Asako Tokitsu is a Japanese artist. Her signature are fine, monochrome line structures with which she interacts with architectural spaces. She prefers to apply her drawings directly to walls, ceilings, floors and windows.
Tokitsu has realised her temporary and permanent works internationally in museums, public spaces, company headquarters and private domiciles.
At home in Berlin and Yokohama, Asako Tokitsu draws a wide arc throughout the two worlds. Her abstract minimalism is rooted in Japanese tradition - then again, the interpretation, perhaps even manipulation of the constructed space by means of anamorphosis, a perspective transformation, derives from the Western approach. Out of this transgression of borders, visual coherences unfold that can open the architecture to a new perception.
Born in Tokyo, Asako Tokitsu completed her art studies at Tama Art University in 1991. Although she knew (as she says herself) as early as age 13 that she would become an artist, it was in the mid-1990s that her typical type of linear spatial drawing did develop.
During this time, Tokitsu has become known for several large-scale installations in museums and galleries (Art Tower Mito in Ibaraki, Kawaguchi Museum of Contemporary Art). Thanks to an award from the Daimler-Benz Japan Group, a door opened to the West in 1997: A several-month residency in southern France resulted in an exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Agen. Tokitsu also spent the next few years abroad, in Paris and New York, supported by the Cultural Fund of the Japanese government.
Her first major permanent work, a site-specific installation in the entrance foyer of the Nigiwaiza Public Theatre in Yokohama („Time and Space“, 2002), clearly demonstrated a special relationship to the architectural ambiance. The artist covered the exposed concrete surfaces of the tunnel-shaped interior with a net structure of fine lines. Observed from a certain position, the fragments of the drawing merge into a continuous overall motif that superimposes the space’s inherent perspective. It is up to the visitor whether he will — or can — find the „right“ point of view.
Tokitsu’s works could still be seen in parallel in solo exhibitions in Japanese museums: Hara Museum in Tokyo, Urawa Museum in Saitama, Yokohama’s Red Brick Warehouse. After a group presentation at Daimler Contemporary in 2004, another relocation was due: this time to Berlin.
An important highlight in her work was a joint project with the Tokyo National Museum in 2009: „Eleven Lines“. This installation was created in the old teahouse, the sliding doors of which were painted by Maruyama Okyo, an 18th century artist. The classical space with Okyo’s depictions, which at that time revolutionized traditional Japanese art through the use of perspective, was encountered by Asako Tokitsu in her own unorthodox way. Within almost three weeks she had drawn eleven lines on the walls, ceilings, tatami floor and windows of the room. Visitors to the museum could watch the artist at work; through their own movement they would discover how a new depth manifests in the built historical space over time.
In addition to the adventurous confrontation between tradition and experiment, this project has now marked another interface: that to performance. Several tens of thousands of visitors have experienced the project.
The communicative aspect of her art also motivated Asako Tokitsu in the work she created in 2013 on behalf of the CCC (Cultural Convenience Club), a leading Japanese entertainment business. She arranged a drawing in an open lobby in the company's headquarters - once again parallel to ongoing operations - which serves the employees as a multifunctional space for encounters and recreation.
The convergence of drawing and architecture - now typical of Tokitsu - has since manifested itself in several other projects: For one, in the seven meter high roof hall of the Maison Hermès in Ginza, Tokyo, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano („Thirty Two Lines“, 2015), or in the O&O Depot in Berlin, the experimental exhibition space of the renowned architecture practice Ortner & Ortner Baukunst („Incidence Inside“, 2016).
Asako Tokitsu keeps surprising us with her reduced, but meticulously efficient way of interpreting architectural space. It gives the viewer countless new perspectives of perception in just a single place.
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www.asakotokitsu.com
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