人形町という、人形と商いの記憶が折り重なる街の情景から着想を得て制作。人形町は、江戸以来の町人文化の気配を今に残しながら、商いと往来のなかで育まれてきた土地である。そこには、人形という作られた存在へのまなざしと、客を迎え入れる都市の身振りとが静かに重なっている。
招き猫は、商売繁盛や千客万来を象徴する縁起物として広く親しまれてきた。本作ではその招き猫を、単なる愛玩の像ではなく、からくり仕掛けを内に宿した存在として捉え直した。客を招くために繰り返されるその動作は、商いの場に息づく「迎える」という身振りを象徴している。
本作では、招き猫の像に、人形町の持つ商いや見世物の気配と、現代の都市に流通するキャラクターの視覚性を重ねた。縁起と欲望、過去と現在、像と動作。その境界に生じる裂け目を通して、街に潜む「招く」という身振りがこちら側へにじみ出す瞬間を描いている。
This work was inspired by the atmosphere of Ningyocho, a district where memories of dolls and commerce overlap.
Since the Edo period, Ningyocho has preserved traces of merchant culture while developing as a place shaped by trade and the movement of people. Within this setting, the gaze directed toward dolls as crafted beings quietly intersects with the urban gesture of welcoming customers.
The maneki-neko, or beckoning cat, has long been familiar as a lucky charm symbolizing prosperous business and the arrival of many customers. In this work, the beckoning cat is reconsidered not merely as an object of affection, but as a being that contains a mechanical, karakuri-like mechanism within itself. Its repeated gesture of inviting customers symbolizes the act of “welcoming” that lives within spaces of commerce.
In this work, the image of the beckoning cat is layered with the atmosphere of commerce and spectacle associated with Ningyocho, as well as the visual language of characters circulating through contemporary cities. Good fortune and desire, past and present, image and movement. Through the fissures that emerge along these boundaries, the work depicts the moment when the gesture of “beckoning” hidden within the city begins to seep toward us.
奥山 鼓太郎KOTARO Okuyama
渡辺佑基Yuuki Watanabe
渡辺佑基Yuuki Watanabe
渡辺佑基Yuuki Watanabe
渡辺佑基Yuuki Watanabe
三塚新司Shinji Mitsuzuka
渡辺佑基Yuuki Watanabe
奥山 鼓太郎KOTARO Okuyama
三塚新司Shinji Mitsuzuka
