Tsuyoshi Ozawa is an intriguing Japan-grown contemporary artist. His works challenge the establishment and people’s existing systems, as well as perceptions about their daily lives. Yet Ozawa also approaches these issues with both gentle humour and clever irony, quite often throwing his viewers, with great relish, into a maze of the actual and the virtual: for example in works such as his Museum of Soy Sauce Art, a parodic look at Japanese art history, or his long running Vegetable Weapons project. Despite a conventional education at art university in Japan, where he studied painting, Ozawa, from the start of his artistic career, has always resisted creating his work in an isolated environment. He frequently collaborates with other artists, and often draws on audience participation, using his work as a kind of “art weapon” for opening dialogue.

In this artist talk, Tsuyoshi Ozawa will reveal to the UK audience for the first time the unique artistic path he has walked over the past decades, explaining the creative process behind many of his compelling works. In a discussion to follow, he will be joined by Adrian Favell, Professor of Sociology in Paris and a writer on Japanese contemporary art, to further examine Ozawa’s relation to contemporary Japanese society, his significance in a global context, and issues of “relational art” in his work, part of an important trend in contemporary art practice.

20 September 2011 from 6.30pm

The Japan Foundation, London
Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square
London WC1B 5EH

This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please email your name and the title of the event you would like to attend to event@jpf.org.uk.