SHINKICHI TAJIRI

PAPERWORKS

"Koans are a sort of riddles without answers. You have to react and you come up with some absurd or crazy answers and it releases you." - Shinkichi Tajiri
 

Tajiri mainly used the title Koan for reliefs made of paper pulp which he created in 1987 and 1988.

A striking series of reliefs comprises 19 Pre-Zen Indian Inscriptions, dating from 1987. Tajiri drew his inspiration from the book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, consisting of historical texts. Paul Reps complied the book in 1957. Tajiri's works in this series were made of sheets of hand-made paper, containing a raised knotted string. Tajiri wrote on the reliefs texts from the aforementioned book. In an interview on the occasion of Shinkichi Tajiri. Knots for Meditation, an exhibition of the paper reliefs, Tajiri said: "Koans are a sort of riddles without answers. You have to react and you come up with some absurd or crazy answers and it releases you."

text: H. Westgeest, Silent dynamism and oneness in multiformity, Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen, 1997

photo above: Paper and stainless steel scale-models of geometric knots, Baarlo 1995.