Keiichi Tanaami (July 1936 - August 2024) - “Bridges are places associated with tragic separations, as between a man and a woman who part after much agonizing, or where lovers throw themselves off the parapet in a double suicide due to heartache and desperation. In any case, the connection with death is very strong, and this is a distinctive characteristic of Japanese bridges.
My recent works that deal with bridges as their subject are inspired not only by the structural beauty of bridges, but also by their histories filled with mysterious anecdotes and legends. While the white path connecting the banks of the rivers in The White Path Between Two Rivers is not a bridge per se, it is recognized as a link between this world and the world of enlightenment (nirvana). This is a way of thinking that does not exist in Western culture. The profound and uncanny world that the bridge encompasses presents me with a complex and elusive sense of mystery.
If a bridge is a boundary between the secular and the sacred, separating this world and the world of the afterlife, it can also be a place of encounter. One wonders who sings the song that echoes mysteriously from the other side of the bridge. I would like to find out.
There is no end to my interest in the infinite darkness that quietly spreads out beneath the bridge, a mystical otherworldly place that is home to an unfathomable enigma”