HAVE A SEAT WITH TADASHI KAWAMATA!

ABU DHABI ART is back, and how! Welcomed with this super cool installation by Tadashi Kawamata, you will surely blow your mind, when walking into this meeting spot. “Chairs for Abu Dhabi” is a 6 meter high, cave-ish structure, build up from a 1000 chairs, stacked with tie-ribs, to a metal frame. The idea is to let people “have a seat” and take a break during their visit to the Abu Dhabi Art fair. To me, the massive structure was a quite impressive hiding cave. What entertained me the most, was the reactions of people visiting this installation, which made me think about the fact that art is still quite new to the Middle eastern public. Just for fun, I stood still on a short distance of the installation, and I decided to quietly observe some people’s reactions and comments to what they saw. At one point, I even heard a man say to his wife; “How crazy this thing, why would someone put all this chairs on top of each other? What a waste of all those chairs!” It gave me a little giggle inside, and it made me realize that the growth in art, and the understanding of it, is still in big process. But an art fair like Abu Dhabi art is definitely a huge step in the right direction!

Tadashi Kawamata is a Japanese artist who is originality educated as a painter. Most of his art installations remind me of complex caves or bird nests as they are built out of multiple objects stacked on top of each-other to form a small space. Kawamata started his 3 dimensional work by removing the canvas from his the painting frames and only use the wooden frames. His work used to be exhibited in galleries, but because the dimensions of his art kept on growing, he had to move outdoor, or to bigger spaces, to exhibit his work, just like the installations you will see below.