"I was told that my father and mother met at a café
Cafes are places of mystery
A space where relationships melt together"
- Rei Sato
Cafés have always been adopted by artists as their unofficial workplace where friendships, conversations and ideas are shared and developed. At 19, Picasso held his first exhibition at the Café Els Quatre Gats in Barcelona and the Dadaists drew up their manifestos in Cabaret Voltaire, a tiny café in the Spiegelgasse district of Zurich in 1916. Through time, the quaint coffee house and the power of caffeine have fuelled some of the most remarkable meeting of minds.
Japanese artist Rei Sato's site-specific installation "No Need For Forever" at Third Floor aims to recreate her family run café, Senzai Midori in Tokyo. Consisting of original photographs, paintings and objects bearing the artist's child-like approach and quasi-magical touch, Sato hopes to create an atmosphere where people can be themselves and have a truly memorable experience. The seemingly naïve and charming setting aims to convey an ethereal and cute subtext to normal surroundings. For the opening of the exhibition, Sato will present a very personal performance piece of serving coffee to guests.
Rei Sato's works possess a distinctive playful style, which combine elements of kawaii (Japanese pop culture moniker for cuteness) bold compositions and daring use of colour. She draws and paints images of smiling children, butterflies or furry animals onto innocuous photos depicting everyday life such as a parked car, grassy plain or a cracked sidewalk. Sato communicates a form of escapism by removing the everyday through these series of manipulations. Sato had three major solo exhibitions in the key art capitals of the world; the most recent was at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, 2008.
