Alan Sonfist "Echoes of a Vanishing World" @ Yumiko Chiba Associates
Alan Sonfist presents his first Japan solo show, featuring his series of endangered species works.Summary
Yumiko Chiba Associates presents "Echoes of a Vanishing World," the first solo exhibition in Japan by Alan Sonfist, a pioneer of land art based in New York. The exhibition runs from October 17 to December 5, 2026, and is the gallery's first show after relocating from Roppongi to Higashi-Nihonbashi. Born in New York in 1946, Sonfist has spent over half a century expanding art into ecological and environmental territory, most notably with "Time Landscape" (1965–present), which recreates Manhattan's lost forest with native plants. He participated in the 1976 Venice Biennale and Documenta 6 in 1977, and has held multiple solo shows at Leo Castelli Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery. The current exhibition introduces his "Echoes of a Vanishing World" series, begun in the 2000s, in which the silhouettes of endangered animals and plants are collaged with period art, culture and the landscapes of the places where they lived. Sonfist has said he seeks to "take back" rather than modify the land, presenting nature as a living archive rather than something separate from the human world. The gallery also launches "VERBS," a new annual series with guest curators organized around a single verb, with cultural researcher Hiroki Yamamoto as conceiver and first guest curator. The "Roppongi Ars Curia" program continues as "Higashi-Nihonbashi Ars Curia," along with publishing activities including the research journal "Critical Archive."
(Source：ART iT)