Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Closes in 30 days
Koji Mori, Kohei Nawa, Katja Strunz and Georg Winter, participants in an artist exchange program between Berlin and Tokyo, reflect on the everyday in works realized as a part of their three month-long stay abroad. The results on show at the Hara Museum (www.haramuseum.or.jp) prove that immersing an artist in a foreign environment still bears fruit.
Georg Winter presents a sound installation that mixes a recording of crying cicadas with a Schumann piano piece. Whereas in a romantic world you would hear this perhaps in a country house, here it is in Tokyo. The presence of cicadas, so omnipresent but unnoticed by most Tokyoites, is a source of fascination and inspiration to the temporary visitor.
Nawa's sculptures stand out because of their highly textural qualities. Nawa spent three months in Berlin, a city known for the energy of its contemporary art scene. But it was not the art scene that inspired him; it was the slower side of the city and the mundane. In a world well connected in regards to popular culture and technology, the banal and routine is often most uncanny when away from home. Everyone, including artists, can experience it by just going away.
