"Sensing Nature"
Tokujin Yoshioka, Takashi Kuribayashi, Taro Shinoda
Tokujin Yoshioka, Takashi Kuribayashi, Taro Shinoda
July 24 - November 7, 2010
Mori Art Museum
53F Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1
Roppongi, Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan, 106-6150
Winter turns to spring, summer turns to Autumn. We sense the shifts not just by the changes in the temperature and the scenery, but in the smells carried on the breeze and the quality of the sunlight. Over two thirds of Japan's population lives in its cities, which make up just a small fraction of its landmass. And yet we are still able to read nature with our bodies.
Japan's temperate climate and its mountainous topography gave birth to a unique natural environment, which in turn fostered an ancient cosmology and spirituality which have greatly influenced our culture and arts. In "Sensing Nature: Yoshioka Tokujin, Shinoda Taro, Kuribayashi Takashi" we think about how the innate human ability to perceive nature (to sense nature) and the Japanese view of nature exist in our urbanized and modernized world. We also ask how those views are reflected in contemporary art and design practices. Yoshioka Tokujin, Shinoda Taro and Kuribayashi Takashi are three internationally active artists/designers who give abstract or symbolic expression to immaterial or amorphous concepts as well as natural phenomenon such as snow, water, wind, light, stars, mountains, waterfalls and forests. Their ideas of nature suggest that it is not something that is to be contrasted with the human world, but that it is something that incorporates all life-forms, including human-beings. Their works hint that we have inherited this all-encompassing cosmology deep in our memories and in our DNA.
Consisting of newly commissioned works by each of the three participant artists, the exhibition attempts to stimulate our sense of nature through large-scale installations with visitors’ physical experiences with their entire bodies.
YOSHIOKA TOKUJIN
Born 1967. Yoshioka established the Yoshioka Tokujin Design Office after working under Kuramata Shiro and then Miyake Issey. Many of his works are in the permanent collections of major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which has his paper chair, “Honey-pop,” and “TFU,” the lighting fixture in which he designed light itself. In 2007, Yoshioka was named “Designer of the Year” at Design Miami. He has also appeared in television broadcaster NHK's “Professional: Shigoto no Ryugi” (The professional’s way of working) and he was selected by the Japanese edition of Newsweek as one of the “100 most respected Japanese around the world.”
Yoshioka is well known for dynamic spatial designs, which, despite being made with artificial materials, give us the sensation of experiencing light, snow, storms and other natural phenomena. He is currently exploring the future potential of design to incorporate natural principles and effects and to integrate natural science technologies.
For his contribution to Sensing Nature Tokujin Yoshioka continues to create spatial designs made from artificial materials, giving the viewer the sensation of experiencing light, snow, storms and other phenomena.
In a huge space of 15m in width, fine feathers are blown up by wind and shower down as if real snow does. the scene of hundres of kilograms of light feathers being blown all over and falling down slowly, reminds one of the snow scape of our memories and expresses the beauty of nature which exceeds our imagination. currently exploring the potential future of design and how it will incorporate natural principles and effects, integrating natural science technologies, Yoshioka's Snow (2010) is similar to looking at or walking through a snowstorm.
It is an expanded version of the original 'snow' which was exhibited in 1997.
|http://www.mori.art.museum/english/contents/sensing_nature/index.html|Mori Art Museum|
Works by Tokujin Yoshioka
Images courtesy of Tokujin Yoshioka
Mori Art Museum
53F Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1
Roppongi, Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan, 106-6150
Winter turns to spring, summer turns to Autumn. We sense the shifts not just by the changes in the temperature and the scenery, but in the smells carried on the breeze and the quality of the sunlight. Over two thirds of Japan's population lives in its cities, which make up just a small fraction of its landmass. And yet we are still able to read nature with our bodies.
Japan's temperate climate and its mountainous topography gave birth to a unique natural environment, which in turn fostered an ancient cosmology and spirituality which have greatly influenced our culture and arts. In "Sensing Nature: Yoshioka Tokujin, Shinoda Taro, Kuribayashi Takashi" we think about how the innate human ability to perceive nature (to sense nature) and the Japanese view of nature exist in our urbanized and modernized world. We also ask how those views are reflected in contemporary art and design practices. Yoshioka Tokujin, Shinoda Taro and Kuribayashi Takashi are three internationally active artists/designers who give abstract or symbolic expression to immaterial or amorphous concepts as well as natural phenomenon such as snow, water, wind, light, stars, mountains, waterfalls and forests. Their ideas of nature suggest that it is not something that is to be contrasted with the human world, but that it is something that incorporates all life-forms, including human-beings. Their works hint that we have inherited this all-encompassing cosmology deep in our memories and in our DNA.
Consisting of newly commissioned works by each of the three participant artists, the exhibition attempts to stimulate our sense of nature through large-scale installations with visitors’ physical experiences with their entire bodies.
YOSHIOKA TOKUJIN
Born 1967. Yoshioka established the Yoshioka Tokujin Design Office after working under Kuramata Shiro and then Miyake Issey. Many of his works are in the permanent collections of major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which has his paper chair, “Honey-pop,” and “TFU,” the lighting fixture in which he designed light itself. In 2007, Yoshioka was named “Designer of the Year” at Design Miami. He has also appeared in television broadcaster NHK's “Professional: Shigoto no Ryugi” (The professional’s way of working) and he was selected by the Japanese edition of Newsweek as one of the “100 most respected Japanese around the world.”
Yoshioka is well known for dynamic spatial designs, which, despite being made with artificial materials, give us the sensation of experiencing light, snow, storms and other natural phenomena. He is currently exploring the future potential of design to incorporate natural principles and effects and to integrate natural science technologies.
For his contribution to Sensing Nature Tokujin Yoshioka continues to create spatial designs made from artificial materials, giving the viewer the sensation of experiencing light, snow, storms and other phenomena.
In a huge space of 15m in width, fine feathers are blown up by wind and shower down as if real snow does. the scene of hundres of kilograms of light feathers being blown all over and falling down slowly, reminds one of the snow scape of our memories and expresses the beauty of nature which exceeds our imagination. currently exploring the potential future of design and how it will incorporate natural principles and effects, integrating natural science technologies, Yoshioka's Snow (2010) is similar to looking at or walking through a snowstorm.
It is an expanded version of the original 'snow' which was exhibited in 1997.
|http://www.mori.art.museum/english/contents/sensing_nature/index.html|Mori Art Museum|
Works by Tokujin Yoshioka
Images courtesy of Tokujin Yoshioka
