Tatzu Nishi

Nishi created one of his first hotel installations in Aachen, Germany in 2000. Titled Hotel Continental, the work consisted of a two-room hotel built around a classical sculpture of a horse by Gerhard Mareks. The work faced the Theater Aachen, and was available for public viewing during the day and rental as hotel rooms during overnight.[6]

In 2002 Nishi constructed a small one-room apartment around a wind vane on the rood of the Basel Minster Cathedral in Switzerland.[7] To reach the room, visitors had to climb scaffolding to a height of 40 meters (130 ft). Once they arrived in the room, they could sit at a coffee table that featured the cathedral's normally inaccessible spire as a table ornament.[7][8] The work could be booked in the evening as a hotel room, at the rate of 8000 yen (US$100) per night.[9]

In one of his best-known projects, the 2002 Villa Victoria, Nishi built a functioning hotel with a single room around the large statue of Queen Victoria at the Victoria Monument in Liverpool.[10] The room included wall to wall carpeting, wallpaper and furnishings reflecting a five-star hotel. At the center of the room was the imposing 4.42 metres (14.5 ft) statue of Queen Victoria.[11] The work was created under the artist name "Tatsurou Bashi".[12]

In 2006, Nishi built a bedroom around the "Pyrotechnist", a statue of a man seated on a horse that is used as a brand symbol for the Tokyo Hermès store. The piece, titled Cheri in the Sky was located on the outside upper wall of the store, at a height of 45 45 metres (148 ft).[13][14]

War and Peace and in between was a site-specific installation artwork in which the public sculptures The Offerings of Peace and The Offerings of War in Sydney, Australia were incorporated into domestic scenes.[15] The work was commissioned by Kaldor Public Art Projects and was on display from October 2009 to February 2010.[16]

For the 2011 Singapore Biennale, Tatzu Nishi created a luxury hotel room around the Merlion statue, which is a well-known tourist attraction.[17] The room included full amenities and the guest's own butler during a visitor's stay.[18] The outside of the hotel room was painted maroon and had ‘The Merlion Hotel’ written alongside.[18][19] The room had a view that faced towards the Marina Bay.[18] During the daytime, visitors were allowed to see the inside of the fully-furnished hotel room that encased the head of the Merlion.[18] Nishi was the first guest who spent the night in the hotel and afterward allowed for the public to make reservations that cost SGD 150 (at the time) for two people.[18][19]

The 2012 project Villa Cheminée featured a small hotel placed on top of a replica of a power station tower in Cordemais, France.[20][21] As of 2018, the artwork continued to be operated as a hotel, being available for rental at the rate of 119 Euros per night.[22][23]

In Ghent, Belgium in 2012, he built an elevated hotel room around the clock tower of the Sint-Pieters railway station. Guests of the hotel stayed in a room where the all four enormous faces of the clock were the centerpiece.[24][25]

His first project in the United States was Discovering Columbus, a penthouse apartment surrounding Gaetano Russo's statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle, Manhattan executed in 2012.[26][27] For "Discovering Columbus", Nishi designed the living room with numerous pop references to American cultural symbols.[28] While the project was highly successful in terms of attendance,[29][30] it was also controversial, with some members of the Italian-American community claiming that the artwork disparaged Columbus.[31][32]

Hotel Manta, 2014

In 2014 Nishi constructed a temporary hotel installation called Hotel Manta around the Havis Amanda fountain in Helsinki's Market Square, Helsinki.[33][34][35][36]

In 2015, Nishi built a viewing platform on top of the Oude Kerk cathedral in Amsterdam that gave a wide view of the city to viewers who climbed to it.[37] The work, titled the garden which is the nearest to god was created under the artist name "Taturo Atzu".[38]

Nishi's 2015 public sculpture in Nantes, France placed a series of household objects, including a piano, a bed, a chair, a coat rack, a heater, a bathroom sink and a stack of books, above the head of the statue of general Émile Mellinet in the Général-Mellinet park.[39][40]

Nishi's 2016 work In Bed with Martin Luther consisted of a room constructed around an existing bronze statue of Martin Luther in Eisenach, Germany.[41]

During the 2017 Bi-City Biennale in Shenzen, China, Nishi constructed a part of a roadway in the third-floor worker's dormitory of a former factory.[42][43]

Life's Little Worries of Sir Adam Beck, 2018 installation in Toronto, Ontario by Tatzu Nishi.

Nishi's 2018 Vase of an Anti-Aircraft Gun project in Taiwan involved the construction of a self-contained living room atop an anti-aircraft gun that was used during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Within the room, the barrels of the gun become vases for flowers on a table.[44][45]

At Paris' Palais de Tokyo in 2018, Nishi built and exhibited a life-sized version of a dollhouse, titled Maison de poupée, which viewers could enter and explore.[46][47][48]

In the 2018 project Life's Little Worries of Sir Adam Beck, he stacked household objects including a tire, a photocopier, a dinghy and a safe on the head of a sculpture of Sir Adam Beck in Toronto, Ontario.[49][50]