Life and Me Vol.22

"Just a little change in what is always there"

I saw the Ryan Gander Collection Exhibition on a friend's social media and was intrigued, so I decided to go. It wasn't my main plan, but I just had a little free time.
I had no prior information, just thought it looked interesting!

After watching it with my junior, I just wanted to say a few words.

"I'm glad I came."

That's all there is to it.

As a staff member working in interior design, planning events, and working on displays, it was truly an eye-opener for me.

Even though the words "Collection Exhibition" were included in the title, I didn't notice it at all when I started looking.

I was casually looking around, wondering if it was an exhibition of items collected by Ryan Gander, when suddenly I realized something.

Wow, all of these are items that are always in the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery's collection, but they've just been displayed and collected in a different way, and that alone has made for such an interesting and intriguing exhibition!

"It's always there"

This is the exhibition that consists of just that.

From the way the explanations were written, to the collection of colors, to the way the usual things were displayed in the absence of them, this exhibition was made not by collecting new, trendy or famous things, but by using "everyday things," and it was exciting and interesting, and it had a great influence on my work. The more I looked, the more I wanted to know what was going on in Ryan Gander's mind.

First, the color.

The art, exhibited only in black and white, was so perfectly balanced that it made you wonder, "Is there any other arrangement like this?"

And the next thought

"Something that would normally be there is missing"

There is no explanation for the art, which should be included with each piece of art.

Huh? They don't tell you who made this piece and what it is? I thought, and turned around, and there was an art frame of the same size surrounded by a line with an explanation written on it. I was surprised that there was such a way to display it. It wasn't particularly unusual, but it was interesting and I had never seen anything like it before!

I really wanted to be able to propose interior designs that would make people think, "This isn't that difficult, it can be done if you want to, but no one has done it yet, right?"

I received a great hint.

And light.

This was the best part of the Ryan Gander Selected Collection Exhibition!

Light that should be in a museum.

It was the complete opposite of the stunning lighting at the previous Isamu Noguchi exhibition.

There is no light.

It was fun to use a small handheld spotlight to light the art myself and decide how the art looked.

If you shine light on a large piece of art from a distance, you can see the whole picture, but if you get close and shine light on just a small part of it, you can see the details that you might normally miss, and I was able to enjoy art that I didn't really understand by adding my own unique touch to it.

Of course, it was a great learning experience for me about interior design, but it also gave me a chance to reflect on myself, even though it may seem like I'm making a big statement.

I learned that just by changing the way you see things a little, by being different from usual, by seeing things the way you want to see them, even the smallest of changes can make interior design and daily life more interesting, or they can become boring, so ``just a little'' is important.

I've tried doing things a little differently than usual, making time to do what I want without worrying about others, and there are still so many exciting things I haven't done yet, which makes me feel like I can do even more interesting things in the future.

on second thoughts

"I'm glad I came."

It was an exhibition that made me think:

I'm grateful to the friends who introduced me to this.

And my friend told me something even more interesting.

If I get to go there I'll let you know!

(text: Shimazaki)

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