Tadao Cern is a contemporary artist who is curious about human behaviours. Accordingly, he takes ordinary things like a baloon or a wheat field to express abstract notions in human life such as farewell, contradiction, and feeling of nothingness in a concrete way. In this way, he also reminds us of what we have forgotten. Here are some examples of Tadao Cern‘s contemporary art.
French Exit, since 2020
In the exhibition of “French Exit,” a cloud of dry wheat hangs down from the ceiling. As the viewer stands underneath the artwork, the ephemeral material creates a tranquil and introspective athmosphere to think about farewells.
“I am filling pages of our collective memory book, because we might be leaving without a proper goodbye.”
“I tried to focus more on the aspect of what we would be missing the most during the last seconds of leaving this place… My guess (is that) it would be something banal, like fields of wheat during the sunset… Banality is a result of such a strong love and affection with something/somebody that you even get sick of it. And hanging everything on the ceiling creates an illusion of floating for the viewer as if you are being taken to the sky,” writes Cern.
Black Baloons, since 2016
Cern often makes use of contradictions such as minimal and intricate, lightness and heaviness, inanimate and lively, light and dark, etc. “(The) notion of contradictions is nothing more but a man-made concept…A feeling of nothingness and absence of all the ideas became the objective for me.” Cern shares with Colossal. Likewise, these floating black baloons also represent nothingness or emptiness.
Privileges, 2021
This project is inspired from an assignment that Breanne Fahs, professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University, set for her students. According to the assginments, female students had to grow their body hair and male students had to shave their legs, and then write a paper about their experiences.
Appreciation, 2021
“This must be the shortest trip ever… You went up the plane stairs and had to come down. Because you don’t have to fly in order to enjoy a good turbulence. There is no take off, but a destination in which you have landed presents itself with unexpected attractions and entertainments. Coordinates haven’t changed, but hopefully you haven’t missed a chance to do so,” writes Cern.
Hanging Paintings, since 2018
‘What I love about them the most is that they are absolutely good-for-nothing objects and that nobody ever wore them and nobody will,’ says Cern.
For more information: Tadao Cern
