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| ARTIFACTS |
Next year marks the 39th installment of the Tokyo Performing Arts Festival, and this time around, traditional noh theater takes center stage. Beginning January 12 and running until the end of March, the 2007 TPAF will also feature events ranging from opera and ballet to contemporary Japanese dance. Tickets will be sold in advance and several events are free. See http://tinyurl.com/y96e73 (Japanese only) for more information. AC M
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PAST
ISSUES
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By Andrew
Conti
I Dreamt of Flying: Noguchi Rika
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| Rocket Hill, 2001, Lightjet
print, 154.5x124.5cm |
At first glance, the “I Dreamt of Flying:
Noguchi Rika” exhibition at the Hara Museum of Contemporary
Art in Shinagawa seems firmly grounded in the here and now.
Noguchi’s imagery moves from a diver in a training pool
to a seaside crane to an industrial rocket launch facility.
Yet in small instances within this apparent banality, Noguchi’s
adoration for her subjects emerges to transform the images
into compelling objects of devotion.
The current exhibition presents work from throughout Noguchi’s
career and although she’s displayed throughout Europe,
the US and Asia, it’s the first solo museum show in Japan
for the Saitama-born artist.
After passing through the lobby area of the residence-turned-museum,
visitors might accidentally miss the room containing the series
The Colors of the Planet. These deep blue works show the earth’s
surface under the ocean off the coast of Okinawa, and have
the entrancing quality of an unknown world flooded with the
calming blue-green colors of the ocean.
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| To Dive, 1995, Lightjet
print |
Also on the first floor are the series To
Dive and Seeing Birds. The former is the earliest of Noguchi’s
work in the show and is composed of large-format prints of
divers practicing in a training pool. These black-and-white
images are rigidly structured, with the pool’s geometric
design calling to mind Mondrian’s grids. A few pictures
focus exclusively on this geometry, while others use the pool’s
structure to create a claustrophobic grip around the unaware
divers. In a few other images, sunlight bursts open the confined
field of vision with a lens-flaring and image-bleaching brilliance.
Along the wall outside of this room are the small pictures
comprising Seeing Birds. These images of tiny figures chasing
kites along a sandy beachside have significantly less visual
impact than Noguchi’s other works, and they appear to
be records of an unexplained performance rather than art objects
like the larger works.
Above the stairs that lead to the second floor, two looming
images entitled Catching Water offer a remarkably serene view
of seaside construction. In Noguchi’s vision of water
falling from a crane, the machine takes on a soothing aspect
of calm.
Past the stairs, I Dreamt of Flying and Rocket Hill present
differing sensibilities related to the dream of flight. I
Dreamt of Flying consists of two images of a blue sky punctuated
by a blurry rocket and its smoke trail. These twin images
evoke the essence of the title through their unfocused, abstract-painting-like
simplicity.
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I Dreamt
of Flying, 2003, C-Print, 96x120cm
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Rocket Hill, on the other hand, is filled
with industrial buildings from the Tanegashima Space Center
in Kagoshima Prefecture. These photographs capture the concrete
landscape of an area devoted to the reality of flight and
space. The colors are captivating; they pulse in electric
blues, fading neon oranges and glowing yellows emanating from
mechanical environments. The images again morph the familiar
into the extraordinary as the industrial site becomes inhabited
by the spirits of the artist’s wonder.
In Noguchi’s images, we are taken to places we have seen
before, to ideas we understand, and we’re asked to stare
and see them as she sees them—images of the latent possibilities
in modern existence that fascinate Noguchi. In her photographs
we find the simple but ethereal magic with which she chooses
to see and express those possibilities.
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Until July 25. 4-7-25 Kita Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku. Tel: 03-3445-0651.
Open Tue-Sun 11am-5pm (Wed until 8pm). Adm: Adults ¥1,000,
students ¥700, children ¥500. Nearest stn: Shinagawa,
Takanawa exit. www.haramuseum.or.jp
Photo Credit:
Courtesy of Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
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