Tadashi Kawamata

Thanks to an anonymous tipster on an old post, I can finally put a name with a piece of art. In that post, I mentioned that an artwork in Texas reminded me of "a now-forgotten (to me) installation where wood members wrapped a street corner in a European (Japanese?) city." Well, it turns out that it was actually in Canada, the "Toronto Project" from 1989 by Tadashi Kawamata.



I can't recall when I first saw a photograph of that installation, but I do remember it striking a chord in me, its construction, its dynamics, its relationship to the staid neighbors. Coincidentally, the artist's web site indicates, "at 27 January 2006, this website is renewed for its almost first time since starting!" So go ahead and browse through the projects, many of which - to this day - use dimensional lumber and other wooden objects in interesting ways.