Home > Past Exhibitions > 1991 > Takamasa Kuniyasu

Takamasa Kuniyasu Return to Self (1991) 16,000 fire bricks, 700 logs, steel wire 1414 Monterey, 2nd floor 700 logs and 16,000 small bricks were carefully stacked to fill two small galleries. Visitors are able to walk among the dense constructions in two rooms. Tight passageways take the viewer past niches, amidst the scent of freshly cut wood and the varying rhythms of stacking patterns. "I sometimes imagine an ancient age when humans did not have their word. They probably drew something and built something even in that age. . . . I always have asked myself what I want to do, what I want to represent while I do my routine work of baking and stacking hundreds and thousands of china bricks. Recently, I gradually recognized an answer to this question. That is, I want to go back to the ancient age. Everyone has felt the sense of incongruity against our real world. . . . Therefore I want to go back to the origin. . . . Installation, the new representation, must be a most primitive form." Takamasa Kuniyasu Born Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan, 1957 lives and works in Tokyo