Promo-Arte
Closes Sunday
The Latin American Art Gallery (www.promo-arte.com), as the name suggests, specializes in exhibiting artists from that region -- and it is the only one in Japan to do so. Columbian artist Edison Osorio Zapata, who was born in Venezuela and grew up in Australia, now resides in Japan and uses these cross-cultural influences in his narrative art.
In the "Transcription of Legends," a solo exhibition of glassworks and photography, Zapata subtly merges literature and art to explore linguistic themes. In one series of sculptures, works suspended in the air are named after books by acclaimed writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez (from Colombia) and Banana Yoshimoto (from Japan); each piece has a poignant excerpt from the author accompanying it. Some sculptures are adorned with Roman lettering or Japanese characters, such as the impressive "Bochica y Chia," which has kanji carved onto the bulbous red-tinted glass. Reflected by light, the writing is transformed and projected in such a way that it forms covert messages.
Other works juxtapose monochrome photographs of glass with actual glass sculptures, so that the images and the objects themselves resonate off each other. Although the images appear empty, seen through the translucent glass of the sculptures, there is movement that explores space and light.
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