Japan's extreme giant zipper artist

There's a "revealing and surprising" element in zippers, says artist Jun Kitagawa, seen here with his painting at Tokyo's Roppongi Tunnel.

Ever wanted to zip open your house and see what's under the floor? Kitagawa installed zippers in a Tokyo apartment set for demolition. The zipper is made of wood and doesn't actually close the floors.

Kitagawa built this temporary 3D installation in a pond at Tokyo's Chinzansou Hotel. The opening of the zipper holds a mirror reflecting back at the sky. The installation is no longer on display.

Unable to sell his racy T-shirts, Kitagawa got his start in public art 17 years ago when he dressed naked sculptures in white tees.

Some don't see Kitagawa's work as art. His pieces have been described as "obscene" by one Japanese newspaper and also criticized as acts of vandalism.

Kitagawa says he fashioned this display out of balloons and T-shirts because it makes people laugh.

"I want to make a work that takes two extreme elements -- the highest and lowest," says Kitagawa.

Stuck with hundreds of T-shirts following a failed business venture, Kitagawa found a creative use for them with this installation in Japan's Kanegawa Prefecture.

Enjoying the shade under a ceiling painted by Kitagawa. The artist is often commissioned to provide installations for cities, festivals and cultural events.

Some of Kitagawa's work for shopping malls and plazas has commercial appeal, such as this simple flower balloon art.

• Jun Kitagawa has created pop-up installations throughout Japan


• The artist got his start dressing sculptures with racy T-shirts


• Kitagawa uses balloons, T-shirts, zippers, ordinary items in his work

Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Jun Kitagawa's foray into public art didn't spring from an epiphany or a burst of passion.

It came from hundreds of unwanted white T-shirts stuffed inside cardboard boxes in his Tokyo apartment.

Seventeen years ago, Kitagawa decided to make T-shirts with images of women in poses so provocative they'd make American Apparel blush.

But no one wanted to buy them.

"It was very disappointing, of course," Kitagawa tells CNN.

One day, he scrambled into a park and dressed a nude sculpture with one of his unloved white tees.

He snapped some pictures then removed the shirt.

He showed the pictures to friends.

"Some people would say 'that's very interesting,' and some would get mad," says Kitagawa.

Either way, the photos elicited strong reactions.

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Before and after. Is it an improvement?

Obscene vandalism or public art?

Whether he's dressing nude, Romantic era-styled statues in white tees, creating voluminous balloons shaped like human buttocks or setting up gigantic 3D zippers to protrude out of traditional Japanese gardens, Kitagawa's public art in Japan is whimsical, erotic and playful.

There's a sense that his work functions like a wink -- a reminder not to take everything so seriously.

He takes something vaunted as high art, such as a classical nude statue, with romanticized human proportions and a stately countenance, and mixes it with a white T-shirt.

"I want to make a work that takes two extreme elements -- the highest and lowest elements," he says.

Some critics say his work isn't even art -- that it's vandalism or a prank or even obscene.

"Whether the audience sees my work as pleasing or disturbing, the visual impact that jolts people awake is an essential part of my work," Kitagawa says.

When still in his 20s, Kitagawa quit his job at an architectural firm to become an artist.

Since his father was a landscape painter, Kitagawa says he felt becoming an artist would be a practical profession.

He became an assistant to a sculptor, learning techniques and working with metals and clay.

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These days, he asks for permission

Kitagawa is a slender man with a slight goatee, his hair underneath a pink and green newsboy hat.

He moves quickly, light-footed, almost like a cat -- a trait that served him well back when he had to sneak a ladder into a park to put a T-shirt on a sculpture.

These days, he seeks permission before dressing sculptures in public places.

Usually he gets denied, or receives no response at all.

He says he's still surprised when officials approve his requests.

In the spirit of pop-up art, he removes the shirt from the sculptures after about 7-10 days.

"I just want to let people walking by know something is going on," Kitagawa says. "I want to change something from the ordinary."

Kitagawa also does more traditional work, decorating Japanese festivals, cultural events and the occasional shopping mall.

In several temporary installations, Kitagawa has toyed with zippers.

One giant zipper stretches through a quiet Japanese garden at the Chinzanso Hotel in Tokyo.

Another ran through a house in Tokyo, exposing its flooring and structure beneath. (The house has since been demolished.)

One of his zipper works currently on display at the Roppongi Tunnel was commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to clean up graffiti.

"The zippers convey that what we are actually seeing in this real world is just a surface, and that once we peel it off, we see there's another hidden space, which is completely different from our side," he says.

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