MISA SHIN GALLERY is happy to announce its second Isozaki Arata solo exhibition: Labyrinth in Motion. 

Isozaki Arata, globally recognized for his architectural work, is also a vocal critic and well known artist and cultural activist. From the early stages of his career, Isozaki has strived to develop architecture in the context of art, creating numerous groundbreaking and genre-shattering pieces. The approach Isozaki makes as an architect challenges the preconceived notion that architecture is stationary by nature. He has attempted to actively expand his role as architect by questioning how one might express movement through imagery, or by taking into account the natural aging process of a piece of architecture after it is built.

Japan, at the end of its Avant-garde movement in the late 1960s, was experiencing a paradigm shift in the areas of art, music, film and design. It facilitated a blurring of lines that defined the difference of one genre from the other. Many artists expressed themselves freely outside of their perceived “genre” during this inter-media era. In 1966, Isozaki designed the exhibition From Space to Environment, which consisted of numerous installations that forced upon the audience an interactive experience. These art pieces were created by artists from various genres, and were connected under the keyword “environment.”

Electronic Labyrinth (1968), a cybernetic installation piece created for the Milano Triennale, consisted of 16 curved panels that would react to the audience’s movement by incorporating infrared sensors. This concept was later further developed into his work that was unveiled at Osaka Expo ’70 in 1970. In an era when Architecture and Art were undergoing a drastic paradigm shift, Electronic Labyrinth was an opportunity for Isozaki to contemplate the possibilities of technology, designing mechanical contrivance in architectural space, and the formation of a city within an ever-changing environment.

A city is a vessel in which people convene, but is not a place to settle. Despite that notion, architecture in the city exists as a permanent object, and that has become the accepted architectural notion. A city is space that is formed by a series of events.

At Labyrinth in Motion, we will have on display, drawings and models that were presented at the following:
• Fukuoka Mutual Bank Oita Branch (1966) - presented at the Colors and Space and From Space to Environment exhibitions.
• A House (1969) – A house in itself consists entirely of robot-like contraptions that respond in accordance to the resident’s movement.
• Obscured Horizon (2007) – Bedrooms erected in the desert of California
• Ark Nova (2012) – A ‘movable’ concert hall as a proposal to create a theatrical space within architecture.

Isozaki’s diverse array of work, ranging from his current work to those dating back to the 60s, all share in common the idea of architecture as anti-fixation, and are approached from a broadened concept of what architecture can be. It is our wish that you will experience and enjoy this collection of Isozaki’s work, quite literally, as a Labyrinth in Motion.

*image (left)
© Arata Isozaki
courtesy of the artist and Misa Shin Gallery