Art Review for Solo Exhibition "Camping Near the Woolen Mountain"

July 1 ~ 25, 2016

Solo Exhibition at Gallery Retara, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

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CAMPING NEAR THE WOOLEN MOUNTAIN. The chain of events …

From my perspective, every discussion about sculpture and especially metal sculpture begins with acknowledging three distinct sculptors that have broken the limits in the relation  between ideas, the material in itself, space and time – they are: the Romanian Constantin Brâncuşi, the American Richard Serra and the French Louise Bourgeois; Brâncuşi is no stranger to Japan, especially due to his close connection to Isamu Noguchi. In the same sense, he initiated the revolution in form, breaking the limits in regard to the interaction between the natural and the humane, accessing the inner structure of objects. His presence in the history of art was so strong, that nowadays an art historian must arm herself with sharp analytical instruments to discover what is lying behind the layers of polished bronze without disturbing the aura of his works, although apparently everything has been said in regard to Brâncuşi’s oeuvre. His creations contain many codes, therefore it is important to constantly revisit the body of work he has left behind. Needless to say that Serra went to the reconstructed studio of Brâncuşi in Paris…
Still, what connects these three main figures is the way they brought their personal experience to a stand, connected to the material, and confronted themselves with the non-linear perception of reality, disarming the person standing in front of the objects.

Rie Kawakami was born in Chiba; she concluded her art studies at the end of the 1980s in Tokyo, where she started to experiment with textures and the fragmentation of space. Later on, she moved to Sapporo where she expanded her practice in the studio located in Ishikari. By researching the purity and the transformation of various materialities in time and space, Rie Kawakami developed a strong interest in the possibilities of metal, which she sees as “a crust, a reminder of the width of the time passage”.
At first, she was using metal for its restorative force, with an emphasis on the form and the workability of the matter. Then, within the recent years, Kawakami began confronting the meaning of her metal works, based on three categories of mental and physical processes that she relates to the cycles of the universe: “birth, growth, death”, “molding, processing, destruction” and “expansion, contraction, collapse". These are actually part of the dialectics of self -objectification that is based on an evolutionary view upon her artistic approach, as each piece has a very clear trajectory – from the moment it is being planned, going to the production stage and then finalizing with the public display of the work.
Looking at Rie Kawakami’s portfolio, the beholder can experience the transformation of form under “the attack” of the abstract imagination of the artist – anthropomorphic shapes are sublimated, becoming ensembles of radiating interfaces that ascend to the sky, changing the direction of wind or mixing immediate reality. She enjoys thinking in cycles, while exploring the interaction between nature, man-made structures, micro and macro formations, shaping the membrane of the unknown.

For the exhibition at Retara Gallery, Rie Kawakami is proposing a new body of works, completing a cycle of research on the condition and behavior of structures, enabling a new stage in referring to the context of exhibiting metal installations. The space of the gallery has been divided in two chambers by an oblique wall, generating two different experiences for the viewer that needs to choose directly from the entrance which way she/he will go. It is a lucid decision, as one can spot the sculptural structures shaping in front of him.
On three glass tables, randomly set in one of the spaces, a system of miniature props is being arranged; it looks like they have been thrown there from above, while in the same time, they are neatly placed. The installations seem like collapsing utopian constructions – when trying to put the pieces together, the angles would never fit in a coherent form. The glass surface allows the observer to mirror herself/ himself while looking at the metal pieces, creating a fascinating game between self-reference and objectual.
The drawing on the wall, showing refined metal traces, refers to the fundament of a possible project, but in the same stance, the subject is fading away, almost disappearing in front of our eyes. It is hard to capture it, while being so present in its disappearance.
In the other space, there is a one on one encounter with a monolith constituted out of thousands of welded metal pieces. At this point, it is impossible to state whether this piece is an installation or a sculpture and that is why I prefer to call it the sculpture-installation. Therefore, the sculpture-installation contains two channels of interpretation – on one side, it is the outer layer which looks like a fragmented armour and on the other side, it is the inner layer acting like a void, like a tunnel to the unknown; it is not accessible to the observer, but it transcends any limitation in form, as it opens an intimate, aspatial possibility.
This brings us to the title of the exhibition, Camping near the Woolen Mountain. The Woolen Mountain is a fictional construct and the metaphor of grandeur that is not a burden, it is airy and warm, a reference to Rie Kawakami’s sculpture-installation – although made out of steel and weighting hundreds of kilograms, it expresses interlocking concepts: protection and nothingness, collapsing and reshaping, visibility and mystery. The act of “camping” in our case relates to the interaction between the artist, the works and the viewer – it is a mutual relation in a temporary settlement, where the rules are interchangeable, being made according to the situation. The viewer becomes the camper near the woolen mountain where the artist resides…

Anca Verona Mihuleţ
Independent curator

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Art Review for Solo Exhibition "Camping Near the Woolen Mountain"

July 1 ~ 25, 2016

Solo Exhibition at Gallery Retara, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan