BOOK: Kohei Nawa-Aether, Sandwich and Pace Publishing

“Kohei Nawa: Aether” presents a survey of the multimedia artist’s new and recent works spanning sculpture, painting, and installation, on the occasion of Nawa’s first exhibition with Pace in New York, this book provides a close look at key works in the multimedia artist’s oeuvre from the past fifteen years. The book’s oversized format and full bleed images convey both the incredible detail and sweeping scope of his works, the products of his deep interest in perception and sensorial experiences. Through his multidisciplinary practice, Nawa explores scientific and digital phenomena, focusing on the perceptual possibilities of his works. The title of his latest exhibition has multiple associations: the air and sky, the universes beyond the Earth, and the Greek mythological deity Aether. Enactments of ethereality and weightlessness are central to the works in the presentation, which achieve these ends by way of their varied material makeups and sensory effects. Coursing through the exhibition is a rejection of binaries between human and non-human beings and living and non-living entities. Among the highlights of is Nawa’s new sculpture “Trans-Sacred Deer (p/gn_cloud)” (2022), which originated from 3D modeling system data and was constructed using traditional techniques and materials such as woodcarving, lacquer, and platinum leaf. The shinroku deer depicted in the work references the Kasuga Shinroku Shari Zushi sculpture, which has been an enduring source of inspiration for Nawa and is believed to have been created between Japan’s Kamakura period and Northern and Southern Dynasties period.-Dimitris Lempesis