The Phantom Wing and the Gifted PaperThoughts on the exhibition Landscape Will – On the Ground, by Rie Kawakami

 

During a hot summer on Hokkaido Island, Japanese artist Rie Kawakami challenged the margins of objects and the way we perceive them when taken out of the usual context. In the Annex of Gallery Monma in Sapporo, Rie Kawakami presented a new series of sculptures ensuing from her preoccupations with the limits of things and the generosity of the extended universe. Although made of heavy steel, when unfolded into space, Rie’s objects seem light as feathers; there is an easiness with which she conjures matter and shapes it to echo her deep thoughts and feelings.

For the exhibition in Gallery Monma, Rie Kawakami addresses a subject that she has been discussing in her art over the last decade – landscape and the will for landscape. But this time, she looks at landscape from a different angle, asking what happens “on the ground” and what “the ground” conveys or delivers to the one who observes it.

A mixed-media work, combining raisin with pieces of steel, determines the viewer to meditate over a liquified substance containing remains of the artist’s works, in an attempt to reveal and “cherish the fact that steel is the blood of the earth”, to use Kawakami’s own words. Steel – blood – earth are three loaded terms that encompass a myriad of meanings and implications. The artist takes us to the essence of her practice, while at the same time displaying the quintessential momentum that is hidden behind all mega-structures that surround us. But this notion shouldn’t make us feel small – rather, it should determine us to understand how things work and where they come from; in this way, we are part of the process and become aware of the process.  

Gordon Matta-Clark once said: A simple cut or series of cuts acts as a powerful drawing device able to redefine spatial situations and structural components. The cut that generates deconstruction and the redefinition of space is a method often used by Rie Kawakami; for this exhibition, she imagined the wing of an aeroplane that she cut into smaller pieces, showing the deviation of each piece in the gallery space. The work is called On the Ground, hence the title of the exhibition. It allows for two dimensions of interpretation – on one side, it is impossible not to consider the chaotic aftermath of a plane crash, but on the other side we are given the possibility to reflect on sequential movements and the order behind chaos.   The column, made out of steel multiples, fragments the space and distorts the horizontality of the exhibition, in order to complicate the linear perspective. The unevenness of the column reminds us of ancestral forms of architecture that were not fully solemn, but mirrored the beauty of an intricate shape, communicating about past, present and future.

Crumpled sheets of steal, acting as simulacra of folded or bended sheets of paper, describe a palimpsest of forms, accumulated like archaeological findings in a cabinet. The installation transmits a clear message – fragility characterizes all solid structures, in the same sense as all tenuous matter envelops strength.The piece that closes the exhibition is a round-shaped base standing on five metal feet, filled with rusted metal parts and resembling a maritime industrial construction. The work creates an independent architecture, igniting the imagination of the beholder, who is left wondering within a geometry of chaos. 

Landscape Will – On the Ground, an exhibition built on binary realities, suggests a more attentive reading of our surrounding, removing the fluster and uncertainty and embracing chaos as a sine qua non-element.   

 

Anca Verona Mihuleţ

Independent curator