Akihiko Sugiura

Akihiko Sugiura’s text-based work Art of Empty Space is both a theoretical text and an artwork that takes its own theoretical system as material. Art of Empty Space approaches art not by asking what art is, but by asking how we cognize the world and how that world can change and expand. It constructs a model of cognition and the world that brings together the space of cognitive possibilities, the articulated and unarticulated, communication and misdelivery, artistic experience, and the value of art. Rather than simply further expanding the question of “what can be art,” the work shifts its direction: what can become cognizable through art? The world described by this model is not fixed. Cognition is shaped by certain conditions, which the work terms kitei. Different combinations of kitei and the acquisition of new ones can give rise to different cognitions and open possibilities that have not yet been actualized. Yet these cognitions and individual worlds are not closed off from one another: through shared cognitive conditions and outcomes, they can overlap and connect. This model thus presents a structure in which cognition remains shareable while open to continued change and expansion. From this model, Art of Empty Space reconsiders the function and value of art. Art is not limited to producing new objects, forms, or interpretations. By unsettling the existing conditions through which the world is cognized and opening different cognitive possibilities, it can expand the spectator’s world into another dimension. Cognition expanded through art can, in turn, open possibilities for art that could not previously have emerged. Art and cognition thus expand each other’s possibilities. Since the twentieth century, the range of objects, forms, actions, and concepts that can become art has expanded enormously. Yet another question remains alongside “what can be art”: why does some art matter more than others? Art of Empty Space approaches this question from the side of cognition, without returning art to fixed forms or institutional boundaries. It introduces “high-intensity art,” not as a style or genre, but as a concept for considering how artistic experience acts upon cognition. The value of art is reconsidered in terms of how an encounter with a work, or indeed with anything at all, can transform the spectator’s cognition and its possibilities. The exhibition presents three installation works alongside the text-based work Art of Empty Space. One of the installations incorporates both an English translation and a Japanese edited version of the text as constituent elements, altering their perceptibility. The three installations do not illustrate or materialize the theory, but remain independent works that resonate with the text. Across the exhibition, text, mediation, perceptibility, and unperceivability interact, allowing the exhibition itself to develop the questions posed by Art of Empty Space in another form.