Moving Plants

The Third Gallery Aya is pleased to announce a solo show by Koichi Watanabe called “Moving Plants” which runs from August 31st to September 18, 2010.
This exhibition will be a counterpart to his last show about 1 year ago.In his last series, Watanabe pursued the weed called “Itadori” which originated in Japan and has spread to Poland, England and America. His last series showed the silent strength of these weeds which been changed their nature to adapt to each area and breed. This new series are color photographs to find the artist shoots weeds which originated in foreign countries but can be found in his daily life in Japan. We are surprised to find that the roots of these weeds are foreign in spite of seeing them every day. If you happened to see last year’s show,we hope you will have a deeper understanding these weeds from the contrast between his last works in monochrome and these works in vivid color and foreign countries and Japan. And of course if you are seeing these works for the first time, we hope you will find a different aspect in these landscape photographs compare with ordinary ones : ie, the view here is from the plants.

On September 4, 2010, from 17:30 to 19:00, we will present a talk event by the artist. Please join us.

Artist Statements
We live between the plants. Everywhere, from the bank in front of my
house to the vacant lots in back of the nearby public housing complex,
there are plants. I can’t remember when I became taller than the plants
and started to pass right by them.

I tried to find out the names of the plants around here, and I
discovered that many of them are far from their original homeland. This
made me realize that there was a time when these plants weren’t part of
the landscape in this country and that nobody can guarantee they will
still be here in the future. Before anyone notices, the plants may have
changed.

From between the plants, one might be able to see buildings and
people’s coming and goings in France, or the vast wilderness and the
pyramids in Mexico. When I realize this, I start to think that what I
can see now or have seen from between the plants in the past is
extremely valuable. Many species of plants cross the sea in the midst
of human activity. The relationship between plants and the things we
see from between them is not inevitable. It was only a coincidence that
I encountered these plants at any given time in any given place.

We take it for granted that plants cannot move in the way that animals
do, and that they always stay in the same place in the same silent way.
But plants really do travel. They perceive the world outside in a way
that we don’t understand and they do their best to survive in the place
they are rooted. Plants turn their flowers toward the sun and send
their roots to explore the soil. What have they learned about the bank
and the housing complex? How does the soil in a distant land feel to
them? The space around us is filled with plants, changing its
composition as time goes by.

These photographs show the things I have seen from between the plants
and are also a natural history of the times and places I have been.