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rfmcdonaldThe Shoin Room is serene.
The grand Momoyama spirit is perpetuated in the formal Japanese reception room. Modeled on the principal room at the Kangaku-in, a guest residence built in 1600 at the Onjōji temple near Lake Biwa outside Kyoto, this shōin-style room was built in 1989 by Japanese craftsmen using materials and techniques authentic to the Momoyama period (1573–1615), under the exacting supervision of Kakichi Suzuki, an eminent architectural historian who was than an official of the Japanese Cultural Agency. The refined proportions of the room, with its large alcove (tokonoma), flooring of grass mats (tatami), and decorated sliding doors (fusuma) for walls, marked the culmination of two centuries of developments in interior architecture.
The shōin (literally, “study”) was originally part of a reading room in a Zen monastery fitted with shelves and an alcove near a window. With the increased appreciation and collection of Chinese paintings and utensils during the Muromachi period (1392–1573), the alcove was enlarged and devoted to the display of works of art and the tokonama was developed to constitute an essential feature of Japanese formal rooms. This room’s large size, with its capacious tokonoma filling one wall and its gold-leafed doors defining the others, is characteristic of the grand rooms of the Momoyama era in temples and aristocratic mansions as well as in the ostentatious castles of the newly risen war lords.
The Gate is eye-catching.
The Sakai-based artist who created this installation, Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, comes from a long line of bamboo craftsmen. Previously known as Tanabe Shōchiku, he took up the family name earlier this year. He earned a degree in sculpture from the Tokyo University of the Arts and trained in bamboo crafts at an occupational school in Beppu. One of the most talented and versatile bamboo artists of his generation, he has carried on the Tanabe family tradition in the wake of the death of his father, Tanabe Chikuunsai III (1940–2014), while also exploring the possibilities of large-scale sculpture and installations made of tiger bamboo, such as this one.
Pixcell-Deer#24 is technically remarkable.
This taxidermied deer has been completely transformed through the artist’s use of variably sized “PixCell” beads, a term he invented. PixCell combines the idea of a “pixel,” the smallest unit of a digital image, with that of a “cell.” Whether intentionally or unintentionally on the artist’s part, PixCell-Deer#24 resonates with a type of religious painting known as a Kasuga Deer Mandala, which features a deer—the messenger animal of Shinto deities—posed similarly with its head turned to the side, and with a round sacred mirror on its back. In Japanese art, the deer is often depicted as a companion of ancient sages and has auspicious and poetic associations.
The grand Momoyama spirit is perpetuated in the formal Japanese reception room. Modeled on the principal room at the Kangaku-in, a guest residence built in 1600 at the Onjōji temple near Lake Biwa outside Kyoto, this shōin-style room was built in 1989 by Japanese craftsmen using materials and techniques authentic to the Momoyama period (1573–1615), under the exacting supervision of Kakichi Suzuki, an eminent architectural historian who was than an official of the Japanese Cultural Agency. The refined proportions of the room, with its large alcove (tokonoma), flooring of grass mats (tatami), and decorated sliding doors (fusuma) for walls, marked the culmination of two centuries of developments in interior architecture.
The shōin (literally, “study”) was originally part of a reading room in a Zen monastery fitted with shelves and an alcove near a window. With the increased appreciation and collection of Chinese paintings and utensils during the Muromachi period (1392–1573), the alcove was enlarged and devoted to the display of works of art and the tokonama was developed to constitute an essential feature of Japanese formal rooms. This room’s large size, with its capacious tokonoma filling one wall and its gold-leafed doors defining the others, is characteristic of the grand rooms of the Momoyama era in temples and aristocratic mansions as well as in the ostentatious castles of the newly risen war lords.
The Gate is eye-catching.
The Sakai-based artist who created this installation, Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, comes from a long line of bamboo craftsmen. Previously known as Tanabe Shōchiku, he took up the family name earlier this year. He earned a degree in sculpture from the Tokyo University of the Arts and trained in bamboo crafts at an occupational school in Beppu. One of the most talented and versatile bamboo artists of his generation, he has carried on the Tanabe family tradition in the wake of the death of his father, Tanabe Chikuunsai III (1940–2014), while also exploring the possibilities of large-scale sculpture and installations made of tiger bamboo, such as this one.
Pixcell-Deer#24 is technically remarkable.
This taxidermied deer has been completely transformed through the artist’s use of variably sized “PixCell” beads, a term he invented. PixCell combines the idea of a “pixel,” the smallest unit of a digital image, with that of a “cell.” Whether intentionally or unintentionally on the artist’s part, PixCell-Deer#24 resonates with a type of religious painting known as a Kasuga Deer Mandala, which features a deer—the messenger animal of Shinto deities—posed similarly with its head turned to the side, and with a round sacred mirror on its back. In Japanese art, the deer is often depicted as a companion of ancient sages and has auspicious and poetic associations.
