Chocolate
For its inaugural exhibition, 21_21 Design Sight gives the sweet stuff a new look
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| Mike Ableson + Yuri Shimizu (POSTALCO), Cacao Travels, 2007 |
| Photo courtesy of Hidetoyo Sasaki; installation courtesy of Mike Ableson + Yuri Shimizu (POSTALCO) |
The high-profile Issey Miyake and Tadao Ando collaboration, 21_21 Design Sight (pronounced “two one two one”) at Tokyo Midtown, opens with an entertaining exhibition titled “Chocolate.” 21_21 director and product designer Naoto Fukasawa worked closely with about 30 artists, photographers
and designers to create the 70 site-specific works.
Why chocolate? It’s something enjoyed by most of us, a universally appealing sweet food and commercial product. And in this sense, it is an ideal first subject for a new art space with creative product design in mind.
During the two and a half years of the show’s careful planning, the competitively selected Japanese and foreign artists attended workshops and seminars in order to gain a groupthink on the ways of chocolate and its design potential. The result is an entertaining and techno-surprising new view of chocolate-inspired works, blended with an important look at a worldwide industry of copious consumers and oppressed workers.
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Yasuhiro Suzuki, Chocolate Ginkaku-ji, 2006 |
Photo courtesy of Hidetoyo Sasaki; art courtesy of Yasuhiro Suzuki |
Encased like jewels under round Plexiglas covers, chocolate-made creations flavored with humor and quirky captions give us an initial visual taste of the cacao bean’s creative potential. Thorny rose branches, a city model, keys, a heart with veins and valves, and a peeling silver Ginkaku-ji are among the 30 pieces on display.
Further into the exhibition are works not made of actual chocolate but conjured from imagination or sensation. A simple brown chair, coat hanger and electric outlet by Naoto Fukasawa decorate one wall, while in a secluded corner, an illusionary chunk of high-tech optical chocolate by Toshio Iwai, titled Morphochoco, spins and melts away.
In one humorous video by Ryosuke Uehara and Yoshie Watanabe, chess pieces and utensils are greedily devoured. Installations include a replica of a dentist’s chair and worktable displayed with “Cavity” watches by design group Cabane de Zucca. A shower room titled Sweet Room by Tonerico:Inc is lined with tiles that look like pieces of machine-molded chocolate. Along with the virtual shower comes music created by sound designer Eric Nagy, played over speakers and in tune with the idea of chocolate in “transformation.”
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| Toshio Iwai, Morphochoco, 2007 |
| Photo courtesy of Hidetoyo Sasaki; installation courtesy of Toshio Iwai |
The scent of fashion pervades the show, and the Issey Miyake label gets an unusual promotion. Mannequins dressed with chocolate-themed Pleats Please outfits are placed throughout the exhibition like comical sentry guards of fashion. Staff are dressed in chocolate-themed Miyake-designed uniforms. Bags, shoes, jewelry and dinner plates created by several designers are displayed on a store-like central table.
Surprisingly little is devoted to chocolate’s renowned strength as an aphrodisiac. Its sensual pleasures are only barely shown in a single brief video surreptitiously tucked under the main stairwell at the very end of the show. Two partially nude actors roll and spin awkwardly
in the mud-like, melted substance. It’s hard to feel titillated watching the butoh-like performance, and we end our journey without that
feel-good lift for which chocolate is, in fact, most famous. The
PG-rated exhibition, splashed with invention, craftsmanship and imagination, seems in keeping with Miyake’s brilliantly original but conservative style.
The 21_21 Design Sight building itself is one of Ando’s best. Though constructed largely underground, the airy open spaces dramatically sculpted with natural light are different from the architect’s well-known dark subterranean structures. With labyrinthine spaces offering a bit of Indiana Jones-like adventure, the site entices visitors to explore new and influential views on design.
21_21 Design Sight, through July 29. See exhibition listings (Akasaka/Roppongi) for details.
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