A triptych of images showing art and architecture: a traditional Asian ink painting of bamboo stalks, a modern geometric sculpture with water flowing from it, and a gold-hued, hexagon-shaped chandelier with the text "S.J.I.M.A San Juan Islands Museum of Art."

Tsutakawa: Generations

A Flow of Water, Form, and Light

San Juan Islands Museum of Art

Friday Harbor

2024

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art booked a retrospective exhibition of works by George and Gerard Tsutakawa, beloved northwest sculptors with public works throughout the region that hundred of thousands of people interact with on a daily basis. Both have had solo and joint exhibitions at almost all the regional museums, with catalogs and publications.

The challenges were to differentiate the exhibition, connect the remote museum exhibition with the many public works throughout Western Washington, raise the regional profile of the museum as a whole, and compel visitors to make the 2 1/2 hour journey from Seattle to visit the museum in person.

  1. Differentiate from previous retrospectives by adding Kenzan, the grandson: Generations. Now there is a forward looking aspect of the exhibition. Identify unifying thematic concepts across all three artists’ work: the flow of water, form, and light.

  2. Create video assets that can be shown in the museum at full length and pushed out via social media in short form to tell the story.

  3. Conceptually connect the remote island museum to public art works in the Seattle region via an app that extends the exhibition throughout western Washington with the museum as the hub. The app was a guide to finding and visiting regional works with video and web based assets to enhance the in person experience.

  4. Run a comprehensive campaign of social media, direct mail, radio, outdoor, and earned media.

  5. Negotiate a corporate sponsorship (Windermere) for the exhibition with shared values of community and place to amplify resources and reach.

Impact: 60% increase in museum attendance over last year’s season with 80% increase in out-of-county visitors.

  • Exhibition Card Front

  • Exhibition Card Back

  • Webpage: How to Mindfully View a Public Artwork

  • Earned media, San Juan Islands Journal

  • Instagram and Facebook ad buy for each one minute video reached a total of 350k accounts between Olympia and Vancouver, BC

  • Created an original app for iPhone and Play with a map to explore 45 outdoor sculptures in the region. Points are collected by visiting sites. Highest point collector received a signed print by George Tsutakawa.

Press Release—June 5, 2024

San Juan Islands Museum of Art announces its summer exhibition, Tsutakawa: Generations--A Flow of Water, Form, and Light.


Featuring the work of George Tsutakawa, Gerard Tsutakawa, and Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn 

 

June 13 through September 16, 2024


Every day, thousands of people interact with artworks by a Tsutakawa, one of the most prolific and influential artist families in the Pacific Northwest. Come explore the iconic and interconnected work of George Tsutakawa, Gerard Tsutakawa, and Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn. 

 

From public fountains, sculptures, and lighting displays to intimate pieces in private settings, the works of these three artists evoke harmony, movement, and presence with unifying themes of water, form, and light. 

 

George, the father, was a pioneer in the Northwest arts with global influence, Gerard, the son, first apprenticed with his father and went on to develop his own unique sculptural language, and Kenzan, the grandson, is exploring new ways of transforming space through sculptural form and light. This is the first time all three artists have been featured in the same exhibition. 

 

Mayumi Tsutakawa, George’s daughter shared, “George discovered the Obos form in the Himalayas and adapted it into his sculpture, opening it up in his first fountain into an expression of gratitude and joy for the flow of water in space.” Sixty-four years later, this fountain continues to engage the public outside the Rem Koolhaas remodel of the Seattle Public Library. George is one of the most prolific public art sculptors in the region with more than 75 large scale bronze sculptures and fountains in public spaces.

 

Gerard describes his work, “My process leads to form. Each of my sculptures are meticulously crafted by hand. Through daily engagement with my tools and materials, new forms emerge with an energy that is uniquely my own.” Gerard’s Tonbi Fountain is the centerpiece of the plaza outside Amazon’s headquarters in downtown Seattle. Other public works include The Mitt at T-Mobile Park and SeaWave at Climate Pledge Arena.

 

Kenzan is carrying the family legacy into the next generation, using new lighting technologies and materials to create works that are powerfully minimalist in form and actively engage the viewer and the space. Kenzan says, “Light flows like water but we really don’t understand it yet. I use new technologies to explore that flow, in this case, the reflections of light off of the static form of a cresting wave.”

Images, from left:


George Tsutakawa, Uplift, Sumi Ink on Paper, No record of date 

Gerard Tsutakawa, TONBI Fountain, Bronze, 2019 

Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn, Coronal Ejection, SLS Printed Nylon, Composition Gold Leaf, Electronics Package, 2017 

 

Location: 540 Spring Street, Friday Harbor, WA 98250.
Presenting Sponsor: Windermere Real Estate
Show Sponsor: Uwajimaya Asian Market
In-Kind Sponsors: Browne’s Home Center, Printonyx, and Harbor Rental