From late spring through September 2026, London’s Daiwa Anglo‑Japanese Foundation hosts SECOND LAW, the first UK solo exhibition by Japanese artist Reijiro Wada. Centred on a large floor sculpture, the show turns the Second Law of Thermodynamics into a tangible, luminous experience of order, decay, and the fragile beauty of life.
SECOND LAW by Reijiro Wada
What the exhibition is about
The exhibition’s title references the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which holds that the universe tends towards disorder and that all structures eventually disintegrate as time passes. Against this cosmic drift into entropy is a question: how can life produce things that feel beautiful, meaningful, or even sublime?
Wada’s response is sculptural. He works with materials subjected to heat, time, and chance, allowing unpredictable effects to emerge. In doing so, he embodies ephemeral, almost poetic phenomena in concrete, physical form.
The centrepiece work
The heart of the exhibition is the floor sculpture SECOND LAW (2026). It consists of a 1.8‑metre square made up of 14,400 titanium cubes. Each cube is individually coloured through kiln firing and partial heating with a flame, so no two are exactly alike.
The upper surfaces of the cubes are polished to a mirror finish. As visitors move around the gallery, these mirrored tops reflect the surrounding space, while natural light dissolves the grid lines and scatters an infinity of colours across the floor. The result is a shifting field of light and reflection that changes with the time of day, weather, and the presence of people in the room.
Artist and approach
Reijiro Wada is known for works that explore the relationship between material processes and natural laws, often using industrial materials such as metal in ways that highlight their responsiveness to heat and environment. In SECOND LAW, he leans into the idea that when materials are “abandoned” to physical forces, the outcomes are inherently unpredictable yet can still generate striking visual and emotional effects.
Visit information
SECOND LAW by Reijiro Wada runs from Wednesday 27 May to Thursday 24 September 2026 at the Daiwa Anglo‑Japanese Foundation, located at 13–14 Outer Circle, London. The exhibition is open Monday to Friday, 9:30 am–5:00 pm, and is closed on public holidays. Admission is free, and no booking is required for general visits. In addition to daily viewing, the foundation offers free lunchtime gallery tours led by staff, which are framed around the exhibition’s themes of entropy, life, and meaning.
Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
Reijiro Wada’s first UK solo exhibition
Listed on the Embassy of Japan in the UK’s Japan‑UK Event Calendar, SECOND LAW sits among other notable 2026 Japan‑related cultural events in London, from theatre to photography exhibitions. For audiences interested in contemporary Japanese art, philosophy of science, and immersive installation work, it offers a rare chance to engage with Wada’s practice in the UK for the first time.
If you’re planning a visit, aim for a sunny afternoon when natural light can fully activate the mirrored surfaces and colour reflections, as the foundation itself suggests.
