The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) Catalogue

Artists The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 130 Citadel (details) 2021 Mixed media / Dimensions variable / Commissioned for APT10 / Courtesy: The artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney / This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and Artspace, Sydney / Photographs: Penelope Clay Koji Ryui is known for metamorphosing humble materials into texturally delicate and materially wondrous sculptures and installations. Commissioned for APT10, Citadel 2021 converts a 17 metre wide and 7 metre high gallery wall into a vertical landscape of assemblages made from household items and wood-shop detritus. The installation rewards close viewing; bringing into focus formal juxtapositions and changes in texture, light and matter. Although Ryui incorporates a plethora of found objects in this installation, it is dominated by sand, wood, metal and glass. By covering wood and repurposed articles in sand, the artist generates the appearance of discrete forms emerging from a larger mass, like a sandcastle along the beach. Some of the materials are chosen to draw attention to the transformation of matter: sand grains fused by heat to create glass; a clear surface turned cloudy by sandblasting. Rather than ‘making’ an artwork, Ryui describes his role as teasing out the material possibilities inherent in the objects that he accumulates. Due to the installation’s restrained palette, its texture takes on a heightened role. Shredded layers of manufactured board contrast with the smooth, powder-coated wire stand. This sensitivity to the feel of matter mirrors architect Robin Gibson’s approach to the design of the Queensland Art Gallery, opened in 1982. While Gibson used a limited set of material finishes, each one had unique qualities. The colours and flecks of the stones within the building’s concrete aggregate, and the natural inconsistencies in the ancient limestone used in the modernist-style travertine tiles soften the strict geometry of its brutalist architecture. Equally, the distilled materials in Citadel temper the complexity of its overall configuration while providing a visceral viewing experience. Yet their difference in approach is stark: Gibson produced heroic architecture while Ryui brings a humorous installation to life. Clusters of objects in Citadel are balanced precariously and littered across the wall’s expanse. While abstract compositions are predominant, recognisable forms arise, including ceramic figurines, wire lampshades, scalloped dessert bowls, disposable coffee cups and champagne flutes. Ryui animates these nostalgic found objects, ensuring that this poetically opaque installation is also familiar and delightful. Ryui questions the pretensions of rarefied museum objects by creating art from everyday items and incorporating a sense of play. Groupings of objects are shaped in his studio and then interchanged, adapted and transformed during their installation in the gallery. This process and the extensive use of sand brings to mind sand play, used in therapy to help patients describe circumstances and envision psychological resolutions through the non-verbal means of shaping miniature worlds. In this sense, and further bolstered by its title, Ryui’s artwork can be read as a lively imagining of possible cities. In his practice, architecture is set free from its practical restraints, and instead dwells in spontaneity. Citadel sits at the threshold between multiple rooms, with visitors approaching and passing the work from various sides as they move through the gallery. This awareness of liminal space is echoed within the installation: while there are numerous sculptures of various sizes, the voids between them are as much a part of the installation as the objects themselves. More than just evoking the idea of in-between spaces, Ryui creates a sense of nebulous time. He does this by summoning the moments at dusk and dawn when the illumination of streetlights melds with natural light. This can be seen in Citadel when light emanating from globes in the artwork intermingles with the gallery lighting and daylight streaming in from the adjacent space. The indiscernibility between the artificial and the natural could also be seen as a visual metaphor for the moment when dreams and memories become hard to distinguish from reality. In Citadel , Ryui revels in these points of indeterminacy as moments of potentiality. Ellie Buttrose Koji Ryui Born 1976, Kyoto, Japan Lives and works in Sydney, Australia