Tom Sachs’ irreverent attitude and often whimsical creative output has earned him a cult status and following. The artist’s Japan-inspired Tea Ceremony installation, part of the 30th anniversary exhibition programme of the Noguchi Museum in New York City in 2016, makes its debut in the Land of the Rising Sun at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. The exhibition centres on an immersive environment that represents Sachs’ distinctive reworking of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, including a number of elements essential to the intensely ritualistic procedure. Mind you, Sachs considers the spirit and values of the Japanese tea ceremony as one of the essential human activities in the 21st century space exploration era. The installation in Tokyo presents a tea house in a garden-like setting, replete with attributes such as a koi pond, lanterns, a welded bonsai and a video wall screening of Mount Fuji. The American artist also crafted a complete tea-inspired universe, including anything from bowls and ladles, scroll paintings and vases, to a motorized tea whisk, a shot clock, and an electronic brazier. A video work entitled Tea Ceremony will be projected on a geodesic dome theatre created especially for the this exhibition (on through Jun 23).
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
3-20-2 Shinjuku (Shinjuku)
Tokyo 163-1403
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Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
