Matsuyama is exhibiting upon invitation by IKSV as an official collateral project to the 17th Istanbul Biennial. 

We are pleased to announce Tomokazu Matsuyama’s public projects United We Stand Divided and Nirvana Tropicana in collaboration with Yanköşe and Galataport. Both large scale sculptures by Matsuyama will be exhibited upon invitation by IKSV as an official collateral project to the 17th Istanbul Biennial.

For Yanköşe, Matsuyama re-imagines his sculpture He Sits She Reads (2021) as a large installation. For Istanbul, the city facing daily flow of people from different cultures, the artist expresses his perception on the blend of gender and cultural indicators in the moment of multiplication of identity of new generations. The 17-meter-long work United We Stand Divided depicts two intertwined figures that are composed with historical decorative floral patterns representing East and West. Istanbul: the city with a history composed of mixture of multiple cultures. And the combined portraits of two persons morphing diverse identities, hover in the cityscape as a reminder of how layered the contemporary culture is.

At the Museum Square at Galataport, Matsuyama places his Nirvana Tropicana (2020) sculpture he created in the midst of the natural catastrophes, Covid19 and windstorm, that hit New York city in row. Due to lockdowns, the city never sleeps seemed deserted, civilization ceased operating, culture wasn’t active, and nature was collapsing. Facing these realities, Matsuyama feels the weight of having to rebuild endlessly. This relentless internal drive is being portraited with body fragments knotted with vegetal elements and patterns, creating plurality of viewpoints that could be described as Cubist.