10月5日迄東京赤坂ANA インターコンティネンタルホテルで開催中の キュレーターCaroline Trausch4名選抜の展覧会 “Serenity” が２つの媒体[Metropolis magazine と フランスのPhoto magazine]にて紹介されました。
Quatre regards explorent la sérénité
Caroline Trausch, commissaire d’exposition, a réuni quatre photographes japonais – Ryo Ohwada, Eriko Koga, Kiiro, Sarah Fujiwara – autour du theme de la sérénité ; [Les photographies de chacun des artistes nous embarquent pour un voyage paisible et poétique vers la sérénité. Si l’interprétation en est exclusivement japonaise, l’expérience est en revanche véritablement universelle.]
Les artistes sont représentés par la galerie Emon.
“SERENITY’ JUSQU’AU 5 OCTOBRE 2013. À L’HÔTEL ANA INTERCONTINENTAL TOKYO. 1-12-33 AKASAKA MINATO-KU, 107 0052 TOKYO, JAPON. WWW.EMONIC.COM
[Photo magazine (French photography magazine) July/August issue]
In the delue surroundings of one of Tokyo’s premium hotels, visitors can take a free tour throught four difgering interpretations of Japanese serenity.
The ANA InterContinental Tokyo is an interesting setting; filled with high-end travelers, many of whom are passing through on business, the lobby’s casacading waterfall and babbling voices already form an island of designed tranquility.
The hotel hosts high-profile meetings – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is said to visit once a week – and it is among these illustrious witnesses that Tokyo-based French curator Caroline Trausch places the works of four contemporary artists, represented by Emon Photo Gallery.
Many Japan visitors will have marveled at how this country brings relaxation to the level of a science. The fiercely knitted brows of someone bathing in an onset, the suspended sanctity of a manicured garden, silence on the bus – people live in close proximity through harnessing a means of transcendence.
Eriko Koga has travelled to and from sared Mt. Koya for the past four years, shooting people and natural features there. Tourists travel there to experience monastic life – a trip of affected tranquility. koga’s works on the other hand provide an intimate view of Koya-san without the intrusion a tourist – namely you – would bring.
Kiiro’s two large colorful works of flowers in a field have an instant impact, prompting the question of whteter it is a photo or a painting, a drawing, or a combination of all these things. A former oil painter, Kiiro brings the layering and texturing of that approach to photographic design, creating a heady feeling of being in among the wild things, – and aconstrast to the manicured tradition of Japanese gardens.
Ryo Ohwada provides the other side with his stunning collection of bonsai trees photographed and blown up against a gold – lea back – ground. the twisted trunks take on the appearance of a major force of nature. Staring at the miniature trees is said to draw the viewer in to become lost in contemplation. Ohwada’s painstaking work splashes this process across the wall meaning you analyze you’re reactions even as you feel the effects.
One floor under the lobby, Sarah Fujiwara helps you feel as if you have descended into hte water table. She creates her works with different parts of the lotus flower, embedding root and twig and even smearing soil before covering it all with a persprex-like sheen that suspends splatter on the wall. The works were created post-3’11, and visceral rendering of nature evokes the silence before, or after, the storm.
ANA InterContinental Hotel, until Oct 5, see exhibition listings (Akasaka/Roppongi) for details.
[Metropolis magazine August 2, 2013]