Asked about the ideas addressed in Garden, Yokoyama is somewhat equivocal – appropriate given the book’s own reluctance to provide definitive answers: “I would like to tell people about the great big existence which is beyond human intellect,” he explained through an interpreter. The garden seems infinite in scope, and it’s also devoid of inhabitants, other than the occasional patrol car. So what could be more ideal for an artist like Yokoyama, who concedes that he is not interested in society and possesses “adoration for abandoned places with no people?” His is a garden with no easy answers, one that begs to be endlessly explored by its inquisitive visitors, precisely as Yokoyama has gone about in our own world.
     In past works, the same kind of interest in the complexities of the material world has captured the artist’s imagination, providing the inspiration behind his take on the construction of buildings in New Engineering and the architectural marvel that is the human body in Combats, which recasts the standard comic fight scene as an intricate dance. This time, though, Yokoyama is publishing a book that mirrors the material forms of our world in some unintended ways.