Toronto Project 1989/Colonial Tavern Park トロント・プロジェクト1989/コロニアル・タヴァーン・パーク

Tadashi Kawamata, who has been doing installations with wood at locations inside cities, streets that an installation is, as the definition of the word itself indicates, only temporary, an event taking place only at that location and at that time. With such materials as the maquettes, photo panels, drawings, shots from the working process, and video recording available, we feel that we can more or less trace the project from its inception to realization. But the artist says the maquettes are independent works that operate under different principle. Certainly the maquettes, being reliefs to be seen from above, look very distorted when viewed from a wrong angle. His explanation that they are not models for the actual installation, but are made specifically as pieces to be exhibited, thus seems reasonable. In “Toronto Project”, Kawamata creates installations at ruins of historical buildings within the city. At a ruinous site, the artist says, time and space come together. By making a temporary installation at such a site, and introducing a different time frame into it, he alters its quality and makes a new space to emerge.