Project: "Red, White and Blue - Wandering Mickey", "Banzai Corner", "Hinomaru Illumination"
Born in Fukuoka in 1959. Yanagi received an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 1990.
In 1993, Yanagi participated in the 45th Venice Biennial and became the rst Japanese artist to be selected from the Aperto exhibition as an emerging artist. Yanagi’s works were in numerous international exhibitions including Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil) in 1996, la Biennale de Lyon (France) in 1996, and Whitney Biennial (U.S.A) in 2000.
Yanagi also showed his works in Japan in many solo exhibitions, among them Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Fukuoka Art Museum and BankArt (Yokohama.) In 2008, he completed his long-term project, “Inujima Seirensho Art Museum” in Okayama, which exhibits a permanent site-specific installation of the artist.
Yanagi’s artworks are in numerous museum collections such as the Museum of Modern Art Tate Modern., Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Fabric Workshop and Museum. Since 2012, he has been a director at ART BASE MOMOSHIMA.
1990/ steel drum, car, steel frame, steel mesh, steel pipe, duct hose, gasoline. etc.
First created for the thesis exhibition at Yale University, “Wandering Mickey” is now reconstructed with 500 steel drums in Art Base Momoshima’s gymnasium as a permanent installation.
In this work, the car, a symbol of America’s mass consumption society, keeps running just like a hamster plays on wheels, until its energy source is completely depleted.
1991/plastic toy and mirror
This work is made up of 349 plastic toys of the Japanese superhero “Ultra Man” and “Ultra Seven,” all facing inward with their arms raised in the traditional cheer of “banzai.”. The use of mirrors creates the illusion of “Hinomaru,” the Japanese flag; it depicts a fantasy of group mentality and its theatrical nature.
Installation view at “Nisshokan,” 2014 / neon, neon transformer, programming circuit, painted steel, steel frame, slag and water
This neon board in an abandoned movie theater ashes when a viewer inserts a 100 yen coin. The reection on the water creates an illusion that changes its image from Nisshoki (the ag of Japan) , Kyokujitsuki (Japanese prewar military ag) and eventually to the Black Sun during the total solar eclipse, referring to the mythology of the land of the rising sun.