Iceman in Reality Park, 1995–2019

Iceman in Reality Park was first created for the 1995 group exhibition Ripple Across the Water—curated by Jan Hoet—which turned Aoyama city center, Japan into an outdoor art gallery. Every day just before lunch, in the private park of the Kirin Brewery Company in Minami Aoyama where employees gathered to eat, a refrigerated truck delivered an ice sculpture of a snowman. Every day the sculpture melted and was replaced the next day.

The work reappears twenty-five years later. The ice sculpture of a snowman is displayed on a plinth and melts over the course of a few days. It leaves behind the stones that were once embedded in the ice and the tree branches used for the arms. The amplified sound of dripping water echoes throughout the exhibition space.

Philippe Parreno sculpting the first iteration of Iceman in Reality Park, in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo, 1995.