Gate door and book door
The door that leads to the inside
Always waiting to be opened

Among the works that develop sculptures that respond to "books" with the relationship of "opening and closing" and "inside and outside" called "boxes," this is a different type of work that directly treats the book itself as a part of the work. The motif is "Anselm's Gate" that appears in "Iridescence" collected in "Märchen" by Hermann Hesse. The Shincho Bunko translated by Takahashi Kenji fits perfectly into the wooden sculpture without the slightest deviation.

The rough rock-like surface, carved and sanded from a block of wood with plywood glued together, recalls the rock wall with a narrow crack leading into the interior where the protagonist Anselm arrives at the end of the work, where the old man is waiting. In contrast to this, the gate has a neatly cut cross section like the edge of a book. The books, which are placed inside so as to blend in gently with the bare wood, are a wonderful sublimation of the gate that enters one's inner self and becomes one with everything, as depicted in Hesse's world.

Here is a sentence from the work that the author found most memorable.

Every phenomenon of the world is a metaphor, and every metaphor is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can enter into the interior of the world, where thou and I, day and night are all one.
--Iris (1917) by Hermann Hesse

The entire work is flesh-colored, and when you open the book, the spine is covered in iris-colored paper.

Text by Kenya Nakazawa

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