Tatsuo Miyajima (宮島 達男, Miyajima Tatsuo, January 16, 1957 –) is a Japanese sculptor and installation artist who lives in Moriya, in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. His work frequently employs digital LED counters and is primarily concerned with the function and significance of time and space, especially within the context of Buddhist thought.
Although Miyajima originally trained as a painter, and briefly considered himself to be a performance artist, the majority of his work now takes the form of installation and sculpture. He has admitted that, in effect, his work now "performs" on his behalf.[2] His core artistic concepts are: "Keep Changing, Connect with Everything, Continue Forever."[3]
Early work
In 1970s, Miyajima practised performance art.[4] He was initially influenced by the work of Joseph Beuys, Allan Krapow and Christo, and considered his performance work as an "action for society".[5] The desire to create more enduring work - in contrast to the necessarily ephemeral nature of his performance and actions - motivated him to begin working on sculpture and installations.[5]
LED works
Miyajima made his first LED counter in 1988; this has formed the basis for much of his later work.[6] Typically, a block will display two digits in red or green, and count from 1 to 9. The counters never register zero, because, for Miyajima, the idea of zero is a purely Western concept.[5] He has subsequently linked together different displays so that they can respond to each other; he calls these systems 'regions'.
Kaki Tree Project
On the 9th of August, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped in Nagasaki. Tens of thousands of people died suffering from the intense blast and heat, and the city of Nagasaki was reduced to ashes. However, there was a kaki tree which miraculously survived while more than half of the trunk was burnt black, and barely standing and about to die at any moment.[7] In 1994, Masayuki Ebinuma, an arborist, started to treat the fragile tree and restored its health as to be able to produce “seedlings” from the bombed tree.[8] Then Ebinuma started to hand out the “saplings” from the survivor tree to children who visited Nagasaki as a symbol of peace. After Miyajima learned Ebinuma's activity, he wanted to support Ebinuma as an artist. So then he displayed the saplings and recruited foster parents at an art exhibition in 1995. They received ten applications and selected the former Ryuhoku Elementary School in Taito-ku, Tokyo as a planting site. Through the process, Miyajima had conceived an art project called “Revive Time: Kaki Tree Project” and launched the executive committee. In 1996, the first planting of the project took place at the former Ryuhoku Elementary School. Miyajima himself conducted a workshop at the tree-planting ceremony.[9] The counters in some of his works, he has explained, represent the lives of anonymous individuals.[10]
In 2020, Miyajima's works will be featured in STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the World exhibition in Tokyo. In this exhibition will feature a new work, "Sea of Time – TOHOKU" alongside documentary footage of members of the public helping to set the counter speeds.[12]
Collections
The following museums and institutions have works by Miyajima in their collection:[13]
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan
Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
FARET Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan
TV Asahi building, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo, Japan
Chiba City Museum, Chiba, Japan
Group Home Sala in Florence Village, Akita, Japan
The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan
Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
Saitama Prefectural University, Saitama, Japan
Izumi City Plaza, Osaka, Japan
Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan
Iwaki City Art Museum, Fukushima, Japan
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
M+ Museum, Hong Kong
Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan
Samsung Cultural Foundation, Seoul, Korea
Leeum, Samsung Museum, Seoul, Korea
Chinese Telecom, Taipei, China
Tate Gallery, London, UK
Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, France
Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Université de Genève, Switzerland
La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain
Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich, Germany
Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Germany
Fondazione TESECO per l'Arte, Pisa, Italy
Chateau La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.A.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, U.S.A.