News

AMBIGUOUS ZONES 15

Dear Friends,  As we begin to wrap up 2023, we are pleased to bring you Ambiguous Zones, 15, written by our Graduate Fellow Emiko Inoue, whose essay centers on Arakawa’s film Why Not: A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology (1969). Emiko is a masters student in the Art History Department at Hunter College, CUNY. Supported by The Feminist Institute Research Award, she is currently completing her masters thesis on the Japanese woman artist Mitsuko Tabe. In this essay, Emiko employs the interpretive approach of art critic Junzo Ishiko, a contemporary of Arakawa, as her guiding framework for examining the unique relationship between Arakawa’s 1960s paintings and Why Not. We hope you enjoy this thought-provoking investigation into Arakawa’s elusive and enigmatic film. Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Figure 1. Poster for the Whitney Museum film presentation of Why Not, 1970 In-Between Human and Objects in Arakawa’s Why Not: A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology (1969) by Emiko Inoue Throughout Arakawa’s career, he produced only two films, Why Not: A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology (1969; fig. 1) and For Example: A Critique of Never (1971; directed by Arakawa). Two hours and ten minutes long, Why Not features one female protagonist played by Mary Window and

AMBIGUOUS ZONES 14

Dear Friends,  We are pleased to bring you a special edition of Ambiguous Zones, 14, written by our summer intern, Jlynn Rose, who joins us from Pratt Institute where she is completing a BFA in Fine Arts with a minor in art history and philosophy. In her essay, “WORD RAIN: Poetics of Friction and Conflation,” Jlynn shares her reflections on some of Madeline Gins’s work after reading The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader, edited by Lucy Ives, in the first week of her internship. Taking Ives’s invocation of Adrian Piper in her introduction as a starting point, Jlynn moves on to a rigorous investigation of Gins’s words. Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office WORD RAIN: Poetics of Friction and Conflation by Jlynn Rose In Lucy Ives’s introduction to The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader, edited by Ives and published by siglio in 2020, she draws a parallel between Gins and another conceptual artist, wordsmith, and philosopher, Adrian Piper. Specifically, Ives notes that Piper’s Food for the Spirit (1971), a performance piece and series of fourteen black-and-white self-portraits, is

Ambiguous Zones 13

Cover of Lincoln Center Playbill, May 1979, 124 W Houston Documents, Box 4N14, Folder 50, Reversible Destiny Archives. Dear Friends,  In Ambiguous Zones 13, RDF’s project archivist, Kathryn Dennett, delves into the story behind a mysterious find in an archival box: a Lincoln Center playbill from May 1979…mentioning Arakawa. This playbill was for an evening performance by composer Edvard Lieber that included a composition entitled “Neither Arakawa Nor Jasper Johns Are Each Other.” Taking this intriguing piece as her starting point, Kathryn outlines Lieber’s career, highlighting a second piece inspired by Arakawa’s work, in this case, Blank Stations II, 1982, performed at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Yours in the reversible destiny mode,Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office *Ambiguous Zones has now moved to a quarterly schedule. We’ll be sharing AZ content with you every three months and any important news updates as they arise!* Figure 1. From “Lincoln Center Playbill from Edvard Lieber program including ‘Neither Arakawa Nor Jasper Johns Are Each Other,’” 124 W Houston Documents, Box 4N14, Folder 50, Reversible Destiny Archives. As the archivist at the Reversible Destiny Foundation, I am familiar with a variety of types of sources: poem drafts, preliminary sketches for paintings, scientific research articles, digital renderings

Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century: After Arakawa and Madeline Gins

Author: Naohiko Mimura(Author, Editor), Takeshi Kadobayashi(Author, Editor), Yasuo Kobayashi, Don Byrd, Alan Prohm, Jondi Keane, Renske Maria van Dam, Russell Hughes, Masayoshi Someya, Haruhiko Murakawa, Satoshi Inagaki, Hiroki Komuro, Momoyo Homma, Yusuke Koishi, Ignacio Adriasola, Adi Louria Hayon, Reversible Destiny Foundation (Kathryn Dennett, Amara Magloughlin, ST Luk, Miwako Tezuka),  Arakawa+Gins Tokyo office (Takeyoshi Matsuda, Haruka Seno, Haruka Kawaguchi, Momoyo Homma), Reiko Tomii, Takashi Ikegami, Akihiko Ono, Nomura Yasuo, Matisse ApSimon-Megens, Anouk Hoogendoorn, and Benjamin Muñoz, Adrienne Hart, Mariko Kida Publisher: ratik ISBN:978-4-907438-56-2(EPUB)ISBN:978-4-907438-57-9(PDF)ISBN:978-4-907438-58-6(POD)ISBN:978-4-907438-59-3(Amazon Kindle)ISBN:978-4-907438-60-9(AmazonPOD) Price: 2,500 JPY(Tax included)E-book    : 6,000JPY(Tax included)E-book + Paperback    : 2,500JPY(Tax included)Amazon Kindle    : 6,050JPY(Tax included)AmazonPOD ratik amazon.com This book seeks to look back sincerely at Arakawa and Gins’s legacy as well as look ahead to see how we can continue what they have left in the context of the situations we are facing now, and beyond, toward the 22nd century. “Who are we and where are we going?— ‘puzzle creatures to ourselves, we are visitations of inexplicability.’ Arakawa and [Madeline] Gins posed these questions via multiple modes in the most profound manner, proposing concrete (albeit tentative) visions for the coming century. Recall that Arakawa always urged us: ‘do it, now!’ Need we be reminded that the

Ambiguous Zones 12

Dear Friends, The new year brings with it the twelfth edition of our Ambiguous Zones newsletter, written by guest author Chaeeun Lee who thoughtfully considers Arakawa and Madeline Gins’s concept of Blank. Chaeeun is a PhD Candidate in Art History at CUNY Graduate Center and a research intern at the Reversible Destiny Foundation. She is writing her dissertation on the politics of abstraction and aesthetics in the work of Asian American and Asian immigrant artists during the 1960s and the 1970s, exploring the ways in which their work problematized the established norms of racial, cultural, and gender identification in search of alternative constructions of the self and the world.  Chaeeun’s beautiful essay offers readers an accessible introduction to Blank that serves as a novel way to meditate on seasonal themes of fresh starts and shifting perspectives. Yours in the reversible destiny mode,Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office “LOUDLY THERE AND SHIFTING ABOUT AND TUMBLING INTO VIEW”: TRACING BLANK IN THE WORK OF ARAKAWA AND MADELINE GINS, 1968-1982 by Chaeeun Lee Figure 1. Arakawa, Study for “Shifting Blank,” 1979. Acrylic and graphite on lithograph and paper, 42 1/2 x 59 7/8 in. (108 x 152.1 cm). In Arakawa’s Study for “Shifting Blank,” a legion of

Ambiguous Zones 11

Figure 1. Container of Sand (1958-59), an example of a coffin work made in Tokyo, photograph by Masataka Nakano Dear Friends, For Ambiguous Zones 11, we are pleased to introduce guest author Keenan Jay, who wrote an insightful essay on Arakawa’s solo exhibition of mainly coffin works at the Zuni Gallery in Buffalo, NY, in March of 1964. Jay is a researcher of modern and contemporary art with an interest in diasporic art and the neo-avant-garde. He was a 2021 research fellow with PoNJA-GenKon and Asia Art Archive in America and has recently presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian American Studies among others. He has been conducting a series of oral history interviews on Montez Press Radio since 2019. Yours in the reversible destiny mode,Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Figure 2. Installation shot from 1964 Zuni exhibition, photograph by Sherwin Greenberg Studio, Inc. In a January 1967 Artforum article, critic Yoshiaki Tono recalls his surprise at a new group of artists who had appeared in Tokyo during the late 1950s. He frames these artists, who called their collective Neo Dada (initially the Neo Dadaism Organizers), through their formative postwar upbringing, writing that “they desired an art

Ambiguous Zones 10

Arakawa, Untitled, 1968 Even though there are about two weeks left of summer in New York, where the RDF office is located, we have been inundated with advertisements for pumpkin spice everything (lattes, donuts, beer, etc.) since the last week of August. Rather than turn to this fall flavor already, we thought we would share the recipe for Banana Cake from Arakawa’s painting, Untitled, 1968. Unlike your typical banana bread recipe, which is full of spice, this cake heroes the banana, and topped with pillowy layers of whipped cream, it sounded like a perfect dessert to celebrate the end of summer. While Arakawa most likely did not intend for the recipe to be baked, this painting offers a set of instructions that you can follow, as many of his other paintings explicitly ask you to do. It is always an interesting experiment to see the divergent outcomes when different people follow the same set of instructions. Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, “Banana Cake,” in The Joy of Cooking (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), 630. This recipe comes from the 1963 edition of The Joy of Cooking, which Madeline and Arakawa most likely had on their shelves and was often the

Ambiguous Zones 9: Venice Biennale

Arakawa at a café in Piazza San Marco, Venice, most likely 1970, on Polaroid paper stock dated to 1969. The café in question is most likely Caffè Lavena. Dear Friends, For Ambiguous Zones 9, we travel to the Japan Pavilion at the 35th Venice Biennale that took place in 1970. Marking the first time the inner gallery was reserved for a single artist, art critic Yoshiaki Tono, the commissioner of the Japan Pavilion, chose Arakawa for that year.  Several canvases were exhibited from Arakawa’s large-scale project, The Mechanism of Meaning, which began in 1963 and was still in progress at the time.  Developed alongside Madeline Gins, this series of panels rigorously interrogated perception, the process of receiving, organizing, and interpreting information using our senses, in this case mainly sight. These works were accompanied by related drawings and diagrammatic paintings from the 1960s that turned the show into a retrospective of Arakawa’s work over the previous decade. Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Floor plan sketch of the Japan Pavilion at the 35th Venice Biennale by Yoshiaki Tono, included in a letter from Tono to Arakawa delivered to New York on January 21st, 1970.

Ambiguous Zones 8: Non-Gravitational Being, 1983-1984

Arakawa, Non-Gravitational Being, 1983-1984, acrylic, graphite, art marker and PVA on canvas (in two parts), 100 x 136 in. Photo: Rob McKeever Dear Friends, Ambiguous Zones 8 takes a close look at Non-gravitational Being, 1983-84, a large-scale painting by Arakawa. This artwork offers a short text on Arakawa and Gins’s concept of “Blank” and stands as a good introduction to the work being done by Arakawa in the early 1980s. A short formal analysis of the painting will leave you primed to meditate on the artist’s ideas about spacetime, energy-matter, and how gravity might work in different dimensions. Hopefully you will enjoy this brief contemplation on physics all the more knowing that scientists were wrong, luckily, in their prediction that asteroid 2009 JF1 would hit the Earth on May 6th, 2022! Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Non-gravitational Being, 1983-84: A Meditation by Amara Magloughlin Arakawa’s painting, Non-gravitational Being, 1983-84, sets up the viewer to encounter a large-scale map covered with arrows pointing in different directions in a pattern reminiscent of air currents. The far-left side of the map appears to be incomplete, but is it unfinished? Has it been erased in some

Ambiguous Zones 7

Installation view of ARAKAWA: Waiting Voices at Gagosian Gallery, Basel, November 25th, 2021–January 22nd, 2022. Photo: Annik Wetter (Left) Hard or Soft No. 3, 1969, acrylic, graphite, and marker on canvas, 95 ½ x 65 in. (Right) A Couple, 1966–1967, oil, acrylic, marker, graphite, and crayon on canvas (in two parts), 95 x 124 in. Dear Friends, Ambiguous Zones 7 features a video recording of our January 12th, 2022, webinar with guest speaker Tiffany Lambert, curator of the Gallery at Japan Society in New York. Tiffany’s lecture focused on the connection between Arakawa’s art and Arakawa+Gins’s architecture. We hope you find it as illuminating as we did! Moving forward, Ambiguous Zones will arrive at your inbox every two months, which will give us time to explore certain topics in greater depth. In the meantime, please join us for the international conference AGxKANSAI 2022: Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century After ARAKAWA+GINS, organized jointly by the Studies of the Architectural Body Research Group at Kansai University and Kyoto University of the Arts. The event will take place from March 11–15, 2022 at Kyoto University of the Arts with a combination of in-person and virtual presentations and a live broadcast of

Ambiguous Zones 6: Lecture and virtual tour by Dr. Ignacio Adriasola of the exhibition ARAKAWA: Waiting Voices at Gagosian Gallery in Basel, December 9th, 2021

Arakawa and Madeline Gins, Study for Sites of Reversible Destiny, digital rendering, ca. 1994 Dear Friends, Happy New Year of the Tiger! We hope you had a restorative holiday break. At the dawn of 2022, all of us here at the Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office are looking resolutely toward the new horizon, fresh with limitless possibilities, following Arakawa and Madeline Gins’s commitment to a positive mindset coupled with (serious) playfulness. We begin the year with the sixth issue of Ambiguous Zones, which features a video recording of a lecture by Dr. Ignacio Adriasola that took place on December 9th of last year, live from the exhibition ARAKAWA: Waiting Voices at Gagosian Gallery in Basel (on view until January 22nd). In his lecture, Dr. Adriasola illuminates some of the recurring themes and motifs present in the works of Arakawa on display at the gallery, which range in date from 1964 to 1984, and brings to the fore the sensuality of texture and materiality in the artist’s paintings. Our next webinar will be on January 12th at 12pm EST with guest speaker Tiffany Lambert, Curator of the Gallery at Japan Society in New York. Her lecture will focus

Ambiguous Zones 5: Holiday season

Thanksgiving in July, or a heatwave or somewhere warm in November? Madeline Gins, Arakawa, and Madeline’s parents, Evelyn Gins, and Milton Gins enjoy turkey (or duck?) in the great outdoors, ca. 1977. Dear Friends, This fifth issue of Ambiguous Zones arrives partway into the holiday season. Like last year, the final few weeks of 2021 may not feel quite the same as previous years, but that is all the more reason to focus on spending time with loved ones, whether in person or online. The RDF archive has no shortage of photographic evidence that Madeline and Arakawa did just that year round. Regardless of how your celebrations shape up this year, we hope these photographs of Madeline and Arakawa dining with friends and family get you into the festive spirit! In the meantime, we are sending warm wishes for a lovely December! Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Arakawa and Madeline drink coffee and eat pie inside after their meal outside, ca. 1977. Madeline calls across the table to a guest at a dinner party at 124 W Houston St. Arakawa laughs at a dinner with friends at 124 W Houston St. Arakawa

Ambiguous Zones 4: Madeline’s birthday

Dear Friends, In honor of Madeline Gins’s birthday on November 7th, the fourth edition of Ambiguous Zones focuses on one of her unpublished books. Madeline considered two possible titles that sum up the content quite well: “Conversations for our time: poet and physician” or “Medically in Our Time.” This book is based on a series of interviews that Madeline carried out with doctors with a variety of specialties, including neurology and psychiatry, an acupuncturist, and patients. Her overarching goal was to provide a course of action for the patient/reader that would help them navigate different approaches to their healthcare, including standard medical care, alternative therapies, vitamin regimens, and care related to their mental health, whether through psychiatry or other mind-body modalities like meditation and hypnosis. Help us celebrate Madeline’s 80th birthday by doing whatever mind-body exercise speaks to you the most. Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Madeline Gins conducted multiple interviews with a variety of doctors and patients over the course of five years for a book that she would never publish. Her goal was to approach the evidence surrounding various treatments for disease from

Ambiguous Zones 3: Happy birthday

The Reversible Destiny Lofts—Mitaka (In Memory of Helen Keller) in its near-completion phase, 2005, Tokyo. Photo by Masataka Nakano Dear Friends, Did you know that today, October 15th, is the official “birthday” of the Reversible Destiny Lofts—Mitaka (In Memory of Helen Keller) in Tokyo? Designed by Arakawa+Gins and completed on this day in 2005, it is one of the most unique apartment buildings in Japan. There are a total of nine units in the building: five of them are currently occupied by tenants, two are offered for short-term stays and remote work space programs as well as group tours, events, and workshops, and the last two units house the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office, which manages all aspects of the operations there. The Mitaka Lofts has attracted thousands of people from around the world, many of whom have made a special pilgrimage to experience the space in person. At the time of its opening 16 years ago, people were beguiled by it and they hotly debated whether this was architecture or art. Arakawa’s vision, however, was clear that this was to be a residential building, inhabited and used by people. Through this creation, he aspired to change Japan and even the world

Ambiguous Zones 2: The end of summer

1. Snapshot of Arakawa taking a snapshot in Japan The end of summer brings another round of travel photos for the second edition of Ambiguous Zones! Hopefully some of you were able to travel yourselves this summer and extra bonus points if you got to see some art, like the Alexander Calder sculpture Arakawa and Madeline saw in France in 1980, or become the art, like Madeline did in Venice in the summer of 1969. We hope you enjoy this selection of photographs that bring Arakawa and Madeline from Japan to France and Italy, back to the U.S., and finally to Tula, Mexico. Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office 2. Arakawa and Madeline in front of a mountain scene in Japan (1979) 3. Madeline and Arakawa standing on a porch swing set in Japan (1979) 4. Madeline and Arakawa at Kenrokeun 5. Madeline and Arakawa performing purification ritual with water at a shrine in Japan (1 Jan 1995) 6. Arakawa reading the paper on a train in Japan 7. Arakawa posing in front of a wall 8. Madeline on the deck of a ship (Probably the QEII) 9. Arakawa on the deck of

Ambiguous Zones 1: A Self-Portrait Near the Ocean

Arakawa at the beach, Japan, ca. mid 1950s Dear Friends, At the Reversible Destiny Foundation, the start of summer brings with it an air of celebration for Arakawa’s birthday on July 6th, when he would have turned 85. This year, it also heralds a change in our monthly newsletter. We started the Distraction Series at the beginning of the pandemic when many of us were adjusting to being at home full time. As things begin to open up at various rates, we think it is time to move onto a new monthly newsletter, Ambiguous Zones, that will continue to explore various themes related to Arakawa and Madeline Gins. For the inaugural AZ newsletter, we took summer and Arakawa as inspiration for a brief look at the ambiguous zone of the beach, as seen in Arakawa’s 1967 painting A Self-Portrait Near the Ocean. We hope this leaves you with something to think about as you take your own selfies on the beach this summer! Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Arakawa, A Self-Portrait Near the Ocean, 1967, oil, acrylic, graphite, art marker and collage on canvas, 90 x 63 in. Photo by Rob McKeever.

Distraction Series 10: A round-the-world armchair vacation with Arakawa and Madeline

Madeline and Arakawa with Mesoamerican statues in Tula, Mexico Given the current limitations on travel, Distraction Series 10 is here to bring you on a round-the-world armchair vacation with Arakawa and Madeline. From Mesoamerican ruins in Tula, Mexico, to Italy, France, Japan, and various locations in New York state, join us as we travel through time and space from the point of view of our two founders. We’ve pulled around twenty photographs from our archive for your viewing pleasure – scroll down for the images with descriptive captions. Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, you’ll find Arakawa and Madeline posing, taking photographs, examining their environment, and planning their day over breakfast. Enjoy! Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Arakawa and Madeline posing in front of Japanese buildings in snow (3 Jan 1995) Arakawa and Madeline on a boat in Venice Madeline with haystacks in France Arakawa in front of a castle in France Madeline and Arakawa walking on a street near a horse drawn trailer (Sep 1986) Arakawa walking up stairs in Europe Madeline on the deck of a boat Madeline touching plants on a trail in Japan (1979) Madeline and Arakawa walking outside

Ambiguous Zones 1: A Self-Portrait Near the Ocean

Dear Friends, At the Reversible Destiny Foundation, the start of summer brings with it an air of celebration for Arakawa’s birthday on July 6th, when he would have turned 85. This year, it also heralds a change in our monthly newsletter. We started the Distraction Series at the beginning of the pandemic when many of us were adjusting to being at home full time. As things begin to open up at various rates, we think it is time to move onto a new monthly newsletter, Ambiguous Zones, that will continue to explore various themes related to Arakawa and Madeline Gins. For the inaugural AZ newsletter, we took summer and Arakawa as inspiration for a brief look at the ambiguous zone of the beach, as seen in Arakawa’s 1967 painting A Self-Portrait Near the Ocean. We hope this leaves you with something to think about as you take your own selfies on the beach this summer! Yours in the reversible destiny mode, Reversible Destiny Foundation and ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office Arakawa, A Self-Portrait Near the Ocean, 1967, oil, acrylic, graphite, art marker and collage on canvas, 90 x 63 in. Photo by Rob McKeever. Courtesy of Gagosian. As summer officially begins, Arakawa’s

Distraction Series 20: Virtual tour of the Ubiquitous site, Nagi‘s Ryoanji, Architectural Body

https://youtu.be/Yn2oRaXhS8w Dear Friends, For Distraction Series 20, we would like to invite you to a virtual experience of Arakawa+Gins’ first built work: Ubiquitous Site, Nagi’s Ryoanji, Architectural Body, one of the three permanent works at the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art (NagiMOCA) in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. This museum is the extraordinary outcome of a collaboration between Arata Isozaki, the architect, and the artists, Aiko Miyawaki, Kazuo Okazaki, and Arakawa+Gins, who were commissioned by Isozaki at the very beginning of this endeavor. It is of course important to experience the space and its effect on the body in person, so please try to think of this virtual tour as preparatory research for your next trip to Japan, or as an introduction to learning more about A+G’s architectural works. Leading this tour, you will find Momoyo Homma (Director of the Reversible Destiny Foundation and the Arakawa+Gins Tokyo office), along with Arakawa and Madeline. We leave you with an excerpt from A+G’s statement upon the museum’s opening, as it appears in the museum’s catalogue: To be prepared for events of one billion years from now, enter here. “Beginning”, “past”, “future”, “I”, and “you” are all words that have no place in this. They

Distraction Series 19: The friendship between Arakawa, Madeline Gins, and Ray Johnson

For Distraction Series 19, we were inspired to re-examine the friendship between Arakawa, Madeline Gins, and Ray Johnson after seeing Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP at David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery in New York. Curated by Jarrett Earnest, this thoughtful exhibition brings together a variety of works and materials from the Ray Johnson Estate. If you are in New York and have not yet seen it, you have until May 22nd! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this selection of items from our archive alongside pieces from the exhibition and the Ray Johnson Estate. Aside from some personal notes, we find evidence of the trio’s friendship exactly where we would expect to – within Ray Johnson’s mail art, collages, and other ephemera. From bunnies, to comic strips and coloring book pages, to stamps with quotes about mail art, to a page of repeated hand-stamped descriptions of his collage process, both Madeline and Arakawa received a number of very interesting mailings from Johnson’s New York Correspondence School (sometimes with different spellings of correspondence). Madeline was also mailed a photocopy of an article published in a Finnish magazine that featured a letter from Johnson printed in mirrored typed text, making

Distraction Series 18:Virtual tour of The Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro

https://youtu.be/tPQ_CLWKFOQ Dear Friends, For Distraction Series 18, we celebrate the arrival of spring with an invitation to virtually visit the Site of Reversible Destiny—Yoro, located within Yoro Park in the town of Yoro in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. The Site is a monumental landscape designed by Arakawa and Madeline Gins in 1995, with an additional vibrantly colored building, Reversible Destiny Office, completed within it in 1997. It consists of an expansive undulating terrain with a series of pavilions scattered amid various greeneries. This creates a gravity defying illusion and disorients the visitor’s perception of space, leading to a heightened sensitivity that helps them to see the world anew. Created especially with future visitors in mind, the presenter, Momoyo Homma (Director of Reversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office, who worked closely with Arakawa and Madeline Gins for many years) leads this illuminating tour of the Site’s highlights. The video was directed by Nobu Yamaoka, who has previously brought us an exploration of the artists’ philosophy in his documentary films about them. This virtual tour is perfect for those who wish to learn more about Yoro Park as well as Arakawa+Gins’s architecture and we hope that it tempts you to plan

Distraction Series 17: the Man Repellent, a perfume project developed by Madeline Gins around 2011

A few months ago, Reversible Destiny Foundation’s project archivist Kathryn Dennett came across a folder labeled, “Man Repellent Archive.” Kathryn was “instantly intrigued. Inside there were sticker labels and invoice forms from perfume bottle companies. What was this mysterious perfume? Why would Madeline be developing a ‘man repellent’ that ‘works paradoxically?’ And what does ‘working paradoxically’ even mean?” For Distraction Series 17, we present to you snapshots of the Man Repellent, a perfume project developed by Madeline Gins around 2011, as well as excerpts from a recorded conversation with Aviva Silverman, Madeline’s former assistant and main collaborator on the project. The Man Repellent was a perfume, originally meant to be part of a line of “repellents” including “woman” and “baby” versions, that would “paradoxically” attract the supposedly repelled category to the wearer. The “man” version was the only one ever designed. The process unfolded over the course of 4 or 5 months, the logo design developing from an antique cameo to the final collage of various athletic balls. Conceived of originally as a product to be sold in museum stores, it was never put into production, but the project illustrates the collaborative and iterative nature of Madeline’s creative process, particularly

Distraction Series 16: The friendship between Arakawa and the animation film director Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki and Arakawa at the Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka—In Memory of Helen Keller, photograph by Momoyo Homma, 2005 Dear Friends, As a part of a series in which we focus on archival materials revealing “friends of Arakawa and Gins” (tentative title), we are happy to share with you, in Distraction Series 16, a glimpse into the friendship between Arakawa and the animation film director Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki perhaps needs no introduction even to those who are not so keen on animated movies. Just think of the global hits like My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Spirited Away (2001). However, his friendship with Arakawa is not widely known. They developed kinship after Miyazaki visited the Site of Reversible Destiny—Yoro around late 1997 or early 1998. Thanks to this encounter, they began to appear together in public talk programs and they also frequently visited each other’s office to have private discussions. On many occasions, they became so engaged in their conversation that they both had to cancel their other appointments to continue talking. Seeing them converse with such enthusiasm was like watching two imaginative kids planning their ideal secret fort in their own world. Hayao Miyazaki at the Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka—In

Open online lecture by Lucy Ives

THE SADDEST THING IS THAT I HAVE HAD TO USE WORDS A MADELINE GINS READER Open online lecture by Lucy Ives,edited the book titled “The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader” will be held on January 30, 2021. If you would like to join it, please check below’s URL and subscribe it.https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Q6qLERjAR862CJ3lMxbvrw Outline:Open online lecture by Lucy IvesDate: Sunday, January 30, 2021Time: 10:00-12:00 JSTAdmission: freeLanguage: English *with Japanese interpretation

Distraction Series 15: Words from Don Byrd

For Distraction Series 15 we share with you words from a close friend of Madeline and Arakawa, poet – Don Byrd:   Madeline and Arakawa were the most generous of artists, forever looking for co-conspirators. I would get phone calls from Madeline. “Hi, are you well enough to talk? How are we not going to not to die?” To Not To Die, as in the title of one of their most important books. Sometimes I got packages of texts from them. They were signals to expect a call. Sometimes she would put me on hold to talk to Arakawa about what I was saying. They were in touch with many others. When they wanted to follow an idea, Madeline would call people out of the blue, promise to send their books, and hit them with questions. We can now see that their collaborative work from the Mechanism of Meaning to the last architectural work is of a piece. It is not an aesthetic or theoretical whole; it is an incomplete and incompletable project, not a work of art but a work of life, inevitably cut short. Madeline and Arakawa were masters. They filled their vision not with concepts or images

Season’s Greetings

Thank you for your continuous support of the Arakawa + Gins Tokyo office / Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka. We wish you all the very best and happy holidays! *We will be closed from December 29, 2020 through January 11, 2021. Arakawa+Gins Tokyo Office / Coordinologist, Inc.

Distraction Series 14: Letters

Dear Friends, For Distraction Series 14 we share with you a handful of mail from Arakawa and Madeline Gins’s archives to remind us of the significant role our postal service has in our larger architectural body. Arakawa and Madeline were embedded in a vibrant community of friends from all over the world and their correspondence reveals what a unique and playful relationship they had with many of those around them. In their book Making Dying Illegal (2006) and Arakawa’s painting Who Is It? No.2 (1970) we see examples of how this intimate letter format is used in their work. As Madeline would say, “Reversible Destiny will be achieved communally or it will not be achieved at all.” We have selected a small number of letters and cards primarily from the 1960’s and 1970’s to share with you today, including ones from A+G’s friends such as Kate Millet, Ray Johnson, their physical therapist, and a 12-year-old named Martine Rubin. As many of us prepare for the holiday season ahead and begin writing cards to family, friends and loved ones, hopefully something here might inspire you. Love, RRRRReversible Destiny Foundation and the ARAKAWA+GINS Tokyo Office P.S. If you have received any mail

Distraction Series 12: Helen Keller or Arakawa

Front cover of Madeline Gins’s Heren Kerā matawa Arakawa Shūsaku (Helen Keller or Arakawa). Translated by Momoko Watanabe. Tokyo: Shinshokan, 2010. In honor of Blindness Awareness Month, Distraction Series 12 focusses on Madeline Gins’s book Helen Keller or Arakawa (1994) and the influence that Helen Keller had on Arakawa and Gins’s architectural practice. While Helen Keller is an extremely well-known figure in both the United States and Japan, Gins’s in-depth meditation on Keller’s thought and experience goes well beyond the usual elementary school focus on Keller’s childhood and tutelage under Annie Sullivan. Gins incorporates direct quotes from Keller along with poetic imaginings of her experience of being both blind and deaf and employs these against a backdrop of Arakawa’s paintings in particular to probe the ways in which we experience the world as well as what it means to inhabit an architectural body. Her Socialist Smile (2020), a new documentary film on Helen Keller by filmmaker John Gianvito, was available to stream last week as part of the New York Film Festival. With its focus on Helen Keller’s political activism, it highlights Keller as an historical figure who is still very relevant, something Arakawa and Gins felt deeply. From the