Sculpture and Spatial Intervention

I had tried to direct the audience to the main subject of the work without directly presenting it, but with Mr. Kobayashi the Pink Cat, I gave up on guiding the viewers. I focused on exploring the impact of a large three-dimensional cat painted with fluorescent pink and recreating the adorableness of the actual cat hiding behind something and looking at you. Even if the audience stopped in front of the work and tried to take a photograph of it, the entire shape of the work couldn’t be captured because of its size. The work was intended to create a frustrating experience of not being able to photograph the entire appearance of the work from any angle. The photographs can document information such as form, color, size, and location, but they can’t capture the impulse one feels at the moment or the most essential part of the viewer’s experience with the work.

Mr. Kobayashi the Pink Cat is made big because I want the viewer to wonder: “Why is the big cute cat standing in such a small space and hiding behind buildings and trees?” I also want the size to be overwhelming so that the viewer would stop in their footsteps and stay at the site. I had only made artwork in photography and video previously, so I always wondered how other artists would decide the size of a sculpture or a three-dimensional work. As I kept thinking about it, I realized that the size of a work can be determined according to the size of the exhibition venue and the production site or the price of materials. It also can be simply a size that the artist is satisfied with. There seemed to be no particular reasons for deciding the size of a work. I realized there is no necessary relationship between size and concept. Some sculptors said transportation is the determining factor for the work’s size. Others said their sculptures are within the size range they can make with their own hands or fit on a small truck. Certainly, we must consider that each exhibition venue has regulations and fire prevention laws. I had never made sculpture or three-dimensional works, but I thought I could try many different things with sculpture. Mr. Kobayashi the Pink Cat is a work that betrays the expected procedures from production to exhibition at a museum or a commercial gallery. There is no space for production and it cannot be transported, so I cannot bring it back home. Because it is too large for the gallery space, it gets in the way of other works, making it difficult to grasp in its entirety. After the exhibition is over, the work is discarded. Anyway, everything about the work doesn’t fit in the trend. What’s essential for me is that Mr. Kobayashi the Pink Cat must be as large as possible in the space provided by the organizer or the space I found. It also must be hidden behind something. In many cases, I cannot retain the concept of the work in the locations proposed by the organizers. I usually have to start the planning process by explaining the work. That is where my work starts and it is also the most exciting moment.