3 minutes and 26 seconds
Yes, our lives are complicated, you know.
And I can say that reality of life consist of abstract things and moments. Let’s think about it. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I had a peanuts butter sandwich with banana and a couple of coffee. Of course, I can remember it but those things are not real anymore. That is memory of my breakfast. I just reconstruct the past at the very moment of now. Even if you are eating something right now, you cannot catch all the reality of that food. If you can taste it, you just feel the taste from your tongue and mouth. But the food has many different kinds of aspect. Let’s say, peanuts butter could be material for painting, banana could be trap for making people to slip on and coffee could grow beautiful flowers. We could find out alternative way to view our everyday lives even we are having banal breakfast same as yesterday. In the very usual moment, we could see something new at the same time. There are a lot of abstract things and moments waiting for us to brake through to a new perspective.
If we face the reality of life, I think we can deepen our understanding of the world. I always try to look for that kind of moment in my life.
– Koki Tanaka, 2006
In 2013, Koki Tanaka represented Japan in the 55th Venice Biennale. His work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions and is included in the collections of Dallas Museum of Art; Orange County Museum, Newport Beach; Artnow International Foundation, San Francisco; Asian Society and Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, among others.