Q: Please introduce yourself.
A: I’m Hiroki Kagawa. I’m a modern artist who mainly operates out of the Kansai area. I use installations to make my art pieces by collecting all kinds of daily items that surround us, arranging them or reiterating them and filling the space with them.
Q: What would you like visitors to pay attention to?
A: I’d like them to pay attention to the symmetrical placement of these mass produced items that are supposed to have the same size, shape, texture, or color. It’d make me happy if they could find parts that they like within my works.
Q: What brought you to make this work?
A: I wondered if I could show the elements of asymmetry in the world and artificial symmetry frequently found in my works.
When I was approached about submitting something for this exhibit, the ancient classification system of “phylogenic trees” came up.
The idea of a tree working as an organizer and classifier of information inspired me to make something that’s a tall structure, filled with objects and regularity. Simultaneously, I made sure that elements of both symmetry and asymmetry were incorporated into the work.
Q: Is there anything you want to convey through your work?
A: The work can be seen as a whole or many different parts. The balance between the two is important to keep in mind. That being said, if visitors only focus on one thing, I think I’d want them to focus on the many circular photos on the ground. They’re aerial photos of the places that the people who visited this hotel in the past left online reviews for. Though the pictures are beautiful, the contents of the review are all subjective, creating an asymmetric effect, where their differing opinions create a bias.
I’d be happy if visitors are able to keep this in mind while looking at the entire work and its parts.
Q: Was there anything you focused on in your work?
A: Because of the uniqueness of this exhibition, visitors are restricted by how close they can get to the works.
Because there’s a physical distance between the visitor and the work, I had to be more conscious of what I chose to use so that I could strike a balance between the realistic and artificial look of it.
Q: What meaning does symmetry and asymmetry have to you?
A: For my works, being symmetrical is the most simple and direct way of easily displaying rules or a system.
For example, if you line up balls of different colors but the same size next to each other, at a glance, you’ll be able to tell that they were arranged like that.
However, asymmetry is a bias and the very opposite of symmetry and not readily visible in this work.
Here, I think of a state where asymmetry is integrated into symmetry.
Hiroki Kagawa
“Tree of Symmetry”
2024
Variable Size
Plastic balls, arch supports, zip ties, shoe hangers, artificial greenery, plastic plates, concrete slabs, concrete spacers, inkjet printing on OHP film, inkjet printing on paper, bedding shears, wooden balls, magnets, tripods, wooden blocks