Carl Andre, Marcel Broodthaers, Maria Eichhorn, Ryan Gander, Liam Gillick, Pierre Huyghe, On Kawara, and Lawrence Weiner「Instructions and Suggestions」

For its first exhibition of 2025, TARO NASU is pleased to present a group exhibition titled Instructions and Suggestions.

In contemporary art, even in the absence of a material object, the discourse surrounding a work can itself be recognized as the artwork. This type of art, often classified as conceptual art, centers on instructions written by the artist regarding what constitutes the elements of the work and how the completed piece should be exhibited. Collectors purchase the “rights” to execute these instructions, as articulated by the artist. Underpinning this practice is the conceptualist notion that the intention and ideas embedded in a work are as significant as, if not more important than, its technical or material components. This ideology, fundamental to contemporary art, has its roots in Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain and has since evolved into diverse expressions that challenge and provoke the viewer’s thinking.

In Instructions and Suggestions, the exhibition will feature instruction-based works alongside the actual artworks by artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, Lawrence Weiner, On Kawara, Pierre Huyghe, Maria Eichhorn, Liam Gillick, and Ryan Gander. Highlights include Weiner’s renowned The Declaration of Intent, Kawara’s Pure Consciousness project, which involves displaying his Today (Date Painting) series in a kindergarten classroom, Huyghe’s collaborative projects between spiders and humans, and Gillick’s conceptual works infused with British humor. These experimental pieces expand the boundaries of art and encourage a liberation of perception.

Creation stems from imagination, and in turn, creation activates the imagination of its audience. The artist’s instructions act as a switch for this intellectual engagement. They are not merely directives on how to construct a work as an object but also serve as a direct inquiry into how we think about and comprehend the work and its process of realization. These instructions, simultaneously prescriptive and suggestive, invite viewers to experience a thought-provoking simulation of dialogue with the artist about the works yet to be created. Through this exhibition, we hope you will savor this stimulating encounter.