At the Stillpoint of the Turning World
Performance-Video und Fotografie
Ausstellung
15.09.2022 – 11.11.2022
Kunstraum Claudia Delank | Bleibtreustr. 15–16, 10623 Berlin
Nach Vereinbarung
Eröffnung
15.09.2022 | 18–20 Uhr
Kunstraum Claudia Delank | Bleibtreustr. 15–16, 10623 Berlin
Grußwort: Tokiko Kiyota, Stellvertretende Generalsekretärin, Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum Berlin
U.A.w.g. bis 13.09.2022
Öffnungszeiten während der Berlin Art Week
Fr. 16.09.2022 | 12–18 Uhr
Sa. 17.09.2022 | 12–18 Uhr
So. 18.09.2022 | 12–18 Uhr
We are pleased to present Japanese artist Tokyo Maruyama’s solo exhibition “At the Stillpoint of the Turning World”.
His artistic work includes photography, installation and performance, which he has been producing since 1979 under the basic concept „Fieldworks in the City“. The starting point of the work is the city of Tokyo, which he depicts in his works as a place of transition and the intermediate world. He addresses the city as a living process. This is particularly evident in the photo series “Forms from Home” from the 1990s. A small wooden house acts as a reflection of the viewer. It symbolizes the artist’s spirit, absorbing and reflecting the environment at the same time. Behind the house, which acts as the center of the picture, there is a view of the Tokyo skyline, of a wasteland or of hidden alleys. Asymmetry and cropped objects play an important role in Maruyama’s photographs.
In his photo series “Simultaneous Positioning” from the 2000s, the chair plays the role of mediator between artist, object and viewer. It (the chair) stands between the artificial and the natural world and evokes the place of each individual in the world. An attribute is assigned to each chair, for example a pyramid made of salt as a sacrifice for the ancestors, a crystal ball as a symbol of the future, his father’s glasses as a biographical element or the hourglass as a symbol of the „memento mori“. In this series, the artist addresses “being”, which is subject to the endless flow of time and is therefore committed to transience, entirely to the Japanese philosophical attitude to life of “mono no aware” – awareness of the uniqueness of the moment, given its transience.
Matching the photo series “Simultaneous Positioning”, the video of the same name draws attention to the small area of the chair legs, which becomes the scene of the life and death of individual insects. The spectacle is filmed alternately in focus and out of focus to recall the Buddhist principle of rebirth. The video was made before the events of September 11, 2001. The rectangular chair legs become a symbol for the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the associated struggle for life and death.Other important elements of his performances are earth, a globe, chairs of different sizes and a glass eye, with which he expresses his positioning in the world.The artist has had numerous exhibitions in Japan, Europe and America since 1981.