Zon Sakai + TIAR / Artist
(Installation / Performance).
Zon Sakai currently lives in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. He started his artistic activities while working as a typical businessperson from the boomer generation. Since 1996, Sakai began exhibiting his large-sized rubber-tube sculpture at museums and galleries. Sakai then started Heavy Duty street performance by visiting various places while wearing his rubber-tube sculpture. He has done his performance domestically at National Diet Building, Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome, and areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, as well as internationally at international art festival sites in Korea, the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Azerbaijan, Benin, and New Zealand. In 2020, Sakai founded Tanushimaru Institute for Art Research (TIAR), starting collaborative artistic production with his partner, Kaori Sakai under the name of [Zon Sakai + TIAR].
Zon Sakai + TIAR engages in creative expression from diverse perspectives, including generation/age, the body, business, environmental issues, and the everyday lives of people. Focusing on the theme of well-being through creativity and self-expression — qualities everyone possesses —Zon Sakai + TIAR has recently expanded its activities beyond the realm of fine art to include lectures for business professionals combined with hands-on art workshops, as well as experiential projects at schools and children’s centers.
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1971 Graduated from Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan
1948 Born in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan
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2021 Reflux Art Syndrome, Space 31, Kobe, Japan
2014 Senile Art Syndrome, Wald Art Studio, Fukuoka, Japan
2011 Radioactive Heavy Duty, Wald Art Studio, Fukuoka, Japan
2008 Heavy Duty 2000-2007, Former 130 Bank Gallery, Kitakyushu, Japan
2005 LIFE, Modern Art Bank Wald, Fukuoka, Japan
2004 JUSTICE, Modern Art Bank Wald, Fukuoka, Japan
2001 Paroxysmal Art Syndrome—Boomer’s Crisis, Modern Art Bank Wald, Fukuoka, Japan
1999 Increasing Entropy—My Insides and Outsides—, Kuga Memorial Museum, Kasuya, Japan
1998 Increasing Entropy, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
1997 Z・Sakai Entropy, Modern Art Bank Wald, Fukuoka, Japan
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2026 Human, What Dialogue…?, Open Doors, Eymoutiers, France
2025 Study:Osaka Kansai International Art Festival 2025, Osaka, Japan
2025 Art venture ehime fes 2025 (Art venture ehime [Ehime Prefecture x Tokyo University of the Arts], Matsuyama, Japan
2024 International Recycling Art Exhibition, Gachi Art Movement, Busan, Korea
2023 ATAMI ART GRANT -Meguru-Voyage ATAMI, Atami Artist Vollage, Atami, Japan
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2014 Moving Triennial made in Busan 2014, Busan, Korea
2013 The Second International "From Waste to Art" Exhibition, Baku, Azerbaijan
2012 Biennale Regard Benin 2012: Inventing the World : The Artist as Citizen, Cotonou/Porto-Novo, Benin
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2025 Art venture ehime fes 2025, Matsuyama, Japan
2023 Atami Artist Village, Atami, Japan
2022 Micro Art Workation 2022, Mishima, Japan
2009 Local to Local, Bordeaux, France
2004 Flux Factory, New York, USA
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2023 Atami Art Grant, PROJECT ATAMI, Atami, Japan
2011 Open Call for Art Project Ideas 2011, Hiroshima City Contemporary Art Museum, Hiroshima, Japan
2001 The 4th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art, Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, Japan
1998 Chugoku Shimbun Award, PARCO ART PROJECTS, Hiroshima, Japan
1996 Kumamoto Broadcasting Co. Ltd. Award, Kumamoto, Japan
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2025 “What Is Your Heavy Duty?”, workshop, Children’s Centers, Matsuyama, Japan
2025 “Heavy Duty,” radio show, Ebisu FM, Saga, Japan
2024 “An Encouragement of Paroxysmal Art Syndrome,” lecture and workshop, Cyber University, Fukuoka, Japan
2024 “An Encouragement of Paroxysmal Art Syndrome,” lecture, workshop and exhibition, PMI Japan Forum 2024 “Future of Work,” TKP Garden City Premium Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan
2024 “Zon Sakai Artist Talk,” talk and workshop, Skylight Consulting, Tokyo, Japan
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2023- Artist in residency program partnership, Busan Cultural Foundation, Busan, Korea
2021 Reflux Art Syndrome Zon Sakai Works 1997-2021, publishing, Tanushimaru Institute for Art Research, Fukuoka, Japan
