The Tea-room -- Abode of Fancy, Vacancy and the Unsymmetrical / Yasutomo Ota; Kakuzo Okakura

Identifier:FA.OSS2.1817

Dimensions:46 S., 33 x 25 x 7 cm (13 x 9.8 x 2.7 inches)

Creation dates:2015

Subjects: artists' books, offset printing, tea rooms

Description:Edition 16 of 23. Two book blocks, each Japanese stab bound (3-hole) with thread-stitching, joined together by white paper covers; offset printed on Hanga Kouzo Kawachi paper; signed and numbered by the artist. The work is housed in a wooden box. The first block on the left-hand side contains excerpts from The Book of Tea (Fox Duffield & Company, New York, 1906) by Kakuzo Okakura, mainly exploring the history and aesthetics of the tea room in Japanese culture. Text is in English, Japanese, and German. Also included are diagrams illustrating different dimensions of tatami-mats. The second block on the right-hand side presents graphics (paste glue, dyed with tea leaves) in geometric constructions that resemble compositions of tatami rooms. Interwoven into these images are short personal quotes by the artist creating a dialogue with the original text. "This book was created as a semester-project on the subject of 'memory' in the class for book art at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. It was supervised by Prof. Sabine Golde and Stefan Gunnesch."--colophon