3 29

Open

EXHIBITION

Aperto 13

TAKAHASHI Haruki Landscaping

2020.12.19 (Sat.) -
2021.5.9 (Sun.)

Landscaping, 2020
photo: WATANABE Osamu

Information

Period :
2020.12.19 (Sat.) - 2021.5.9 (Sun.)
Venue :
Long-Term Project Room / 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Closed:
Mondays(but open on Jan. 11 and May 3), Dec 29 - Jan 1, Jan 12, May 6
Admission:
Free
For More Information:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Phone:+81-76-220-2800

About the Exhibition

What do people think as they walk around a garden? Whether lingering in solitude, or enjoying the surroundings while chatting with a friend or loved one, a garden is generally a place for a change of mood. TAKAHASHI Haruki (b. 1971) creates garden-like settings in museum spaces. A devotion to making installations with a landscape or nature theme brought TAKAHASHI to the idea of the “enrin” as a way of creating a personal, individual connection between viewer and work, rather than shouting loudly at wider society. Enrin (yuanling) is a general term for Chinese gardens, whose structure offers encounters with a series of different landscapes as the viewer strolls around. Each landscape has its own philosophical element, making the garden a condensed version of different scenes from human existence. As a person walks around, their own life is mirrored in their heart, connecting them with the cosmos.
The garden created in the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, will have water, mountain, light, and darkness. The numerous wild grasses are flora we live alongside. The translucent white porcelain is so fragile it may break on contact, but if handled carefully, will last forever in its current form. Landscapes both robust and fragile are sure to remind the viewer forcefully of the ephemeral nature of life, and the many memories that vanish, only to reappear.
Enrin gardens use nature as their material, yet are by no means natural. They are “works” that reflect complex ideas, and are designed with the viewer in mind. TAKAHASHI will consciously move away from a Western art history context to create in the gallery space a garden that reflects the individual spirituality of all those who see it—part of his attempt to explore a more eastern approach to the idea of the installation.

Related Events

Workshop
Make palm-sized flowers out of porcelain using the kneaded-flower technique of the Dehua kiln in China. *The content of the workshop will be the same on each day.

Instructor: TAKAHASHI Haruki
Date/time: March 21, 2021 (Sun.) 10:00–15:00, April 17, 2021 (Sat.) 10:00–15:00
Venue: Project Room, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa 
Participants: 12 (each day) *jr. high students or older
Fee: ¥5,000 (materials and kiln firing included)
To book: Bookings will be accepted via the museum website starting 10:00, Monday, March 1 (on a first come basis)
*Fired works should be picked up at the museum at a later date. Shipping fee will be charged, if shipping is necessary.
Artist Talk: “To the garden of light”
Date/time: March 27, 2021 (Sat.) 14:00–15:30
Venue: Lecture Hall, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa 
Seats: 40
Admission: Free
To book: Bookings will be accepted via the museum website starting 10:00, Monday, March 1 (on a first come basis)
*In conjunction with the artist talk, a special exhibit will be held at the Museum’s Sanutei tea house for the three days of Friday March 26, Saturday March 27, and Sunday March 28. Details will be posted on the museum website as they become available.

About the Artists

TAKAHASHI Haruki

After majoring in oil painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, TAKAHASHI Haruki presented a number of installations made from earth, and rolled out fieldwork-based projects connecting different landscapes. On returning to his native Kanazawa in 2002, he then began making installations using Kutani ware ceramics. Identifying in garden design philosophy the potential for a more Eastern style of installation, he researches the relationship between spatial notions of the garden, and installations, and makes works accordingly. Recent years have seen him present a number of works that create landscapes in the indoor spaces of ordinary houses, at festivals including Art Setouchi Triennale, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, and Northern Alps Art Festival. TAKAHASHI has also undertaken numerous architectural collaborations/commissions, including a passageway under the western forecourt of Kanazawa Station, Hyatt House Kanazawa, and Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel Seoul.

Artist Statement

Landscaping is modeled on the structure of the Chinese traditional garden or yuanling, read enrin in Japanese. The main difference between a Japanese garden and the Chinese garden is that while a Japanese garden connects seamlessly to the outside, the yuanling/enrin usually forms a different time and space enclosed by high walls. On this occasion the white cube of the gallery also works splendidly as a different time and space, overlapping with the idea of the enrin. I hope that through this porcelain garden, visitors will experience a philosophical space.
Rokei (lòujĬng or “leaking through scenery”) glimpsed from outside through a window, and the protruding landscape known as a shokei (zhàngjĬng or “obstructive scenery”) encountered on passing through the narrow entrance of the gallery, appear as a series of waves. Proceeding further in, as you pass a space that could be either water or mountain, and arrive at a mountain made from alpine plants, you will see beyond that, the sky. As your line of sight shifts rapidly from one element to the next, your body fuses with the space, and ultimately connects to the heavens. The sensation is one of entering a body, and also a gourd-like realm in which the world spreads out before you as you emerge from a tunnel. The enrin is a place where the physical sensations of entering small spaces, climbing and so on, and the space resonate with each other, producing and projecting emotions.
Look more closely and you will also notice a lot of flowering plants in bloom that are found in Japan, from coastal right up to alpine species. Insects, frogs and other creatures are painted in the plants, almost leaching out of or melting into their foliage. These flora and fauna show life emerging and vanishing in the space of EnrinLandscaping. Take a stroll around and a close look to acquire a full sense of the work, and I guarantee you will find something to relate to your own feelings.

About the “Aperto” Series

The exhibition series “Aperto” introduces up-and-coming young artists in a solo exhibition format. As an art museum actively engaged with the contemporary world, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa looks closely at new trends now in the process of forming. Artists and curators collaborate in creating occasions for exhibiting works and act as an intermediary between today’s creation and that of the future. This exhibition series looks at individual artists who, although having little experience with solo or important group exhibitions at art museums, possess sufficient creative motivation to command a solo exhibition and who are expected to make a significant impact in the future. Artists are selected without regard for their nationality or expressive media by the curator at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Note: “Aperto” is Italian for “open.”

Images

    harushuuu, 2011, installation view at “Colors of Seasons,”
    Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto

    in the vine, 2011, Kanazawa Art Gummi Gallery, Ishikawa

    Landscapes creeper, 2015, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2015, Niigata

    Japanese Alps Takase River Garden,
    2017, Northern Alps Art Festival 2017, Nagano

    Sea Vine, 2019, Art Setouchi 2019, Kagawa
    Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Organizers

Organized by:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)
Supported by:
VARIVAS
Grants from:
Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan