[Title]　Para-modeling/Chimerical Scheme of Paramodellia by paramodel
[Artist] paramodel

Exhibition Period: February 16th (Saturday) – May 6th (Monday, national holiday), 2013
Mon-Sat 11:00-20:00 (Last entry 19:30); Sun 11:00-19:00 (Last entry 18:30)
Open daily, free admission
Venue:Maison Hermès 8th Floor “Le Forum”
(5-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan TEL:+81-(0)3-3569-3300)
Organized by:Foundation d’entreprise Hermès



Our first exhibition in 2013 features a new installation by Paramodel, an artist unit known for elaborate installations filled with Plarail model trains and tracks, mini cars and other toys. Paramodel was formed in 2001 by Yasuhiko Hayashi (born 1971) and Yusuke Nakano (born 1976). Both artists graduated from the Kyoto City University of Arts, Hayashi in 2001 with a degree in conceptual design and Nakano in 2002 with a degree in Nihonga (Japanese-style painting), and together they produce site specific installations in galleries and other venues in Japan and abroad.

The name Paramodel expresses the unit’s creative philosophy, and the artists have used it frequently as a keyword in the titles of exhibitions and works from the past to the present. It combines the word “model” with the prefix “para” bringing to mind such words as parallel, paradox, parameter, parasite, and paradise. True to this name, the artists’ installations give rise to countless possibilities. Micro-worlds created from scraps of construction material and parts, they symbolically express the extreme codification of our contemporary world while expanding indefinitely like eternally recomposing cities or organisms.

This time, behind the glass-block façade of a building in the heart of Tokyo, Hayashi and Nakano, each utilizing his own method, interpret the city and let their fantasy expand. An installation that endlessly models space; drawings on a temporary enclosure that suggest multi-storied buildings floating in air: the imaginations of each artist are minutely detailed and, at the same time, appear as illusion.
Each artist’s world, represented by the different titles, combines to construct a para-world of which each is a part and, at times, the whole. This metaphysical play with models continues eternally within the imaginary space of the exhibition.

[Title] Hermès Éditeur　COULEURS DE L’OMBRE 　
[Artist] HIROSHI SUGIMOTO

[Date] November 15 (Thursday) – December 31(Monday), 2012

Venue Maison Hermes 8F Le Forum

In 2008 Hermès edited its first “carré d’artiste”, Hommage au　carré by Josef Albers followed　by a second in 2010, Photos-souvenirs au carré by Daniel Buren. In 2012, Hermès invited the
Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto to create the third edition. After its launch at Art Basel in　June, Couleurs de l’Ombre will be　unveiled for the first time in Japan at Maison Hermès 8F
Le Forum.

Hermès’ first collaboration with the artist dates back to 2003 and the exhibition History of History in the Forum space of the Maison Hermès in Ginza, Tokyo.
Sugimoto is an artist who is constantly exploring the resources of ancestral crafts in order to develop an inventive dialogue between history, traditions and a contemporary mode of expression that is very much at one with Hermès’ own philosophy.
It was this realisation that prompted Pierre‐Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès, to bring the artist’s incisive vision into play for this third edition of the artist’s silk square.

In 2010 Sugimoto presented him with his COLOURS OF SHADOW project in his studio in Tokyo:　“I can still remember it very clearly. At the centre of a large, light‐filled room, rising like a column from floor to ceiling, there stood a very dense, immaculately clear crystal prism. This was an experimental device whereby, every morning, the sunlight passing through the prism would create a world of colours, projected like shadows on the white walls of the studio”, recalls Pierre‐Alexis Dumas.

For some ten years, Sugimoto methodically took Polaroids of these subtly varying gradations which were different every time. This was the chromatic epiphany that the artist wanted to capture on a Hermès silk scarf.

The work is inspired by the scientific experiments of Newton and Goethe, researching the origins of colour – that is, breaking down and capturing light, and analysing its emotional impact on humans.
This concrete phenomenon is materialised and elevated by Sugimoto in endless abstract images.

Hiroshi Sugimoto and Pierre‐Alexis Dumas selected 20 Polaroids to transpose onto silk: 20 scarves each in a limited edition of 7: a total of 140 scarves measuring 140 cm x 140 cm.

This giant format was needed to capture the full chromatic power of these pieces and to give permanence to work made ephemeral by its original medium: the Polaroid.

Finally, here was a new technical challenge, in keeping with Hermès Éditeur’s original vocation: printing these subtle, immaterial gradations on silk twill using inkjet technology.

This is how COLOURS OF SHADOW came into being.



＜Le Forum＞List of Past Exhibition　

[Title]　Cloud Cities by Tomas Saraceno
[Artist] Tomas Saraceno
[Date] May 26 (Saturday) – August 31(Friday), 2012



Tomás Saraceno’s work defies traditional notions of space, time, gravity, consciousness and perception through architectural, social and communitarian means and participatory in nature. The sky and the earth are interchangeable in his installations, in which gardens float and people achieve their longstanding desire to fly. Inspired by an interest in affecting change in the way we live and experience reality, each work is an invitation to conceive of alternative ways of knowing, feeling and interacting with others. Concurrently, Saraceno appeals to the creative faculty of his viewers, involving them in situations and actions that demand their ingenuity, participation and responsibility. The projects evidence relationships and introduce interdependent spaces that emphasize the ecological character of not only natural environments but also social spaces. Above all, the works show us that the possibility to transform the world is always within reach for those who are ready to collaborate in its design and construction. The work of Tomás Saraceno is perhaps the set of tools that we were missing.

Rodrigo Alonso (Curator)

[Title] TOKIORE(I)MIX
[Artist] YAMAGUCHI Akira
[Date] February 11th – May 13th, 2012



Dear visitors,

Thank you for coming to see my exhibition.
This humble piece of writing, composed upon request by the organizer of the event, shall guide you through the exhibition to help understanding my works.

The first thing you will see upon arriving shall be a row of objects that look like utility poles. This work titled Unforgettable Electric Poles was inspired by my boyhood self who loved everything “mech”. These poles have no function whatsoever: in fact, they are the existing pillars to which I simply attached the accessories. Needless to say, they are useless, but look so shamelessly smug. I gave these poles fewer telecommunication lines and low-tension lines than the real utility poles to achieve a more streamlined look. We could liken them to an ikebana arrangement made with fake flowers.

The next work, Right yet Wrong is an installation that resembles a room with a slanted floor. We normally live in an environment where the vertical axe of a building corresponds to the direction of gravity. When they don't, we feel dizzy or may not even be able to stand upright. This problem occurs because the sense of balance we have developed from our experience interferes with the equilibrium we try to keep based on our perception. In other words, while trying to be “right” based on our experience, we find ourselves ‘’wrong’’ in this particular situation.
I hope that this work inspires you to reflect on such ideas as “right” and “wrong”, “the vertical axe” and “the gravity”, the plane on which we stand, empirical rules, the tilted floor, et cetera. This is my intention behind the work – at least officially. Truth be told, however, I just wanted to have fun recreating the excitement I felt when I visited the Toshimaen amusement park as a small boy.
It is probably only natural that an artist makes works that he/she wants to experience himself/herself. As an artist, therefore, this selfishness may be justified. As a human, not so sure – I might be “wrong” in a sense.

Lastly, you will see a flat work titled Tokyo Shan shui, representing a panoramic view of Tokyo according to my vision. This brush-and-ink drawing is based on six maps from different ages, a Google Map, my personal memories and my illusions. I dip my brush in sumi ink and start drawing, and as I draw on, the lines become fainter and fainter until they look nothing but blurred shades. Also, the lines inevitably grows thicker as the tip of the brush wears out, so much so that I have to give up detailed drawing in some areas. At the same time, the sumi ink thickens as the water evaporates, so the first stroke after I dip my brush anew in the ink always comes out much stronger and incongruous with the earlier faint line. And it starts all over again.
The underdrawing remains visible in patches as if the skin of the city has been torn open or the buildings in the area have been completely demolished. They could be a beginning or an end of something. I am still brooding over how to reconcile these patches with the other parts.

This text is only an introduction, but as I do not wish to bore you with tedious details, I put down my pen here.
I invite you now to relax and enjoy the exhibition.

Yours faithfully,
YAMAGUCHI Akira

[Title] Icarus Falling – An exhibition lost
[Artist] Ryan Gander
[Date] November 3, 2011 - January 29, 2012



①Bang!
A poster for a fictional exhibition called 'You need to see this beauty broken down' held at Maison Hermès Forum, Tokyo, JPN, incorporating
elements from the Google Chrome and Oyster Card logos.

②Who said this was true multiplicity anyway
Thirty portraits of the thirty exhibitions previously shown at the Hermès exhibition space, drawn by a courtroom visualization artist, to represent the
artists in the year 2038.

③H
A large, plexiglass transparent letter ‘H’ sculpture as described by Hergé in the cartoon book ‘Tintin and Alphart’ , as imagined by the artist.

④The futility in drawing something that is moving
An artwork in the form of a poem that describes another artwork, written by Marcel Broodthaers as imagined in 2019, age 96 years. Displayed as if
discarded on the floor of the gallery.

⑤It smells like darkness - (Alchemy Box #26)
An Alchemy Box disguised as a packed away and locked book vendors stand, that one would usually expect to see wall mounted on the bank of the
Seine, Paris. But on this occasion is left sitting at an angle on the gallery floor. The Alchemy Box contains one book selected by each of the
exhibitions who have previously shown at the Hermès exhibition space. The contents within are listed on the wall by rubdown transfer.

⑥Matthew Young falls from the year 1985 into a white room (Maybe this is the way it is supposed to happen)
Pieces of broken glass and sections from a window frame lie on the gallery floor, as if someone had fallen through a window with some force. The glass is made from stunt glass used in the film industry for special effects. The title refers to a fictional exhibition Sculpture of the Space Age mentioned in J. G. Ballard’ s short story The Object of the Attack (1984). The exhibition was supposedly held at the Serpentine Gallery in the late 1970's yet exists only as a title in Ballard's short story.

⑦Icarus Falling
A spot lit area, dirty markings on the wall and fixings to suggest where the missing painting - 'Myth of Depth' by Mark Tansey (1949 - ), would have hung.

⑧It's not that it's complicated, it's just that you're confused
A small flatscreen LCD monitor displayed on the wall. The screen shows a paused still from the History Channel, in one corner of the screen there is a blue pause logo, in the other is the colour biography channel logo. The image on the screen is of the fictional artist Santo Stern as a young man,with onlooker.

⑨This shit goes on forever
Marks left from fixtures, light faded outline and dust. Set high up on the wall, from a series of small transparent perspex characters as one would find in institutions such as The New Museum, NY. Spelling out “The Saon De Samothrake Gallery” a fictional arts benefactor associated with the Greek Mythological history of Hermès. Saon, king of Samothrake is said to have been born from Rhene, nymph of Samothrake and Hermès was the great Olympian god.

⑩Investigation # 16 - Although you've given me everything (Maatsch)
Two photographs documenting an archival photograph of Ohne Titel (Untitled), 1928, Oil on wood, 37 x 37.5 cm by Thilo Maatsch (1900-1983) from the collection of Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH). This work consists of two images, each measuring 50 x 66.5 cm, displayed in frames side by side with a gap of 10 cm between them.

⑪The Best Club
A black curtain is hung in front of a wall in the exhibition space, suggesting a light trap and then a video installation beyond, positioned close to the curtain is a plaque explaining that the would-be work beyond is a video installation by Georg Paul Thomann (1945 - 2005), purported to be a renowned Austrian conceptual artist of the late 20th century. In reality, he was the fictitious creation of the Austrian art group monochrom.

⑫Aesthetics and ethics, looking good is just not enough
A redesigned ashtray for Cafe Aubette by Theo van Doesburg (1883 – 1931) from 1927, from the perspective that Van Doesburg and Mondrian had never met.

⑬This Consequence
An ‘All White’ Adidas tracksuit with golden embroidered logo. Additionally two small stains are discreetly embroidered on both the top and the trousers in dark red thread. The tracksuit is worn by an arts administrator, curator, gallerist, director or invigilator associated with the institution exhibiting the work whenever they are present in the exhibition space.

⑭And you will be changed
A documentary video shot following the curator around an empty Hermès space. The tour by the curator and the film would be of a previous exhibition, imagined and remembered by the curator as if the artwork was still there.

⑮Remember this, you will need to know it later
A black and white photograph of the desk in the studio of Aston Ernest as it was found following his death.

⑯The Locked Room
The artwork "Woody", 2000 by Liam Gillick (b.1 964) as imagined from 2034, taking the form of an elaborate board game that expands across the floor of the exhibition space, above which hangs a black gloss painted tissue paper lamp shade. To one side sits another, smaller cluster of game boards.

⑰In Spades?
A thirty sided dice, made with a simple icon, character, marking made by the artist to represent each of the thirty previous shows in the exhibition space.

⑱The Observatory, or, it's not that it's bad, it's just that you're confused
A bronze figurine of a young female ballerina resembling Degas’ model standing in a typical ballerinas stance in the gallery space using her fingers and thumbs to make a frame through which to view a work of art by another artist in the same space. In the same space as the figure is an ultramarine blue cube measuring 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm and a plinth measuring 10 x 6 x 6 cm, painted the same colour as the gallery walls.

⑲An alternative timeframe for an art exhibition
Two cube series monitors sit on the floor of the exhibition space displaying a TV industry one-minute countdown clock. One clock shows a standard countdown with the final 20 seconds as a lack-lead blank screen. The second is reanimated to count out 51 seconds as though it looks like it is counting out a minute. The 9 second loss in every minute relates to an average loss of programming time by commercial television channels as opposed to publicly funded ones in order to make time for advertising to produce revenue. Both clocks are looped

⑳“Scorning the abstract as an innate human device” Ramó Nash
An oil on canvas painting, that is a realisation of a painting as featured in the unfinished comic strip, Tintin and Alph-Art by Belgian comics artist
Hergé. It was intended to be the twenty-fourth and final book in the Tintin series and was published posthumously (despite its unfinished status) in 1986 by Casterman in association with La Fondation Herge, and was republished in 2004 with further material.

㉑I am broken
An artwork made to the same proportions as a small ‘stack’ work by Donald Judd (1928 - 1994) made entirely from the worlds most popular
prefabricated LACK shelving system from the Swedish company IKEA, roughly cut to size with a hand saw.

[Title] Snow
[Artist] Yutaka Sone
[Date] December 10, 2010 – Febuary 28, 2011

1.
I love snow.
This love didn't begin recently –but dates back to my childhood. My father took me to Tenjindaira Ski Resort in Tanigawa-dake, and that became the beginning of my fascination with snow through skiing. Even now, after moving to LA, I still go skiing on Mammoth Mountain in Sierra Nevada at least thirty days out of the year. It was always through skiing that I looked at snow. In other words, I've always skied in order to see snow.
About three years ago, I got together with some friends to make my own ski boards in my backyard garage, and since it was summer by the time we finished, we traveled to Whistler Glacier, Canada, for skiing. At the time, we confirmed together that skiing is like drawing a line in a glittering silver world – that "skiing is poetry."
Several years ago in February, I was on a lift in the Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort as always. The ski lift was called "Chair 25" – one of my favorites. Powdery snow was falling lightly, blown by the western wind from the cold Pacific Ocean. Of course I'd seen snowflakes many times before, but at that moment, large snow crystals started falling into my black gloves one by one, and "our eyes met." I stared intently, and the snow was eventually thawed away by my body heat. The snowflakes had six branches, and thorns like small hairs. It only lasted for about three seconds; yet, I felt eternal beauty in that moment. "Skiing is poetry" for me, and snow is something more primal than skiing.
That night, I made a pledge to myself. I will make the beauty of the brilliant snow crystals I saw at that moment eternal, as sculpture. I told myself repeatedly that I would make it come true.

It took some time to start working on the snow crystals since that day. I had been busy making exhibition plans, and was in the middle of creating two or three large-scale sculptures. Until they were completed, I couldn't launch the snow sculpture project. Therefore I obsessed even more with the dream of creating the snow sculpture. This was the pledge to myself that night. At the same time, this was also an escape from my daily work.
First, I read all the books on snow that I could get my hands on. Next, I looked at scientific publications to learn how snow takes the shape it does. I read about those who had done groundbreaking work on snow crystals – the 19th century photographer Mr. Bentley from Vermont, Dr. Ukichiro Nakaya who succeeded in artificially producing the crystallization of snow, Prof. Libbrecht at the California Institute of Technology, and those who even today continue to advance the work of Dr. Nakaya. I read about the great works by these pioneers, and their struggles. Then I would go to bed dreaming about snowflakes dancing in the sky.
When I visited Japan to take part in Akiyoshidai International Art Village, I visited the Ukichiro Nakaya Museum of Snow and Ice in Kanazawa. I was deeply impressed by the work of Dr. Nakaya and his assistant photographer, and began to feel a strong conviction to turn the snow crystals into sculptures. At the same time, I felt strongly that I had to examine the crystals under a microscope, as Mr. Bentley and Dr. Nakaya did. Through this procedure, I would be able to create a certain relationship between myself and the falling snow, and this concrete sense of distance would determine the direction I would take in producing the sculpture. I felt that I could also reassess my own understanding of snow.
My criteria in creating the snow crystal sculpture were like this:
- Even if it were a tiny tiny landscape, see the snow crystals as continuous with the landscape.
- Imagine the snow crystals as dancing in the sky. And see them.
- Don't be too figurative. (This comes from my artist intuition. If it became too figurative, the poetic state of the snow crystals dancing in the sky would be lost.)
- Every snowflake has a different shape. Choose the shapes from somewhere between the figurative and the abstract, and keep an imaginative opening to feel the possibility of their existence.
Following these criteria I decided to make the microscope. I also had a personal interest in digital technology, so after reviewing the principle of photography, I purchased a digital camera (Nikon D10). By connecting two camera bellows and attaching a 200 mm macro-lens at the tip, the digital camera was converted into a microscope. The approximately one meter long lens was not designed as a structure on its own, so I spent an entire summer modifying it in order to stabilize the lens, camera and tripod. In the end, I connected my Mac bookG5 so that the shutter would gracefully descend in a single click. Also I bought a small open tent to protect the equipment from the falling snow. After training to get the focus right, again and again, I loaded all the stuff onto my beloved 1992 Toyota Camry Metallic Blue, and waited for winter.
Meanwhile, I had been busy working on other projects, and was frustrated that nobody officially supported the snow sculpture project. I can say now that it was just a common miscommunication between artist and gallery, or simply the artist's recklessness. At this point, there wasn’t any study work or model, nor had I chosen the material of the sculpture. So it was no surprise that there was no sponsor for the project, but I was impatient to express the landscape of snow crystals dancing in the sky.

I began attending poetry readings during nighttime when I was free. In the city on the West Coast, deep-seated Beatniks culture is unbrokenly living. I began reading my own poetry in galleries and live music spaces. What I read were improvised poems about how snow is born, how it grows, how it dances in the sky, and how it lands. I continued to recite poems changing the content every time according to my feeling and the weather. For me, poetry reading is the score and concept sheet for making sculpture. I had a slight expectation that a rich man would listen to my poetry and think, "Wow, this is interesting. I will support this sculpture project!" But my actual listeners were punk rockers and heavy metal kids, and at some point I started my band and I was the lead vocal there. What the hell? ----I can say so now that I am writing about the whole process of my sculpture project. At that time I realized that my poetry spread into the audience, and was filled with the happy feeling of unity of the improvised music and my poems – something you would never have in the visual arts. We did tours, of course, because we were a rock band. New York, Mexico, Amsterdam, Paris... and in LA, we played almost every week. I bought a Gibson SG guitar and played whatever chords I could play. After the band experienced some incidents, we broke up. The gallery owner sentenced me to suspend music activity, since my daytime art production had slowed due to the band. But my initial goal was achieved. The gallery decided to fully support the snow crystals project.

My beloved Camry and handmade digital microscope, patiently waiting for winter, came to life once snow began to fall. Checking the snow report on the internet, I head for Mammoth Mountain with my assistant. Go, Camry, go!
To photograph snow crystals, we usually planned to arrive at Mammoth Mountain at the same time as the beginning of storm. If we can get there just before the storm comes, we don’t need to put on tire chains, and we can set up the tent and camera on dry ground. Then we wait for the storm. At the top of Mammoth Mountain, the wind speed often reaches 50mph. My assistant is already quite nervous. After three times, we hadn't succeeded to photograph snow crystals. Indeed I'm not so concerned. I believe that eventually I can photograph the crystals if I keep commuting to Mammoth Mountain. Plus, after the photo shooting, it's time for skiing on fresh virgin snow.
It began to snow. We were pioneers of complex intertwined events and system integrity. The tent is fixed and invincible against the wind. Both the Nikon D10 modified microscope and Mac G5 are enveloped in cloth and supported for the cold region. I hope snow keeps falling at this pace, and the temperature will drop. In case it got too cold, I parked my Camry beside the tent as a refuge.
The temperature reached -5°C.
"Okay, Yutaka!"
My assistant, Joey, raised his left hand while looking through the camera and adjusting the distance. I pressed down the shutter. Click.
The snow crystals that I photograph are not placed on a flat platform; I capture the whole landscape of snow crystals falling upon the snow including the background. This is because of my promise to "treat snow crystals as part of the landscape."





2.
Today, I can’t make up my mind.
Should I complete the papier-mache maquette for my crystal snowflakes today, and leave it here, in the studio in Chong Wu, China, then return to LA? Or should I bring this unfinished maquette to LA with me, finish work there, then send it back to the studio in China? Tomorrow, I leave Xiamen airport for LA via Narita. Another option is to stay a while longer in China, but I want to avoid that if possible, since I will return here in a month anyway. I want to spend this month in LA enjoying daily life with family, painting a lot, or going to ski at Mammoth Mountain.

What is the most important thing in making a crystal sculpture? I think it is a certain sense of "slowness"; it takes a long time to polish after the sculpture is carved. This polishing process makes me nervous. If you are hasty, you absolutely fail. The surface of a crystal is vulnerable to changes in temperature; if you use an electric tool to polish one place for twenty seconds, the temperature on the crystal surface will rise right away and the crystal will crack. This process requires tons of water, and so we had to remodel the studio. We installed a water tank on the rooftop so we could use as much water as needed. Special polishing powder imported from Hong Kong. This powder is probably not special in Japan, but here in Chong Wu, a stone carving town, it is rare and treated as magic.
My team has seven to ten members. One of them, Zhi Ming is a 24-year-old stonemason who has been carving my work since 19 years old. He's now refining a new marble ski lift in the marble-carving studio. I'm not worried about the piece, as long as he's working on it. In the next studio, the crystal snowflakes are going through rough cut. Even in this step, we use a lot of water to cool down the pieces. The factory owner, Mr. Jiang, is measuring the new pieces to check the stone price and structure. From my viewpoint he seems to be acting the part of a studio director (in the Chinese style); the fact is that he is working at an astonishingly fast pace. In the end, I decided to take the unfinished pieces to LA with a bit of clay, as a positive resignation. I didn't want to deal with excess luggage, but I can't sacrifice the quality of my work.

　　 Crystalline rocks are single crystals. Atoms are arranged in a homogeneous pattern in this mineral. Therefore they are truly transparent. Over the past two years, I had been looking for this homogeneous and transparent mineral, but one that was large enough to use as sculpture. By the way, in China, crystals belong to a type of stone called "beads," and can be found all over the Eurasian continent. Because the stone markets on the Eurasian continent are closely connected, we looked for crystals from Siberia in the Far East to China, Afghanistan, Iran and throughout Europe. The crystal I'm looking for is larger and more transparent than those magic crystal balls that shamans use to reveal secrets. Eventually, I decided to buy a crystal from the mountains near Heilongjiang. 50cm * 50cm * 14.5cm in size. There are two natural lines inside, but this is the largest crystal that I have found in two years.

Only after meeting many conditions can crystalline rocks be formed in the earth. The temperature is particularly important – it has to drop gradually for a mighty long time. I imagine what a long time this must be, while carving the crystal. Or I imagine the time and the environment to make the crystal. It might be somewhere underground, close to where marble is born, where the temperature is always constant. It's probably not a space, but a world of density, time and temperature. Even there, gravity plays a part. Somewhere in this world, or somewhere even deeper down into the earth. Maybe it's hell, or maybe somewhere else.
Soon after I start carving this transparent solid, I fall into an illusion that takes me thousands of years back in a few seconds. It's scary, but that's what actually happens. One-centimeter-cube thickness of crystal contains an immeasurable amount of time. That's what a natural crystal is. Also I can imagine that crystalline rocks are now being formed, everywhere in the world. I make a sculpture of "snow crystals" out of clear mineral. A single crystal of the earth and a single crystal of the sky. In this world, in history, there was never a moment when crystals were not being formed. In the sky that seems to be endless, somewhere in the air, there must be countless snow crystals being born, even now when it hasn't yet fallen on Mammoth Mountain this year. The crystallization of snow begins when the moisture in the cloud touches dust particles in the air. In a moment, everywhere. All the time, somewhere in the sky, forever.

I enjoy thinking about these things in "slowness" while carving snowflakes from crystal. The never-ending travel of my actual imagination continues in my mind, beyond the completion of the artwork. I am "completely" enjoying the process of production. This "pleasure" is important to me. For "pleasure," I can endure the sacrifice of effort and exertion. When the work is finished, I am always filled with love.
It won't be long, about two more months, before the "Mammoth Mountain snowflakes made of crystal" will be completed. But I try not to think ahead. I intentionally confuse "production for art piece" and "art piece for production" and treat the two equally, no matter how strenuous the condition. My daily activities are decided by such thoughts and instincts. In any case, I have to catch a flight tomorrow morning at 10am to return to LA.


Le Forum - Past Exhibitions

[Title] Agnosian Fields
[Artist] Didier Fiúza Faustino
[Date]　August 26th (Thursday) – November 23rd (Holiday), 2010


Don’t trust architects, there is no human mind without a body.
You must recover your awareness of the physical world.
Architecture may be a tool to sharpen your consciousness of reality.
Experience fragility.
Don’t trust architects.

[Title] Shisei no Sankyo
[Artist] Morihiro Hosokawa
Tea house ‘A bientôt’ designed by Terunobu Fujimori
[Date] April 22 - July 19, 2010


This Daruma piece, which is one of my first attempts at oil painting, is based on the Daruma painting of Hakuin* owned by Eisei Bunko**. The original Zen painting is of course drawn in ink, and I made this piece as an experiment in oil. Rather than choosing the usual motif of flowers, landscape or still life for my oil painting, I had wanted for a while to use some Buddhist imagery that I had already depicted as sumi-e (ink painting) or urushi-e (lacquer painting). Although I make ceramic Buddha sculptures and five-ringed towers as earthenware, I particularly wanted to depict Daruma as oil painting because of the strong impact inherent in the motif.

There are many oil paintings that I like among the works of Cezanne, Monet, Yûzô Saeki, Kokuta Suda, Ryûzaburô Umehara or Sôtarô Yasui. I also occasionally study the books of foreign and domestic artists, such as Van Gogh, Rouault, Renoir, Vlaminck and Katsuzô Satomi. What is particularly useful for me is the touch. For example, I am fascinated by how an artist can depict bulging muscles as lumps of mass with his brushwork. The composition of course is also useful, but what I pay attention to most is the touch. Japanese-style paintings seem flat to me, so for now, I am focusing on oil painting.

Painting allows freedom on the part of the artist. When making earthenware, particularly tea bowls, there are many rules to abide by. With an Ido tea bowl, for example, there is a standard shape and approximate height, not to mention the height of kôdai (elevation), and moreover, there must be a kairagi and a Takefushi kôdai, using a certain measure of the potter's wheel. In contrast, a painting can be made quite freely. For example, I depicted the Daruma's beard using ink, since I felt that its roughness could not be expressed with oil paint. It's only been about a year since I started oil painting, but these are the things that I find fascinating.




*Hakuin (1685－1768): a mid-Edo period Zen master who revived the Rinzai school. He left many Zen paintings and writings.
**Eisei Bunko: a non-profit foundation that researches, archives and makes available to the public historical documents and artworks owned by the Hosokawa clan, which goes back to the Sengoku period.


Press Conference Interview↓↓　
http://www.art-it.asia/u/maisonhermes/mDjliSOrxHo1cvT9b7e5/


List of Past Exhibitions↓
http://www.art-it.asia/u/maisonhermes/HIfGxBPAKpVcDowiNbUm/

[Title] Hollow
[Artist] Motohiko Odani
[Date]　December 17th (Thursday), 2009 – March 28th (Sunday), 2010


Hollow


A work is created by integrating multi-layered keywords.

- Transparency, the truth of existence
- Sense of pain accompanied in the state of ecstasy
- Jellyfish are made of 95% water. The shape of water can also be understood as the shape of jellyfish.
- To make a sculpture not out of the object itself, but out of its offshoot or division, like a doppelganger or a reflection in the mirror.
- For each piece of sculpture, configure G onto the various parts in order to create a state of neutral buoyancy resembling underwater. Cubism of G.
- Slow motion model of anti-gravity
- Apollo and Daphne = Body transforming into vegetation
- Folds of air
- Shape of aura, shape of presence, shape of ghosts

- Vertical axis = In rising and falling, there is not only the state of physical ecstasy, but also the spiritual. There lies the dynamism of life, death and eros.

Motohiko Odani


Interview at press conference ↓↓　
http://www.art-it.asia/u/maisonhermes/h2xozte87FvwHI9A1dpX/

[Title] Les Grands et les petits – chapitre 2
[Artist] Jean Michel Alberola
[Date]　October 10th (Saturday) – November 29th (Sunday), 2009