Tatsuo Kawaguchi

The relationship between water and people has been indispensable and intimate, as people have not been able to live without water since their birth on the earth. The same is true for the people of Osaka, and it remains unchanged to this day. We have attempted to translate such a relationship into ‘art and water’ and to bring water closer to art in Osaka.

Works exhibited at the Osaka branch of the Bank of Japan
Prologue to ‘When you cane the water’

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A water tank 3m in diameter and 90cm high is filled with water from Osaka and placed as if it were a thick coin of water lying on its side. In the centre of the water is a copper cane with its tip attached to the water, as if it were a cane in the water. The use of a heavy copper cane to strike the water is nonsense and would not be possible in everyday life. Water in the same form as the poured vessel is seen in relation to the copper cane. It must be remembered that canes are made by people. However, the cane wearer is nowhere to be seen.

Works exhibited at the Shibakawa Building.
For ‘The Big Dipper of Water’, ‘The Lying Cane’, ‘The Missing River’ and ‘Sun Spot’

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The Water Dipper appears during the daytime indoors on the top floor of an old building in Osaka. Lotus seeds sealed with lead float on copper plates in the seven water stars, and the space of the ‘Water Big Dipper’ is nested in one of the water stars. If the ‘lying cane’ in the water is felt to be a metaphor for old age and death, the lotus seeds floating above it must be felt to be a metaphor for birth. Not only people die. Rivers also die. Recreate the ‘vanished river’ that is no longer there, and let the small river you have recreated flow with water. Then, on the rooftop, you will use the sun’s light and heat to make scorch marks on the water-grown wooden planks. The traces created by your concentrated solar heat are your raw traces.