tokujin yoshioka: 'spectrum'

tokujin yoshioka portrait © designboom

tokujin yoshioka: spectrum museum. beyondmuseum, seoul may 1st to june 30th, 2010

ahead of its public opening, designboom visited japanese designer tokujin yoshioka‘s solo exhibition ‘spectrum’ at museum. beyondmuseum in seoul, korea.

‘rainbow church’ image © designboom

one of the newest and much anticipated works of the exhibition is yoshioka’s ‘rainbow church‘, consisting of hundreds of crystal prisms, arranged in a 9-meter-high stained glass installation which flood the museum space with spectrums of color.tokujin took some time out from setting up to speak to designboom about the exhibition obstacles and the installation of ‘rainbow church’:

‘everything was difficult. starting with the selection of the venue… maybe about a year ago the museum contacted me to ask whether I was interested in presenting the project with them. I didn’t confirm and looked for an alternative venue for ‘rainbow church’. just three months ago I finalized the proposal.(…) the building has a high ceiling, but to build ‘rainbow church’, I had to modify the walls to make the right angle in order to install the prisms. it is 9.2 m high and 500 crystal prisms are used to create the effect I wanted. we spent a week to build it.‘ – TY

installation view of rainbow church image © designboom

500 crystal prisms were used to construct ‘rainbow church’ image © designboom

up close of crystal prisms image © designboom

watercolor sketch of ‘rainbow church’ by tokujin yoshioka photo by designboom

the exhibition also includes presentations of his ‘pane chair’, ‘honey-pop’, ‘venus chair’ and ‘water block’ series. and for the first time in asia tokujin’s ‘tornado’ installation will be shown for the first time. this presentation of the project will consist of twice as many straws which were used in the original showcase at design miami 2007.

‘rainbow chair’ image © designboom

‘rainbow chair’ surrounded by ‘tornado’ installation image © designboom

side view of ‘rainbow chair’ image © designboom

‘waterfall’ surrounded by ‘tornado’ installation image © designboom

‘waterfall’, 2005-2006 image © designboom

‘waterfall was commisioned by a private collector. it has been installed in tokyo since then. it has never been revealed to the public. the initial idea I had for the project was to cut the middle part of the waterfall out. I sorted out the material first. the table is made of a giant optical glass, so it is very special.’ -TY

image © designboom