IV.
Installation view of the exhibition “Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age” at Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo, 2011. Courtesy Rat Hole Gallery.
ART iT: Earlier you mentioned this need to always have art “come with” you, to be able to make art wherever you are. How has it been for you working here in Tokyo? Is it different from Berlin?
TD: In Tokyo it has been challenging to find materials that could be my own, because there is a different materiality here, and I don’t know the streets, I am dependent on people to take me places and to translate for me, and this is completely different from how I work in Berlin. The lacquer is different. The plaster is different and takes a different amount of time to dry. I might spend an entire day searching for one thing that in Berlin would be a simple errand. The days go so quickly.
But I am completely in love with the city, the architecture and the old houses. Even though it’s a different culture and context, in some of the small restaurants here I can feel totally in my own space. This is what I try to create with my exhibitions: a space where I can move easily or comfortably and where I can incorporate material and architectural movements into the sculpture.
ART iT: I laughed when I saw the cardboard box piece in the exhibition here, which when viewed from a certain angle looks exactly like Japanese architecture.
TD: I don’t know much about it, but I feel that Japanese architecture is motivated by human needs. That’s why I thought Bauhaus must surely be inspired by Japanese architecture. Everywhere I look here it seems that the proportions of every element of the built space have been maximized to use exactly the necessary amount of space, and nothing more or less. I really relate to that sensibility, as well as the particular use of lines.
ART iT: Were you thinking about that when you made the cardboard box piece?
TD: Indirectly.
Thea Djordjadze: The Secret Border in Human Closeness