Opening Tuesday, October 12, 2010, Wako Works of Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Gregor Schneider titled Toter Raum, Tokio 2010. For this exhibition, the first in 8 years at Wako Works of Art, Schneider will build a toter raum, “dead room”, within the gallery space. The exhibition will also include sculptures and photographs by the artist.

Since the age of 16, Schneider has been working on the construction of new rooms by adding new walls, windows and rooms within the walls of his own house. This endless pursuit of the “unknown space” has since extended from the confinement of his personal realm to sensitivity towards current political and social agendas: in 2005, the artist attempted to recreate the Ka’ba, the holiest site of Islam, in Piazza San Marco for the Venice Biennale; and in 2007, he built a prison within the walls of a museum. His recent work involves installing pitch dark rooms in the museum and galleries, which stir usurping feeling of fear towards the unenvisionable and the unknown, and simultaneously give rise to insuppressible curiosity. Having long dealt with the unknown, the unconscious/subconscious, and the invisible, it is only natural that the artist has not taken on the theme of “death” for a room.

The third installment of the gallery’s Text series, Gregor Schneider: Das Sterben als Kunstwerk?, will be published in conjunction with this exhibition. The publication will feature Japanese translation of the artist’s conversation with Heinz- Norbert Jocks, an essay by Anita Shah and an interview with Hannelore Reuen. (In Japanese only.)

Please join us for a reception for the artist on Tuesday, October 12, 2010, from 6pm to 8pm.

» Press Release(PDF)

Gregor Schneider was born in Rheydt, Germany in 1969. He first started making art when he was 12, and had his first solo exhibition in Germany at the age of 16. He received the Golden Lion Award at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), and has been the subject of large-scale solo exhibitions held at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. He has recently produced site-specific works, such as the Cube installed at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, and 21 Beach Cells on Bondi Beach, Sydney, which have placed him at the center of much controversy. Schneider is currently a professor at Berlin University of the Arts, and lives and works in Rheydt.