yoshiaki kaihatsu

	nmp international



top interview profile works	yoshiaki kaihatsu
	There is something of the leprechaun about Yoshiaki Kaihatsu. Behind the straight face and uniform gray that he wears always, making his every waking moment a part of the performance, there is a spark and twinkle of something not quite of this world. Even his name - Kaihatsu - is unusual. It means both "development" and "exploitation" - and most people are convinced it's an alias. But it's not, it's his real name. It couldn't be more appropriate to a man who spends his life creating objects and performances that poke at the conventions of the society in which he lives - both society as a whole, and the art world. Uncomfortable with the aloofness of the artist, he is very much a man of the people. His biggest work to date is 365 Project, where he sent identical wooden boxes to people all over the country - friends, galleries and all sorts of people who answered his ads in the press and on the radio - giving people the opportunity to own an artwork exactly like the one in the museum, and to do with it as they wished. Once the pieces were sent out he spent a whole year visiting every owner. Among the places he found his work were in an old fridge at a liquor store, on the log-pile for the kiln at a famous pottery, in the living room of a well-known collector, and cluttering the corner of a bemused and very unimpressed Junior High School student's tiny bedroom. The effort involved in travelling the length of the country and meeting and talking to people is another trademark of his work. Over one school vacation he offered to sweep a whole Junior High School, and spent day after exhausting day collecting all the dust into one classroom, where it became an installation and started a series using dust. For another performance he set off before sunrise on a gray "pedal-kayak" he built, to bicycle miles through the gray suburbs into the centre of Tokyo to the venue. But there's nothing gray about this man. His clothes, the works and their titles might be a dusty-gray, but you can be sure that the dust in Kaihatsu's pockets came from the pixies.