The Japanese collective teamLab will open two new spaces following the huge success of its Tokyo museum.
teamLab, The Way of the Sea, Transcending Space - Colors of Life, 2018. © teamLab.
Japanese art collective teamLab is planning two new permanent spaces, in Shanghai and Macao, following the enormous success of its first space in Tokyo. TeamLab Borderless Shanghai, located in the Huangpu District, is set to open on November 5th, and will feature around 50 artworks, including new creations by the collective. Highlights include a Forest of Lamps installation 1.5 times the size of the one in Tokyo, and an installation called Light Community, which will contain moving vehicles.
TeamLab founder Toshiyuki Inoko told The Art Newspaper:
We’re also testing a new work which really is borderless, in the sense of crossing over the physical border of Shanghai and Tokyo. Some of this massive work will move and grow out of the Shanghai space and at the same time enter partially into the Tokyo space, so really physically enmeshing international borders, and physical distance. Only with technology can this kind of work be possible.
The Macao space will open in January 2020 at the Venetian Macao resort, and will also contain new pieces. TeamLab calls the museum “body immersive,” and says it will “blur the boundaries between the human body and art,” according to a press release.
TeamLab was founded in 2001 and focuses on using digital technology to explore the connections between art, nature, and science. The team of artists, programmers, and engineers has shown internationally and opened a permanent museum in the Mori Building in Tokyo. The space was the most visited single-artist museum in 2018, according to TAN, beating out institutions devoted to more blue-chip artists like the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Over 2.3 million people visited teamLab’s Tokyo space last year, from more than 160 countries.
