Tadashi Kawamata

Mikasa, Hokkaido, Japan, 1953

Lives and works between Paris and Tokyo. Situated between architecture and installations, Tadashi Kawamata’s projects are presented with the clear intention to transform the environment in an investigative work that involves the concepts of construction and destruction. The city is his main theme for reflection and he depicts simulations of urban situations that reference the almost imperceptible chaos of modern cities that is hidden behind rational urban planning and construction. In references to history, landscape, architecture and the lifestyle of the residents of each place, he uses local and recycled materials.

Kawamata has participated in the Venice Biennial (1982), the Documenta of Kassel (1987, 1992), the São Paulo Biennial (1987), the Sydney Biennial (1998) and the Valencia Biennial (2003). He has created interventions in the most diverse contexts, such as Madison Square Park in New York and in Versailles (2008), the outskirts of Tokyo and the Tiergarten in Berlin (2009) and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010). His work forms part of public and private collections like those of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, National Museum of Art, Osaka, National Gallery, Ottawa, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and others. He was the director of the Yokohama Triennale (2005) and taught at the Tokyo University of the Arts. At present, he teaches at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris.

E.B.

Works in the collection