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MORI LIVING Diary
A Sense of Nature
August 11, 2010
Despite my own lack of artistic ability, I have always admired those who excel at expressing themselves through visual means. And while more conceptual works of contemporary art may not completely resonate with me, I generally enjoy visiting galleries and museums to see unique, thought provoking pieces by artists of our generation.
Mori Art Museum's current exhibition, Sensing Nature, is a collection of specially commissioned installations by contemporary Japanese artists, and its appeal is so broad that even most art-phobes will find themselves enjoying a stroll through the gallery.
I had the opportunity to take part in a guided tour of the exhibition led by museum director Fumio Nanjo and organized exclusively for MORI LIVING residents. Nanjo's intimate knowledge of the participating artists and their work made the exhibition even more interesting and enjoyable.
We started with the first work, Snow, by Tokujin Yoshioka. The piece uses about 300kg of the lightest down feathers available (which for the installation were borrowed from a Japanese futon company) enclosed behind a 14m wide plexiglass wall. At intervals a fan blows the feathers up, making them swirl around and then fall like snow into mounds and drifts.
Taro Shinoda, originally a landscape gardener, contributed three pieces to the exhibition, including one entitled Model of Oblivion. Housed inside one of his other works, this is a shiny, white mountain shaped sculpture sitting atop a table. A red liquid streams down the mountain and across the table, only to be caught by gutters on the side and recirculated back to the top of the mountain, like a never-ending silent lava flow. "It is a kind of blood of nature," says Nanjo. "It's very sensational and emotional because it's red."
The third artist featured in Sensing Nature is Takashi Kuribayashi. Particularly popular among museum visitors (and a personal favorite as well) is his rendition of a forest made from traditional Japanese washi paper. To see the work, visitors enter from under the 'forest' floor, then poke their heads into holes torn in the paper. Above is a peaceful scene of stark white trees surrounded by a faint mist, giving the feeling we have just happened upon a never-before-visited place.
Standing there, it is hard to imagine that in reality we are 53 floors above the bustling streets of Roppongi.
Kelly