Tadashi Kawamata Knows Nothing Lasts Forever

There’s a tension between preparation and execution in Tadashi Kawamata’s work. The Japanese-born artist can spend months or even years preparing to install one of his projects using models and sketches—but chance always ends up playing a part. The creation’s final form is left up to factors like the material he can source, the weather during their construction, the realities of nature, and even the reaction of neighbors. It makes sense, then, that Kawamata would collaborate with champagne brand Ruinart. The careful art of champagne making is passed down from generation to generation, and yet the characteristics that define each vintage are often left to the fate of that year’s weather and growing conditions.

In fact, as chance would have it, when Kawamata was selected to take part in Ruinart’s Conversations with Nature program, he was originally meant to contribute just one piece for permanent display at the Maison’s headquarters in Reims, France. He ended up making three. Together, they’re a succinct crash course in the artist’s work.

Eagle-eyed guests walking up to Ruinart’s headquarters first encounter “Treehub,” a bird house-like structure tucked into the trees. Strolling into the art-filled garden, they can’t miss “Observatory.” It’s a six-meter-high structure shaped something like an upturned bottle that demands attention. But once you climb up inside it, it turns your attention to the nature and the surrounding town. Finally, “Nest,” is affixed to the corner of Ruinart historic building. The original plan was to repurpose wood from Kawamata’s recent intervention at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo, but the exhibition proved so popular it was extended until the fall, forcing the artist to find new materials instead.

Below, he discusses his preparation for the piece, ephemerality, and the possibility of being replaced by AI.

You work is almost always an intervention into an existing human landscape, but in this case you’re affixing a permanent installation to Ruinart’s headquarters. How much preparation went into this?

My work is always site-specific. I worked with five or six assistants at the site and I stayed two weeks to build up from the foundation. It takes many professionals, like engineers, architects, also some technical specialists. We had to calculate how much wind might be coming. If I do something in a public space, I really have to be following this way.

I’m interested in the ephemerality of some of your work. A lot of artists, their ego does not allow them to make something that doesn’t last.

I’m not like that. I don’t know, it’s not my character. I don’t try to be perfect. I cannot control everything. I always work on the site. It’s always quite a different condition. It’s not always like today, a sunny day. Sometimes it’s rainy and wet and we have an accident. Every time is a different situation.

You’ve worked all over the world. Do you find differences in the way that your art is approached in different cultures?

It’s totally different. As I told you, every time the site is very important for me. With some countries and cities, the reaction is quite different. It’s sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes I stop the work, because it’s too disturbing to the neighborhood. One neighborhood was collecting signatures to stop the construction. They said it’s “crazy scaffolding.” I said, that’s my work, you know?

One thing that strikes me about your work is just how human it is. You’re open to mistakes, and the structures are the result of human labor. I’m wondering if AI is something you ever think about?

Recently I went to a competition where they got architects and artists together. In this city, one of the bridges doesn’t work, so they want to make something different. I was planning to make a model and everything, but the architect said, “We don’t need that. We can just put 20 years of your work into a computer,” and the AI made the presentation. I was wondering what’s going to come. Of course the presentation is not really the work, but visually it’s quite interesting. I just said, “Okay, we can make this.” Then we go on to win. I think once I stop or maybe I die, maybe AI could continue.