Tokyo Gallery + BTAP is pleased to announce The Voices of Stones, an exhibition by Takeshi Hayashi. This is the fourth solo exhibition by Hayashi at Tokyo Gallry+BTAP, and this will be his first occasion to present his newly released wooden sculptures.

Born in Gifu in 1956, Takeshi Hayashi graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a Master’s degree in sculpture. He resided in Paris between 1998 and 1999 on an overseas research fellowship granted from the Ministry of Education. In 2012, Hayashi was awarded the Enku Award for Daichito Kyomei – Sozono Genfukei (Earth and Resonance – the Root of Creation), exhibited as part of the Sixth Enku Grand Award Exhibition. Hayashi currently lectures at the Tokyo University of the Arts.

Hayashi’s sculptures are characterised by the use of multiple pieces of stone to create abstract spaces. The Voices of Stones includes a recent work by the same name, which takes its inspiration from the furosaki screens used in tea ceremony. In 2006, at the opening party for his solo exhibition, Hayashi performed a tea ceremony atop a marble sculpture entitled Ishima, which occupied a floor area equivalent to four and a half tatami mats. Hayashi says that he was drawn to the furosaki partitions used in tea ceremony which do not actually block the view, but rather simply demarcate space.

The Voices of Stones exhibition also features Woodpecker, a new sculpture featuring a wooden railing taken from a school building. The artist, who has until now chiefly worked with stone and earth material, made the following comment on Woodpecker, which represents a foray into a new medium.

I created Woodpecker from a handrail taken from a disused middle school in Taito-ku that was being demolished. I was attracted not only to the sophisticated design and high quality of materials used in what was a very robust building from the early part of the 20th century, but also to the generous strength of the building’s form and the character added by the aging of its exterior. I decided to leave the top surface of the rail intact, instead carving from the underside. As soon as I started carving I got the feeling that something inside the wood was saying “carve here”.

The process reminded me of the way that a woodpecker pecks a hole in a tree before enlarging it. They say that woodpeckers do this when mating, and that the cavities they make are for nesting.
- Takeshi Hayashi

*image (left)
Takeshi Hayashi
Kusamakura, 2014
marble, 56x64x70cm 
courtesy of the artist and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP