comprehend classical art using the latest technology. Among the first acquisitions are video installations by Jonas Mekas (USA) and Gary Hill (USA), a video painting by Marianna Heske (Norway), as well as the trilogy of the Russian art group Provmyza (Sergey Provorov and Galina Myznikova) Despair (2008), Inspiration "(2010) and" Eternity "(2011).