Tadashi Kawamata

Kawamata's first three-dimensional installations were simple wooden partitions that allowed him to restructure interiors, like Measure Scene 2, presented in 1979.[7]^: 10 Kawamata built a temporary wall that divided the gallery space, with the intention of rendering visitors conscious of the room they were in. Art historian Mouna Mekouar likens these partitions to shōji doors, an important element in traditional Japanese architecture.[7]^: 10  

That same year, the installation By Land led the artist to intervene outdoors. Kawamata found himself captivated by a strip of empty land on the Tama riverside that he would glimpse briefly as he rode by on the train. He referred to it as a "no man's land", far from any human habitation, and, due to its proximity to the river, sometimes underwater.[7]^: 11 Kawamata used recycled construction materials to build a rudimentary wooden structure there, without getting permission to do so. By Land remained in place for three days, before it was discovered by authorities and taken down.[7]^: 11

Apart from By Land, Kawamata's early installations remained confined to interior spaces. In the early 1980s, Kawamata built installations in empty apartments for rent. For Takara House Room 205, the artist installed wooden panels in a standard 10 m2 apartment in Tokyo. The horizontal panels divided the space into different modules and filtered the apartment's natural light. Kawamata then invited twenty visitors to enter the space, using a provided map to move through the freshly-imagined apartment.[7]^: 12

As a student in Tokyo, Kawamata was fascinated by the constant transformations of the city and its apparent impermanence. He recounts seeing from his apartment window a building methodologically deconstructed, disappearing to be replaced only a few months later by another: "I had witnessed from my window an operation of urban metabolism, a digestion/regurgitation of materials which seemed connected to the city's life cycle."[7]^: 15

Additionally, during his student years, Kawamata admired American artist Gordon Matta-Clark. As opposed to land artists, who intervened in wide-open, natural open spaces, Matta-Clark's large-scale architectural interventions were conceived for the over-developed, densely packed cityscape and all of its turbulent action. [5] ^: 119

When Kawamata works within the city, his installations appear at first in the urban landscape like any other construction zone. However, the initially banal sight soon transforms. This metamorphosis was aptly described by Documenta 8 director Manfred Schneckenburger, who invited Kawamata to participate 1987. Kawamata decided to build an installation in and around a church in Kassel that had been bombed during the war and which remained abandoned when the city center was reconstructed:

What was...astounding was the mastery with which Kawamata let this chaotic mass grow first into a filigree scaffold, then into the more compact casing, and then into the thousandfold complex of gesticulations, dynamically breaking out and thrusting high against the ruin. Exact planning and bustling development were one in a scarcely imaginable way. The hackneyed phrase about organic construction acquired a meaning of its own.[10]

Upon completion, the bombed-out church appeared to be cradled by Kawamata's precarious gathering of planks, embodying fragility and determined strength all at once. Writer Yvette Biro recounts her experience of visiting the site:

On the one hand, we had the impression of witnessing a normal construction process...on the other hand, inside the space we found an unexpected peaceful zone. The silence and the energy of the action collided and - much more - supported each other, lending a sense of liveliness, the illusion of dynamic existence to these odd ruins.[11]

Art historian Mouna Mekouar argues that Kawamata "does not seek to define a form, to erect an architecture, or to close off a space; on the contrary, he tears down the foundations of Architectonics and interferes in the interstices so as to dig passages, to recycle time."[7]^: 15

Installations similar to Destroyed Church, building upon sites within the cityscape, were realized by Kawamata in the Hague (1986), Toronto (1989), Grenoble (1987) and in São Paulo for the 19th São Paulo International Biennale (1987).

In parallel to his large-scale installations, Kawamata created numerous structures on a humbler scale. His Field works are structures of cardboard and plywood, loosely held together with nails or tape, and destined to fall apart as time passes.[12] The Field works bear a strong resemblance to the temporary, transitory shelters of the homeless in cities around the world. Kawamata draws our attention to these familiar, anonymous architectures that normally go unnoticed. Kawamata has left behind Field works in cities such as Tokyo, Chicago, New York and Montreal.

In São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Kawamata was struck by the prevalence of favelas, shanty towns that sprawled across the city. "Near the hotel where I was staying, right close to the favelas, the police arrived and destroyed everything. A week later, the people had started to rebuild it. It's like a natural cycle...destroying, throwing away, rebuilding. It's a non-site situation, a situation of non-history."[13]

In 1991, Kawamata erected his own Favela in Houston. About twenty fragile plywood shacks were built on the riverbank, against the backdrop of the gleaming Houston skyline. Art historian Mouna Mekouar argues that Kawamata's installation reveals "social disparity, the brutal cleavage between the rich and the poor".[7]^: 23 Kawamata's Favelas act as "visual terrorism", disturbing the homogeneity of the landscape.[7]^: 23 He built other Favelas that same year in Ottawa and in Ushimado.

The accumulation of objects has become a prevalent theme in the artist's work since the mid-2000s and has taken on an increasingly ecological charge.

Kawamata's 2011 installation, Under the Water, was a reaction to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[1]^: 85 First exhibited at the galerie kamel mennour in 2011 and later at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the artist installed a formless layer of debris that appeared to float above the gallery floor. Kawamata described his inspiration:

I wanted to create a sense of pressure that would be palpable from the outset... several thousand people were never found after the disaster, so there are dead people in the sea. I imagined those people under the water looking upwards after the tsunami. They would have seen this sea of debris. This installation was inspired by that.[1]^: 85

In 2018, Kawamata revisited this configuration with the presentation of Over Flow at MAAT Lisbon. The creation of the work involved the collecting of debris across different Portuguese beaches and Almada, followed by its careful sorting. A workshop was then organized with the artist to design the installation.[14] The result was a layer of colorful garbage - fishing rope, plastic, ropes, bottles, utensils, electrical appliances - that hung above visitors' heads.

Installation view of Over Flow at MAAT Lisbon, 2018

Since 2008, Kawamata has also constructed Tree Huts, somewhat whimsical structures sometimes resembling birds' nests, sometimes resembling rudimentary tree houses. Kawamata has exposed these structures within gallery spaces, but also in the public sphere. Rugged, asymmetrical and crude in construction, they appear to sprout organically from the city's architecture like parasites. Art historian Caroline Cros suggests that these interventions are meant to remind the viewer that "architecture is not the privilege of humans alone", noting importantly that, like Kawamata, "animals and plants are magnificent architects that work collectively".[1]^: 82