Main Visual for Roppongi Art Night 2013
(C)2013 Roppongi Art Night Executive Committee
Roppongi Art Night” is an all-night art banquet staged in the district of Roppongi (Minato-ku, Tokyo). The Roppongi area, where various commercial and cultural establishments are assembled, will be dotted not only with artistic works but also with various other forms of art, including design, music, film and performance, thereby providing the visitors with extraordinary experiences.
We will, then, propose a new lifestyle, in which people enjoy art in their daily lives. Also, by integrating art with the district, impressions on Roppongi‘s cultural aspects will be improved, while creating a pioneering model of urban development for the metropolitan Tokyo. Our aim is to further expand Roppongi Art Night as a representative event among art festivals in Tokyo.
The artistic-director system will be introduced for Roppongi Art Night 2013, and Mr. Katsuhiko Hibino, an artist, has been appointed to the post. “TRIP – Witness today’s transformation into tomorrow.” has been chosen as this year’s event theme.
Based on this year’s event theme “TRIP – Witness today’s transformation into tomorrow.”, Mr. Hibino and other artists will turn their ideas of “excursions of time and space”, “elation of seeing the morning after the night before”, and “thought for disaster-stricken regions beyond time and space” into some forms as well as into some actions, and a variety of programs will be constructed for visitors to make a trip, along with the artists, around the Roppongi district.
Various places in Roppongi considered as a “harbor/port/terminal”, participants will witness and experience sailing into a one-night-only extraordinary trip. On the day, making the works of art by Mr. Hibino “the activist” that were molded out of his feelings for the Tohoku region as a starting point, an “art boat” created by Mr. Hibino in collaboration with up-and-coming artists will be navigated through places all over Roppongi. Moreover, a program arisen from the relation with the local community following observations of Roppongi as a “local” community as well as the works of installation art which make the most of Roppongi streets will be deployed in the streets.
“Roppongi Art Night” has been around for five years (the fourth event) and so far received participation of more than 200 teams of artists. The event has a high profile in various circles as a Tokyo’s representative art event, and it attracted as many as 700,000 visitors (the total number of visitors to all programs) in 2012. Accordingly, artists and up-and-coming professionals in various circles will get together in Roppongi for the night to hold a “Roppongi night party”, and a creative gathering will be organized together with general participants. Look forward to “Roppongi Art Night”, a festival in which the whole Roppongi district will be adorned with various works of art all night long.
TRIP – Witness today’s transformation into tomorrow.
《TRIP→Project》
Image drawing of the “Art Boat”
The “Lighthouse” monument, making an appearance at Roppongi Hills Arena, by Katsuhiko Hibino becomes a signpost for the event theme of Roppongi Art Night 2013 “TRIP – Witness today’s transformation into tomorrow.”
His thought for the disaster-stricken Tohoku region is expressed as a blaze at its apex. Japanese cedar trees in Rikuzentakata-City sustained extensive damage from the ensuing tsunami of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Charcoal made from these salt-damaged cedar burns slowly. When it is alight, surrounding air warms up to stir people’s emotions while time slowly moves forward from night to morning.
《Art Boat Project》
This is a one-night-only collaboration between Katsuhiko Hibino and up-and-coming artists. Based on this year’s event theme “TRIP – Witness today’s transformation into tomorrow.”, the structure of the “Art Boat” is not only unconventional, but the boat also functions as a transportation device through time and space, inducing spectators to the night streets of Roppongi.
The “Seiryu-Koyomi-Bune (Clear Stream Calender Boats)” were created by Katsuhiko Hibino together with people of Gifu Prefecture for the ceremony of the National Sports Festival in Gifu in 2012. With these boats as their foundations, a number of “Art Boats”, each with great individuality, are navigated through places all over Roppongi, having been adorned freely, exhibited, and transformed into a stage set for performances by a dozen or so artists. Not confined to the three main venues, Roppongi Hills Arena, Tokyo Midtown, and The National Art Center, Tokyo, a boat even navigates leisurely through the streets, making this the main project of Roppongi Art Night 2013.
《Roppongi Night Party》
Artists from many different fields flock together in Roppongi for the Art Night!
These artists and up-and-coming professionals in various circles have frank conversations with each other at restaurants in Roppongi. This is an invaluable one-night-only opportunity, in which general participants (advance application system), feeling elation as the night of Roppongi wears on and day eventually dawns, can talk, eat, and drink together while witnessing prominent personalities of the times engaged in a hot crosstalk before your very eyes.
《Art Port Roppongi》
Initiative of Roppongi Art Night has gained a favorable reputation that the streets of Roppongi turn into a stage for art for the one night only. At this year’s event, stages and programs are further expanded, and art makes an appearance at various places in Roppongi including stores and restaurants.
The entire district becomes a downtown port, “Art Port Roppongi”, where many of the today’s most prominent young artists deploy their works in a wide variety of forms, such as images, installation art, solid pieces, performances. The familiar street scene of Roppongi is inconceivably transfigured by works of art, bringing about new discoveries and surprises.
This year’s Art Night transforms the whole streets into an exciting stage of artistic expression.
《Parkformance》
On a stage set up in a Roppongi park, several groups of up-and-coming young dancers give their respective performances.
The special outdoor stage makes an appearance exclusively for the night of Art Night. Don’t miss the chance to become a witness to a diversity of performances being unfolded in the moonlight.
* Under the Tokyo Metropolitan Ordinance Regarding the Healthy Development of Youths, people under 18 are not allowed to enter from 11:00 PM to 4:00 AM.
Free (Some programs and exhibitions are subject to fees.)
TEL: 03-5777-8600 (Hello Dial) 8:00 – 22:00 (7 days a week)
http://www.roppongiartnight.com/en/
Organizers:
Tokyo Metropolitan Government
Arts Council Tokyo , Tokyo Culture Creation Project office (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture) Roppongi Art Night Executive Committee [Mori Art Museum, MORI Building Co., Ltd., the National Art Center ,Tokyo, Roppongi Shopping Streets, Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo Midtown, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT] (in alphabetical order)
◎Core Time 17:55, March 23 (Sat) – 5:39, March 24 (Sun)
(From sunset, March 23, until sunrise the following day)
*Core Time is the period of time during which many of the main installations and events will be held.
