Aki Sasamoto
XYZ
17.09.2026 – 17.01.2027
Upcoming Exhibition – shed
Aki Sasamoto: the artist
Aki Sasamoto (born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1980; currently lives and works in New York) operates at the intersection of performance, sculpture, installation, and video.
She creates environments and situations in which people and objects interact, exploring the relationship between body and space to engage audiences on multiple sensory levels.
Drawing from diverse disciplines such as dance, mathematics, social psychology, meteorology, and eco-behavioral sciences, her works—hybrid in both form and content—translate lived experiences and personal narratives into metaphorical imagery, evoking liminal moments and new narratives, suspended between logic and intuition.
Through unconventional interactions with everyday objects—often manipulating and distorting them—Sasamoto stages a tragicomic spectacle that challenges traditional modes of perception, and rewrites the possibilities and limitations of sculptural and performative language. Thus, the artist’s works become a grounding of the reality that surrounds her.
After leaving Japan to study in Wales and later in the United States, Sasamoto initially pursued mathematics before earning a Bachelor’s degree in dance at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and subsequently an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University’s School of the Arts in New York.
This experience of geographical and cultural displacement informs her work, which addresses psychological dimensions, the complexity of emotions and habits, interpersonal relationships, and the tensions that emerge in communication processes.
Having approached art through dance and theatrical performance, Sasamoto became fascinated by the improvisational nature of jazz, and developed an early interest in the sonic and gestural experiments of the 1950s and 1960s. Among her key references are composers such as John Cage (1912–1992), David Tudor (1926–1996), and, above all, Alvin Lucier (1931–2021).
The exhibition “XYZ” by Aki Sasamoto at Pirelli HangarBicocca
The exhibition “XYZ” marks the first institutional show dedicated to the Japanese artist in Europe. The title immediately suggests the exhibition’s layered nature, as it presents a selection of works spanning two decades of Sasamoto’s practice.
“XYZ” carries multiple meanings: as the final letters of the alphabet, when placed at the end of a list, they suggest possible continuations beyond an apparent ending; in the Cartesian system, they indicate the coordinates that define the three dimensions of space; in quantum physics, they designate variables used to describe the probability of a particle occupying a given point; finally, they are also the acronym for “eXamine Your Zipper,” a common American expression discreetly used to indicate an open zipper.
Conceived by Sasamoto specifically for Pirelli HangarBicocca, the exhibition unfolds as a dynamic sequence of installations, sculptures, videos, and performances that explore ideas of connection, the complexity of relationships, and the influence of societal norms and interpersonal interactions on the body and memory.
Spanning over twenty years of interdisciplinary experimentation, the show project emphasizes the artist’s ability to reconcile seemingly opposing elements—performance and sculpture, science and intuition, absurdity and discipline—in works that are simultaneously playful, rigorous, and deeply humane.
References to mathematics recur throughout the exhibition path in the form of graphs, diagrams, lines, and rotating mechanisms that connect the works, bringing together material and immaterial dimensions and creating a constant tension between measurable data and emotional experience.
While each work maintains its autonomy, the show creates connections between projects from different moments of Sasamoto’s career, forming an evolving system of meanings that invites the audience to reflect on the present and on the possible trajectories of contemporary life.
The artist has held solo exhibitions at numerous institutions, including
- Studio Voltaire, London (2026)
- MOT – Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2025)
- Para Site, Hong Kong (2024, 2016)
- Queens Museum, New York (2023)
- American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2023)
- Danspace Project, New York (2020)
- The Kitchen, New York (2017)
- SculptureCenter, New York (2016)
- Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York (2012).
Sasamoto has also participated in numerous international group exhibitions at institutions such as
- National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2024)
- San Jose Museum of Art (2024)
- Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento (2024)
- Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2023)
- Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2023)
- Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, South Korea (2022)
- Kunsthal Rotterdam (2021)
- Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori, Japan (2021)
- Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2016)
- High Line Art, New York (2014)
- Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2013)
In addition, the artist’s works and performances have been presented at numerous biennials, including
- Venice Biennale (2022)
- Aichi Triennale (2022)
- Busan Biennale (2022)
- Okayama Art Summit (2019)
- Ural Industrial Biennial (2019)
- Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016)
- Whitney Biennial (2010)
- Yokohama Triennale (2008)
In 2023, Aki Sasamoto was awarded the Calder Prize , and completed a residency at Atelier Calder in Saché, France in 2021. Aki Sasamoto is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Sculpture at Yale University’s School of Art.
Useful information
When will the exhibition open?
The exhibition will run from September 17, 2026 to January, 17, 2027. The museum is open Thursday to Sunday, from 10.30 AM to 8.30 PM.