Date: May 13, 2017
Time: 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM (admission starts at 4:00 PM)
Venue: Lobby of Colorful International Building｜No.1, Jihu Road, Neihu District, Taipei, Taiwan

Founded in the heart of Tokyo in 1967, Whitestone Gallery has been a pioneer gallery in Japanese modern and contemporary art scene. Followed by the two operation spaces established in Hong Kong in 2015, Taipei space was officially opened in April, 2017. The Chairman of Whitestone, Yukio Shiraishi especially consigned the design project to international acclaimed architect, Kengo Kuma; it became first gallery project. For such reason, Whitestone Gallery Taipei invites Kengo Kuma to hold the talk “Beyond the Convergence: The Interactive Relation between Architecture and Contemporary Art” in Taipei on the day May 13th to share his viewpoint of the gallery as multifaceted function in the world of art and its influence on his creative ideas.

Kengo Kuma once refers to this collaborative project: “I tried to make something neither architecture nor an interior. Commonly, building is handled by the architect and interior is by the interior designer in the finished structure. But this gallery is neither. Architecture and interior are fused inseparably” By emphasizing structural ambiguity (intentional and casual), the architect creates “a state of suspension”, suitable for contemporary art.

Among co-projects of Whitestone and Kengo Kuma, includes the “Wild Birds’ Forest Villa” (Karuizawa, Japan), completed in 2016. Starting with architectural engagement, Whitestone Gallery will continue to host interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange project to turn the gallery space into an experimental venue, in the hope to stimulate creativities and possibilities for the contemporary cultural environment.