KAZ SHIRANE

Kaz Shirane — Masakazu Shirane — came to art through architecture. Trained as an architect, he worked in practices in Tokyo, London and Shanghai, and designed the Top Deck of Tokyo Tower before turning to spatial art.

His best-known works are inhabitable kaleidoscopes. Light Origami, built from several hundred mirrored panels assembled in an origami-like geometry, invites visitors to step inside a structure that reflects and multiplies them from every angle. The viewer is not looking at the piece; the viewer is the piece’s subject matter.

The mirror, in his hands, is an instrument of enquiry rather than spectacle. What the work returns is a version of the self that is fragmented, multiplied and unfamiliar — a proposition about perception as much as an experience of light.

His installations have been shown in Japan, the United States, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Gulf, and have been widely recognised by international design awards. He was presented in Paris in Blooming of a Heritage at Sato Gallery in April 2025.