Night to bring artists onto Tokyo's streets
Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama is expected to be among as many as 700,000 art lovers and artists taking to the streets of the Roppongi district of Tokyo over the weekend of March 24 and 25 for the city's annual all-night art event.
Roppongi Art Night was only started in 2009 but grew swiftly the following year to attract well over half a million people. Last year's event, scheduled to take place in late March, was cancelled at short notice due to the natural disasters that struck the northeast of Japan on March 11.
Taking the events of last year as its cue, the theme of the 2012 extravaganza is "Let's revitalize Japan with art."
A wide range of events are taking place in art museums throughout the Roppongi district, as well as in participating shops, bars, restaurants and public spaces.
The organizers said many of the works that will be displayed and the performances that will be put on are designed to provide inspiration to people who have endured a particularly difficult year.
One of the highlights of the festival will be the series of works by Kusama that will be exhibited in several places in Roppongi and is titled "Love Forever, The Future is Mine!"
Famous for her polka-dot art designs and sense of fashion, the collection will include a 10-meter high inflatable statue of a young girl and her pet dog that will be inflated at precisely 5:56 p.m. on March 24, sunset and the official start of the "core hours" of the event.
An installation titled "Legend of Roppongi 2012," by the artist duo who go by the name Antenna, has been selected as the motif for the festival, while the "Roppongi Agora" project is the work of a number of organisations and recalls the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Other artists who will be exhibiting include Katsuhiko Hibino, whose paper "Night Boats of the Tohoku Calendar" will lift off carrying lights and messages of hope to the people of the Tohoku region, and Ichiro Endo, whose message in the "Rainbow Japan Project: Here we go!" will be revealed.
Theatrical and musical events are also scheduled to take place throughout the district until it officially ends at 6 pm on March 25. Most events are free, although some museum exhibitions and special programmes will charge an entry fee.
Further information: http://www.roppongiartnight.com/en/outline/index.html
JR
