Aki Sasamoto
Calder Prize 2023
Aki Sasamoto’s Squirrel Ways at Atelier Calder, Saché, France.
PHOTO GUILLAUME BLANC/©AKI SASAMOTO
Created by the Calder Foundation in collaboration with the Scone Foundation in 2005, the Calder Prize is awarded biennially to a contemporary artist whose innovative work reflects the continued legacy of Alexander Calder. The Prize confers a $50,000 award, a three-month residency at the Atelier Calder, and the placement of the artist’s work in a public collection.
Aki Sasamoto uses everyday objects, movement, set design, and food in her performances to evoke the absurdity of the human experience. She improvises environmental elements such as equations or sounds in ways that are impossible to anticipate. This intangibility keeps us on our toes and somehow coalesces into magical coherence. The resulting energetics resonate with my grandfather’s own experiential art.