A figure with a plant for a head stands among potted plants and street trees. Yuichi Hirako’s HUMAN AND NATURE, now at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, brings together about 300 paintings, sculptures and installations to reconsider where people draw the line around plants they select, place and tend as “nature.” The exhibition runs through 18 October.
One figure, both plant and person
Hirako repeatedly depicts figures with human bodies and heads made of branches and leaves. Rather than showing a person looking at a plant, each body unsettles the division between the two. Trying to identify a species from the leaves matters less than tracing where plant ends and person begins.
The exhibition begins with potted plants at home, street trees and trees in parks. All feel like familiar greenery, yet people choose their positions, pruning, water and soil. Seen as nature that includes human management, an ordinary houseplant reveals a different kind of relationship.
Collectors choose not only a plant but also its pot, stand and background. Decisions about which face becomes the front and how high the leaves are seen help shape its appearance. The distance between figures and houseplants in Hirako’s work recalls how cultivation and display share the same room.
About 300 works across 1,200 square metres
The exhibition occupies the hall on the sixth floor of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya. According to the organiser, more than 1,200 square metres hold about 300 works, including new pieces. Paintings, sculptures and installations fill the room, while groups of mobiles reaching roughly 3.5 metres use the space above.
The current installation photograph shows a large plant-headed figure at the centre, with paintings and smaller three-dimensional works beyond it. Instead of stopping at a frontal view, move around the figure and notice how its distance from the paintings and the height of your gaze change.
Begin at the seam between branches, leaves and body. Then follow where pots and trees sit within the paintings. Finally look upward to the mobiles. Plant forms are rearranged at three levels: floor, wall and air.
In the park, trees enter a mirrored surface
The exhibition continues beyond the hall. Mirror Plant 01 remains in Hibiya Park through 18 October, reflecting nearby trees and sky across its mirrored plant form. Watching branches appear and disappear on the surface keeps the boundary between constructed object and living plant in motion.
A houseplant usually remains within reach. Street and park trees grow much larger, but people still determine where they are planted and how far their branches extend. The short walk from hall to park shows that the relationship continues even when the scale of management changes.
A second outdoor work, Sacred Tree 01, was shown in the Step Plaza only through 26 September. Visitors arriving now should not confuse the dates: pair the hall exhibition with Mirror Plant 01 in Hibiya Park.
Look at the relationship before naming the plant
There is no need to force the stylised foliage into the name of a real species. Instead, ask whether a plant is held in a pot, rooted in the ground or joined to a human body. Those positions reveal whether it is treated as a possession, scenery or a counterpart.
The same question can return home with you. After checking name, price and rarity, look again at why you chose a particular pot and which direction you made the front. Growing answers a plant’s needs, but it also gives that plant a position within a human life.
HUMAN AND NATURE runs through 18 October, open from 11:00 to 20:00 with last admission at 19:30, at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya Hall on the sixth floor. Include daylight in your visit to the outdoor work, as the angle of the sun and movement of surrounding trees alter its reflections.
The plant-headed figure belongs fully to neither nature nor humanity. Walking from the figures in the hall to the mirrored form in the park makes a potted plant or street tree feel less like passive greenery and more like a living counterpart with which people continually negotiate a place.