Paramodel
This exhibition will present Paramodel, an art collaborative established by two contemporary Japanese artists, Yasuhiko Hayashi (born 1971) and Yûsuke Nakano (born 1976), in Osaka in 2001.
Paramodel works in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, video, and photography, often combining pieces in site-specific installations that seek to construct a parallel world of “play” intersecting with the real world. For UMMA’s exhibition, Paramodel will create a new installation derived from their most famous series, paramodelic-graffiti. In a mesmerizing network of blue-colored model railroads that fill flat surfaces in and beyond the gallery, the installation will transgress the boundaries of space, media, and art production, collapsing the distinction between gallery and street; between two-dimensional drawing and three-dimensional object; and between creator and spectator. The exhibition will create an experience for visitors full of what the team calls “paradoxes.”
Though they’ve shown extensively in Asia and Europe over the past ten years, this marks Paramodel’s first solo exhibition of work in the United States.
Lead support for the exhibition Paramodel is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the President, Office of the Provost, and Center for Japanese Studies; the Japan Foundation; and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Additional generous support is provided by the University of Michigan Credit Union, the Herbert W. and Susan L. Johe Endowment, and Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning.