Information:

The idea for these kite objects came from the Goethe Institute in Osaka, which had asked hundred artists from twenty countries to decorate Japanese kites on the occasion of the "Year of the Dragon" (1988). The kites were shown all over the world in the travelling exhibition "Pictures for the Sky".Hundertwasser's kites are Japanese kites in the traditional shapes of insect kites that originate from the Nagoya region. Following local tradition, the cicada kite is equipped with a unari aerophone instrument, whose taut string sounds the typical cicada chirping in the wind. Hundertwasser agreed to design a series of kites, consisting of the twelve shapes from Masaaki Sato's repertoire, among them cicadas, bees, bumble-bees, horseflies and the circular wanwan kite.For the creation of the kites the Japanese colour woodcut prints 557B Do Not Wait Houses Move and 870A Pacific Raindrops on Tahitit, cut by Tatsuo Kawashima and printed by Akio Shimizu, both members of the studio Uchida in Kyoto, were used.