Aki Sasamoto
Installation view of Sink or Float, 2022, at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
© Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Wolfgang Träger
Aki Sasamoto | Float Sink Float
Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
Solo Exhibition | July 16 – September 3, 2022
Take Ninagawa is pleased to present Aki Sasamoto's newest performance/installation Float Sink Float (2022). This work is a companion piece to the newly commissioned Sink or Float (2022), on view in “The Milk of Dreams,” the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Concurrently, Sasamoto is preparing projects for international exhibitions in Aichi (Japan), Busan (South Korea), and Okayama (Japan), all scheduled to open in the coming months.
Aki Sasamoto, installation view of Sink or Float, 2022, at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia © Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Wolfgang Träger
Aki Sasamoto
Installation view of Sink or Float, 2022, at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
© Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Wolfgang Träger
Artist Statement
Let me hide the chocolates out of sight, as I cannot stop eating them if they are in my reach. That was my logic for putting those half-eaten chocolates aside. But I have forgotten where I tucked them away, and now I discover silver rectangles here and there in my studio. The crumpled foils are stamped with the grooves and patterns of the chocolate inside—I can imagine and taste their flavor without opening them up. I gathered this unintended collection of the half-eaten, covered it with plaster and sand, then poured in aluminum for lost-wax casting. Burning out the chocolate together with the stress in my daily life, I felt the sense of renunciation.
I made an air-float table out of a commercial-use kitchen sink by inserting a board with tiny, evenly spaced holes, and then drawing air through those holes. My system mimics an industrial cutting table, which can float heavy boards. In this system, objects dance to their unique characters. Due to their coiled structures, the snail shells twirl. But a shell with a feather spins in an opposite direction to the other plain shells, as if it’s a rebellious character who resists the societal pressure. The sponges are attracted to one another—flying, bouncing, and frolicking—but sometimes one may hop on a bottle cap for an impromptu solo trip. Each object moves with a certain tendency, and yet it is impossible to predict where it will go or what it will collide with. We all have some kind of direction, but there is no accounting for timing in life. The encounters (collisions) come unexpected. This is what the microcosm in the sink seems to be telling me.
- Aki Sasamoto
Aki Sasamoto
Installation view of Sink or Float, 2022, at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
© Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Wolfgang Träger
“The great Aki Sasamoto (who has to be one of the most underrated artists working today) has served up a delight
fully bewildering environment—a kind of madcap restaurant kitchen—in which snail shells glide around what appear to be an air-hockey tables. Its title suggests a deadly serious message beneath the chaos: Sink or Float (2022). Let us hope this becomes one of the breakout hits of the show.”
- ARTnews, Tour Cecilia Alemani’s Venice Biennale Exhibition, Coursing with Surrealist Energies and Abounding with Bodies, Andrew Russeth
Aki Sasamoto
Installation view of Sink or Float, 2022, at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia zia
© Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Wolfgang Träger
“On view at the Giardino delle Vergini, Sasamoto’s new piece Sink or Float, completed this year, appears to levitate. She retrofitted thousands of small air-blow
ing holes to tables constructed from stainless-steel commercial sinks, which move in a chaotic and improvised manner. At one end of the space is a rotisserie oven and a commercial cooler that have been transformed into light boxes. Through recontextualising the everyday industrial and household objects, Sasamoto prompts viewers to retune their perception of the mundane.”
- Tatler, 10 Asian Artists to Spot at the Venice Biennale 2022, Zabrina Lo
Aki Sasamoto
Installation view of Sink or Float, 2022, at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
© Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Wolfgang Träger
Born in 1980, Aki Sasamoto is a New York–based Japanese artist who works in performance, sculpture, dance, and video. Her works have been shown both in performing art and visual art venues in New York and abroad.
Sasamoto's performance/installation works revolve around gestures on nothing and everything. Her installations are careful arrangements of sculpturally altered found objects, and the decisive gestures in her improvisational performances create feedback, responding to sound, objects, and moving bodies. The constructed stories she relates in the performances seem highly personal at first, yet are also open to varying degrees of access, relation, and reflection by others.
Solo exhibitions include Yield Point, the Kitchen, New York (2017), and Delicate Cycle, SculptureCenter, New York (2016). Group exhibitions include the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2022); Kunsthal Rotterdam (2021); UCCA Edge, Shanghai (2021); Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2018); the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2018); Reykjavik Art Museum (2017); the 3rd Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016); the 11th Shanghai Biennale (2016); the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012); the Whitney Biennial, New York (2010); and the Yokohama Triennale (2008). Sasamoto’s work will also be on view this year in the upcoming Aichi Triennale, Busan Biennale, and Okayama Art Summit exhibitions.
Current and Upcoming International Exhibitions
59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia | until November 27, 2022
Aichi Triennale 2022 | July 30–October 10, 2022
Busan Biennale 2022 | September 3–November 6, 2022
Okayama Art Summit 2022 | September 30–November 27, 2022
Aki Sasamoto, Squirrel Ways, 2021 ©︎ Aki Sasamoto, courtesy of Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, and Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, photo by Thijs Wolzak