GSIX

Metamorphosis Garden Kohei Nawa/April 12 (Mon.)〜

Art

Metamorphosis Garden is an installation with the theme of life, matter, and a world in which ambiguous entities coexist on the boundary between the two. Expressing the emergence of a new narrative out of chaos, it is a development from the Biota (Fauna/Flora) installation (2013) on Inujima island in the Seto Inland Sea. Ether and Trans-Deer emerge as symbols of life from irregularly shaped islands and droplets in a group of sculptures covered with alumina and microbeads floating in the atrium space. An augmented reality performance created in collaboration with choreographer Damien Jalet creates a constantly changing world in which real objects and images of augmented reality overlap.

【Title】 Metamorphosis Garden
【Artist】 Kohei Nawa
【Venue】 GINZA SIX 2F central atrium
【Schedule】 Monday, April 12, 2021 to April 2022 (Dates to be confirmed. AR will be incorporated at or after the end of April 2021.)

Kohei Nawa
Sculptor / director of Sandwich Inc. / professor at Kyoto University of the Arts
Born in 1975, and based in Kyoto, Japan, Kohei Nawa received a PhD in Fine Art/Sculpture from Kyoto City University of Arts in 2003, and established SANDWICH in 2009. Focusing on the surface “skin” of sculpture as an interface connecting to the senses, Nawa began his PixCell series in 2002 based on the concept of the cell, symbolizing the information age. Adopting a flexible interpretation of the meaning of sculpture, he produces perceptual experiences that reveal the physical properties of materials to the viewer through works addressing themes related to life and the cosmos and to artistic sensibility and technology, including Direction, in which he produces paintings using gravity, Force, in which silicone oil pours down through a space, Biomatrix, in which bubbles and grids emerge on a liquid surface, and Foam, in which bubbles form enormous volumes. Recently, Nawa has also worked on architectural projects, including the art pavilion Kohtei. VESSEL, a performance work produced in conjunction with Belgo-French choreographer and dancer Damien Jalet, has been presented around the world since its premiere in 2015. In 2018, his sculpture Throne was exhibited under the Pyramid at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France.

〈Major works〉

《VESSEL》(2016)
VESSEL is performance art with scenography by Kohei Nawa and choreography by Damien Jalet, working with Mirai Moriyama and other top dancers. It is still being performed, traveling to theaters around the world.
©Damien JALET | Kohei NAWA
Photo : Yoshikazu INOUE

《White Deer(Oshika)》(2017)
White Deer (Oshika) is a sculpture exhibited on Oshika Peninsula in
Ishinomaki City at Reborn-Art Festival, founded by music producer Takeshi Kobayashi. It is a permanent installation symbolizing recovery from the Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami.
©Reborn-Art Festival 2017
Photo : Kieko WATANABE(Pontic Design Office)

《Biota(Fauna/Flora)》(2013)
Biota (Fauna/Flora) is a permanent installation in a structure designed by SANAA on Inujima island in the Seto Inland Sea. Sculptures depicting islands and plants, which were the prototype for the installation at GINZA SIX, appear in a small garden.
collection of Benesse Holdings, Inc.
Photo : Nobutada OMOTE | Sandwich

《Foam》(2013)
In Foam, bubbles form continually together with the subtle amplitude of the liquid. Small bubbles (cells) gradually cover the surface of the liquid and accumulate to form an autonomous organic structure comprised of a mass of bubbles—foam.
Courtesy of Aichi Triennale 2013 and Sandwich
Photo : Nobutada OMOTE | Sandwich

©Koen Broos
Damien Jalet
Choreographer
In addition to dance, Damien Jalet has worked in a wide range of areas, including col-laborations with sculptor Anthony Gormley, musicians, choreographers, movie direc-tors, and designers as a co-creator, and has provided choreography for opera and mu-sic videos. In 2013, he collaborated with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Marina Abramovic torestage Boléro, premiering at the Paris Opera, winning acclaim, and was appointed Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government. Recent works in-clude THR(O)UGH, (2015, in collaboration with Jim Hodges) and BABEL 7.16 (2016, at the Festival d’Avignon). He was named guest artistic director of the UK National Youth Dance Company for 2017, and is an associate artist at the Théâtre national de Chaillot in Paris.

About augmented reality

The space at GINZA SIX around the atrium extending from the third to the fifth floors forms an au 5G area. The area aims to create augmented reality art of un-precedented richness and emotional power by using MEC servers※1o perform complex graphical processing that cannot be run on a smartphone and streaming the three-dimensional data to iPhones using 5G. The system is designed to providethe best viewing experience with iPhone models that support 5G※2
Design/Development: KDDI Corporation’s au Design project “ARTS & CULTURE PROGRAM”

※1
Multi-access Edge Computing servers. Installing MEC servers inside cell-phone provider networks reduces latency.

※2
・iPhone models that support 5G are the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max (as of Feb. 2021).
・The program for au 5G can be viewed with iPhone models supporting 5G with con-tracts for au’s unlimited data 5G plan.
・A 4G program, with different content from that for au 5G, can be viewed with iPhones without an au contract.
・To view the program, download the iOS app “AR x ART by augART” and register as auser. AR x ART KOHEI NAWA website https://adp.au.com/augart/arart_kn
・augART is a KDDI project promoting digital transformation (DX), which provides new cultural and artistic experiences using cutting-edge technologies such as 5G and ex-tended reality (XR), as an initiative of the au Design project “ARTS & CULTUREPROGRAM.”
・Android smartphones are not supported.

RECENT POSTS