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Koji Ryui / Japan/Australia b.1976 / Citadel (detail, install view) 2021 / Mixed media / Installed dimensions variable / 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 / Courtesy: Koji Ryui and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney / Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA / © Koji Ryui
Koji RyuiCitadel 2021
Not Currently on Display
Koji Ryui’s Citadel converts a white wall into a landscape of delicately balanced assemblages made from translucent and frosted glass, wood off-cuts, wire articles and sand-covered objects. Due to the installation’s restrained palette, texture takes on a heightened role where, for example, shredded layers of manufactured board contrast with the smooth, powder-coated surface of a wire stand.
The artist finely crafts the appearance of discrete forms emerging from a larger mass, like a sandcastle along the beach. Recognisable forms — ceramic figurines, wire lampshades, scalloped dessert bowls, disposable coffee cups and champagne flutes — arise from the abstract compositions.
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 indeterminate 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 both gallery lighting and daylight streaming in from the adjacent space. In Citadel, Ryui revels in the potentiality of these points of uncertainty.
Koji Ryui is known for transforming found objects into delicate sculptures and intricate installations. He questions the pretensions of rarefied museum objects by creating art from everyday items and incorporating a sense of play. His practice explores the potential of the everyday, using simple gestures and compositions to challenge and play with the audience’s perspective of objects.
Ryui’s installations are often produced through intuitive arrangements. Rather than ‘making’ an artwork, Ryui describes his role as teasing out the material possibilities inherent in the objects that he accumulates.