WHERE: Kou-An Glass Teahouse, Tokyo
Tea, since time immemorial, has been an important thread in Japan’s cultural and philosophical fabric. Artist Tokujin Yoshioka crystallized his reverence for his native tradition in a different form that sheds a new light on the art of tea in today’s milieu.
Images: Tokujin Yoshioka
The minimal glass architecture forgoes the typical physical elements one would find in a teahouse, such as a tatami, Ikebana, and calligraphy scroll. It is reduced to the rudiments of how tea ceremony is appreciated: in a state of mind that transcends time, space, and object.
In the open-window concept, observers will see the transparent installation’s poetic expression in constant flux under the travelling sunlight at different times of the day. Spatial cognition is thrown in sharp relief when one moves into it, as the line between indoor and the surrounding environment is invisible. It is an experience that would pique your deeper senses and a newfound appreciation for the intangible quality of the Japanese way of life.
The traveling exhibition, which made its debut at the 54th La Biennale di Venezia in 2011 and briefly reposed in Kyoto in 2015, has stopped at The National Art Center, Tokyo.
Address: The National Art Center. 7 Chome-22-2 Roppongi, Minato City, Tokyo 106-8558, Japan.
Exhibition end date: 2021
