Sun shines on Kenji Yanobe's children

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fa20111110a1.html


Bright kid: Kenji Yanobe's "Sun Child," dressed in a hazmat suit, looks into the distance from the garden of the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum in Tokyo's Minami Aoyama district. TARO OKAMOTO MEMORIAL MUSEUM

In 1971, when artist Kenji Yanobe was a child, he often played in the abandoned site of Expo '70, not far from his family home in Osaka. A year before, under the theme of "Progress and Harmony for Mankind," Japan's World Exposition had showcased a vision of the future that included an array of advanced technologies such as robots and nuclear power.


Figural collaboration: A lifesize model of Taro Okamoto stands alongside another of Kenji Yanobe in what was once Okamoto's living room. TARO OKAMOTO MEMORIAL MUSEUM

As the 6-year-old Yanobe wandered among futuristic displays in the process of being dismantled — which he would later call "Ruins of the Future" — he passed beneath Taro Okamoto's 70-meter-high "Tower of the Sun," the symbol of the Expo. It was an experience the artist never forgot, and it is no stretch to say that had the young Yanobe not stood before Okamoto's towering totem back then, he may never have become an artist.

Taro Okamoto would have turned 100 on Feb. 26, 2011, and in celebration of his centenary, several exhibitions have been held to honor the prolific career of this hugely influential artist. The last in the series is "Kenji Yanobe: Sun Child, Child of Taro" at the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo.

The first thing you notice as you approach the museum is a giant, cartoon-faced child dressed in a yellow and black hazmat suit rising from the museum grounds. Created specially for this exhibition, the 6.2-meter-tall statue of Yanobe's "Sun Child" stands proud, staring off into the distance. In one hand he holds his helmet, above the other hovers a neon sun, which as evening approaches, casts a yellow glow over the Okamoto sculptures in the garden below.