Is art that echoes nature ¡°eco¡± art? This is one of the many questions that the work of designer/artist Tokujin Yoshioka explores.
In recent years, Yoshioka has made a habit of cleverly and elegantly recreating aspects of nature in his installation works. In 2008 he simulated ¡°clouds¡± by hanging tens of thousands of thin white fibers from the ceiling of Tokyo¡¯s 21_21 Design Sight. In 2011, the main work that most people remember from the ¡°Sensing Nature¡± exhibition at the Mori Art Museum was his ¡°Snow¡± (2010), a 14-meter-long tank filled with millions of feathers, occasionally blown by a large fan.
For his latest show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, he has brought together a group of works that evokes winter. Titled ¡°Crystallize,¡± the show presents the visitor with a countless number of white straws piled up to create the impression of snowdrifts. This provides a backdrop and connecting motif for several works made from a crystallization process that, in some cases, resembles what happens under extreme Arctic conditions.
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