Graduating with a degree in fine arts from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, the Osaka-born artist Yukihiro Taguchi packed up his belongings, forsook his Japanese home country and made the move to Berlin, Germany, to try to benefit from being located in that cultural and creative hot-spot. Previous sojourns had enthralled him with the “mix of cultures” there and the seemingly endless possibilities for young artists to work and to connect. “I wanted to work more, and there are lots of young galleries, art places, young artists and curators [there],” says Taguchi.
“Giftplatz#3” performance in Berlin, 2007 © Yukihiro Taguchi
Though specializing in oil painting while at school, he has made the transition towards installation art and even product design, with the latter being born out of the economic necessities of a young artist. Taguchi repurposes the manifold and ubiquitous plastic bag and gives it a hip comeback as –as he calls it – “recycling design,” which nonetheless betrays its less glamorous past.
Taguchi repurposes the manifold and ubiquitous plastic bag and gives it a hip comeback as “recycling design.” © Yukihiro Taguchi
Searching for possibilities other than showing paintings, he found himself literally at the center of an installation work wherein he took the task of building a frame and stretching a canvas (as he used to do for his oil paintings) to a more abstract level. The footage that can be viewed on his website shows an amazing array of interconnected objects held together entirely by tension, with no screws or permanent fixtures involved. “From those early works, I found out ideas [about] space and air, and the possible relationship between [the] two elements,” says Taguchi. So, for the last two years, the motto driving his work has been “to create an intentional, but accidental, relationship between different elements,” that he has manifested in numerous open air installations and art events.
