Aki Sasamoto

Born 1980 in Yokohama, Japan
Lives and Works in Brooklyn, New York

Aki Sasamoto’s installations and performances explore the nuances and peculiarities of everyday life. She uses sculpture, movement, video, and sound to transform mundane actions into theatrical events. Strange Attractors consists of a careful arrangement of sculpturally altered, found objects that take on new roles and provide guidance for Sasamoto’s improvisational performances that take place within the installation. The performances demonstrate Sasamoto’s attempt to understand the mathematic structure of the Lorenz Attractor, a fractal structure that works in a dynamic system. For her performances, Sasamoto also includes additional objects related to her recent obsessions with, among other things, doughnuts, fortune-tellers, and hemorrhoids.


Read About the Artist

"Women's Work"
T Magazine/The New York Times (February 2010)

"Aki Sasamoto discusses her contribution to the Biennial"
T Magazine/The New York Times (February 2010)

"500 Words: Aki Sasamoto"
Artforum (July 2009)

"Art in Review; Momus with Aki Sasamoto"
The New York Times (May 2009)

"When Everyday Things Become Something Strange"
The New York Times (April 2009)

A woman stands on one leg facing away from the camera, with strings and long sticks of metal in front of her.
A woman stands on one leg facing away from the camera, with strings and long sticks of metal in front of her.

Aki Sasamoto, still from Secrets of My Mother’s Child, 2009. Performance and installation. Collection of the artist. Photograph by Arturo Vidich

Objects hanging in the middle of the air.
Objects hanging in the middle of the air.

Installation view of Strange Attractors, 2010 by Aki Sasamoto. 2010, the Whitney Biennial (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 25-May 30, 2010). Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.