The Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata has earned an international reputation with large, architectural installations in wood, which he has made all over the world. His pieces are the result of an intensive interaction with spatial, social, cultural and historical conditions in the places where he works. Often he counters the sleek containers of our urban civilization with evocations of simple, basic building activity, related to individuals and small social groups and situated amid the full flow of life.

This was his first opportunity to develop and carry out a major project over a period of several years. He called it Work in Progress in Zug. It referred exclusively to public space, the Kunsthaus thus stepped outside its walls and opened up boundaries. As a reaction to the conditions that were unfamiliar to him Kawamata had conceived new kinds of works. They were presented in this first exhibition with large installations, models and a video.