Tatzu Nishi is an internationally exhibited installation artist. He is known for transforming historical monuments by surrounding the statue or building with domestic spaces including functioning hotels.
In Ghent he built a hotel around a historic clock tower, while in Singapore he built a bedroom around a massive statue of a Merlion. Nishi’s work is delightfully accessible on one level who and on another, it offers a deft bit of cultural commentary: The artist says his work “addresses the privatization of public spaces,” by turning public monuments into “decorative items of the private space.” It’s a natural fit in New York, where he built a hotel around the Columbus statue.
Nishi has built his fabricated hotels and apartments around historical monuments in Europe, Australia, Singapore and most recently in Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City: a penthouse apartment surrounding Gaetano Russo’s statue of Christopher Columbus. Discovering Columbus was his first project to have been executed in the United States.
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