Image: Hudson River Museum, Yonkers
The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers opened ‘Kengo Kito: Unity on the Hudson’ on June 16, 2023, presenting a site-specific installation by Japanese artist Kengo Kito built from more than 2,100 colorful hula hoops. The work was conceived for the museum’s new West Wing galleries and remained on view through September 24, 2023.
According to the museum, Kito is known for conceptual installations that repurpose everyday objects and connect contemporary materials with ideas rooted in Japanese philosophy, culture and art. For this project, he used the hula hoop as both material and symbol, drawing on the resonance of the circle in Zen Buddhist thought. The exhibition description links the circle, or ensō, to infinity, the cycles of life, cooperation and togetherness, while also emphasizing its openness as a form that invites reflection.
The installation was positioned as a large-scale, immersive environment. Visitors were invited to walk around and under intersecting multicolored circles, with curving lines created by deconstructed and reconnected hoops flowing through the galleries “like water,” in the museum’s phrasing. The exhibition text says the work was intended as a metaphor for human bonds and for a larger relationship with nature.
‘Unity on the Hudson’ was also described by the museum as the inaugural exhibition of the West Wing galleries, a transformed space that includes a cantilevered glass overlook with panoramic views of the Hudson River and the Palisades. That setting tied the installation to the landscape the museum overlooks, and the artist’s project explicitly addressed community and collective action around the river ecosystem.
The museum said Kito’s work was offered in English, Japanese and Spanish, and included an interactive area where visitors could contribute personal stories about interconnectedness and unity. In the exhibition text, Kito said that “the process of transformation of consciousness through connection” is crucial to improving conditions around the river, and that environmental issues are the responsibility of the community as a whole rather than any single person.
Kito, born in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, in 1977, received a BFA from Nagoya University of Fine Arts and Music in 2001 and completed postgraduate studies at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts and Music in 2003. He is currently Associate Professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design, according to the museum. The Hudson River Museum noted that the exhibition marked a return to New York for the artist after a residency and show at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University in 2009, and that it was the first time one of his hula hoop environments had been exhibited on the East Coast.
The exhibition was organized by the Hudson River Museum and received significant support from the New York State Senate and Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, with additional backing from the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation, the City of Yonkers and the County of Westchester.
