KÜNSTLERHAUS

BETHANIEN

Künstler*innen

Tsuyoshi Anzai

Japan

Tsuyoshi Anzai, distance (detail), Poly-, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, 2020. Courtesy the artist

Tsuyoshi Anzai uses everyday objects as his primary medium, above all cheap plastic products consumed everywhere around the world. He creates simple-structured machines by making impromptu combinations of everyday items and motors. These kinetic sculptures display unexpected behavior. They move clumsily as if going through conflicts in reconciling different purposes of their single components. They behave like creatures with their own will. Anzai defines these machines as “things that are beyond control”, i.e. the world itself. For him producing works is a way to communicate with phenomena in this world that we cannot control. Currently, he focuses on the relationship between plastics and humans. He captures contradictions of our world surrounding consumerism, the oil industry, and environmentalism by giving them a different perspective.

*1987, lives and works in Saitama prefecture. After graduating with a Bachelor of Music (2009) he earned his Master of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts (2011). Important exhibitions include Being-in-the-Wired-World, Kawasaki City Museum, Kanagawa (2013), Jailhouse Locke, Daiwa Foundation, London, UK (2018), 2016 Core Exhibition, The Museum of Fine arts, Houston, TX, US (2016), The Strange Objects, Pohang Museum of Steel Art, Pohang, South Korea (2017), and Poly-, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2020).

STAY
01.12.2020 – 01.12.2021