Yanai wrote this about the work: In it, I portray twenty significant figures of the twentieth century, giving them a weathered appearance to suggest they have been excavated from twentieth century stratum at some distant period in the future. It was my hope that memories of life would paradoxically be rekindled from the suggestion of death. With modern society dispensing information at the current speed, I fear that these and other important figures and objects will fade from our memories if we do not find a way to preserve them. We were fortunate to host Yanai at the Center for an informal slide lecture about his works. Although the exhibit at SOFA spoke loudly, most of the work he showed us was far softer and more introspective.  Yanai was born in 1953 in Yamaguchi, Japan. He was trained as a printmaker at Sokei Academy of Fine Arts in 1977. The following year he studied under Stanley W. Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris. In 1980, he returned to Japan to begin his work as a printmaker. Many of his concepts evoked contemplative questions that eventually took on organic shapes in a simple, ongoing series of prints created over five years.  In 1985 he began experimenting with sumi ink and string. This introduced him to paper fibers and he became intrigued with the possibilities of fiber art. He spent a year learning how to make paper, then became interested in the fiber itself and was curious to see how he could manipulate it. He began working concurrently with printing and fiber (hemp and kozo) and started making small two-dimensional pieces that eventually led to large installations. During this period, Yanai received the Nojima prize in the Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan (1985), "Best Work" in the eighteenth Tokyo Biennale (1990), and the Grand Prix for Paper Works of Contemporary Art, in Imadate (1990). Yanai began his lecture at the Center with a brief history of his work but was clearly most excited about his recent pieces. He included slides of some of his early prints. It was evident that his artwork has always had an organic feel, with soft, gentle, sensual lines. He strives to depict the raw essence of things and of life, both as it exists now and as it once existed. His Black Flower series of drawings reflect this notion of the passage of time. In his work of the last dozen years, he wishes to produce paper not as we know it but, with the use of water, to return fiber to its original state. He suggests this in the titles of some of his series, such as Tree and Rhizome. Representative of his later work with fiber, Stone Nest reflected a sense of ethereal serenity. Stone Nest was a living installation, made for the Art Festival in Hakushu, a colorful international event featuring avant-garde performances, musicians, dancers, and artists. Yanai installed the work in 1991 and photographed it at various stages of its natural decay. The final photograph was taken in 1996. Within two months following the opening, ten thousand people had visited the installation. Yanai assembled Stone Nest in a shady wooded area, with approximately three-dozen huge stones wrapped in hemp. He built up a nest around each stone. As photographed, the installation was reminiscent of a prehistoric dinosaur's nest, delicately placed in a garden of foliage. For a moment, the installation seemed quite fragile because of the gentle wisps of fiber that cascaded down the sides of the nests. But knowing the material used and the sheer nature of hemp suggested that the strength of the fiber would withstand years of exposure to nature and the elements.  Genius Loci–Embryo, also created for the Art Festival in 1991, carried the same qualities of scale and texture. Installed indoors, the embryos referred to in the title, once again egg-like, were nestled closely together, as if incubating one another to spring forth life. The embryos sit grouped, yet individually resting in a kind of fibrous bowl. They figuratively reflect the fragility of the beginnings of life but, again, the strong fiber suggests otherwise. These beautifully crafted installations were more than just a visualization of life cycles; the artwork embodies meaning beyond the physical material that it is made of. In the early 1990s Yanai suffered briefly from an eye disease that gave him, in his words, "a glimpse into the world of the unconscious, which I had never before experienced. I think what I saw was half reality and half hallucination." Up to that point, he had imagined that being blind would mean living in total darkness, but he discovered otherwise:  There seemed to be a parching, stark-white afterimage, imprinted on my world by a brilliant light. I knew it was sunlight immediately. The eyes of a prehistoric living creature, crawling ashore after one hundred million years of twisting and turning in the sea, must have been shocked in the same way. We usually think we are in control of our eyes, but it seems that our eyes and flesh structurally belong to a dimension far from our experiential time, and preserve a variety of information that has been transmitted beyond space and time. I think that part of this information may come back as a memory from the unconscious world at certain moments. This response could be considered as occurring in the system of a lineage; namely within an ecosystem or a perspective based on the theory of evolution after the origin of life, not only limited to the area of the eyes.
He continues:
Assuming that creation gives form to something invisible, a work of art canbe viewed in the same way as an eye, which memorizes perceptions in life. Awork is never a symbol of immortality. Its raison d'être is to represent aconnection between matter and life that forms in the environment,developing and changing as time goes on, and then ends.
 Certainly in keeping with natural elements as a subject, another work, Waterway, suggests a stream, waves lapping against each other, yet the sharp centerline can be a metaphor for a strong divide between water’s calm and its turbulence. The piece entices the viewer to wade through the gently flowing water or walk with trepidation because of the power that water can wield. This image can also be a reflection of the properties of water in relation to its importance: humans need it to live, the earth drinks it, and we are cleansed by it. Yanai’s work clearly echoes his stated philosophy: “…my aim is not to reproduce physically what has been lost, but to restore the hidden memory and meaning of it.” A pattern becomes evident in Yanai's work and his voice resonates deeply. Through questioning—What is life, both in itself and in relation to death? How do life's memories manifest themselves? What form does a memory take?—comes a broader sense of his work, beyond just an understanding of the techniques that he experimented with. Yanai feels that “all things consist of a material and a spiritual realm. Material existence erodes and gradually fades away, while the spiritual existence remains as a memory or image.” His interpretations of life's profound questions are first conceptualized on the page, later as sculpture. His belief that everything has a life of its own manifests itself in his beautiful indoor and outdoor installations.  Tsuguo Yanai is represented by Snyderman-Works Gallery in Philadelphia. To contact him by e-mail, write to dneptune@awa.or.jp, or visit the artist's website: http://yanai.itgo.com/