Yasufumi Takahashi

7 November 1996 - 21 December 1996
Opening Reception 7 November 1996 8pm

Main Gallery:

Red Reflection I

Artist talk November 9 at 2 pm with translator KaYoko Gluck

Mercer Union is pleased to present an installation by Japanese artist Yasufumi Takahashi. Red Reflection I is a gigantic disc of discarded clothes, dyed red and hand stitched together. The disc is suspended from hooks on the wall and spreads across the floor (thus resembling a setting sun or a pool of blood), creating a compelling reflection on last year’s 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and the democratizing of Japan. Red Reflection I was completed during the 1995 artist-in-residence program at Est-Nord-Est Sculpture Centre in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec, and has been exhibited in 1995 at SKOL in Montreal; in 1996 at the New Gallery in Calgary; and in 1997 at le Centre d’Exposition in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec. Takahashi attended the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Graduate School of the University of Tsukuba and has exhibited in Japan, France and Canada. Takahashi presently lives and works in Utsonomiya, Japan.

This exhibition has been generously supported by the Japan Canada Fund of the Canada Council and the Japan Foundation in Toronto. The artist would like to acknowledge RENOWN, a Japanese apparel company.

Brochure essay by Sarah Quinton and a text by the artist.