3/3/2000
Mariko Mori: Dream Temple
Rooseum, Malmo
Japanese artist
Mariko Mori (born
1967), one of the
most innovative
young artists
within media art
today, is now
represented by
her first solo exhibition in Scandinavia. Following
studies at Chelsea College of Art in London,
among other places, and an early career as
model and designer, she now devotes herself to
video installations, high-tech architecture,
monumental photographs and intimate drawings
that rely for inspiration on both eastern and
western art, the history of western art and
religion, fashion illustrations and popular culture.
She uses herself as model in films and photos
that combine performance, fashion, high
technology and art, creating a futuristic persona:
half woman, half cyber-girl.
The central work in the Rooseum exhibition is
Dream Temple, 1999, whose three main themes
are energy, meditation, and technology. These
are manifested in a complex, multi-media and
spiritually high-tech temple, into which viewers
are invited, one by one, for a magnificent
audio-visual experience. The work is rooted in
tradition while utilizing the most recent
technology to achieve the liberation of body and
spirit. The physical construction is inspired by a
Japanese temple from the early Nara period
(Temple of Dreams in Horyuji, dating from 739
A.D.). Instead of wood, Mori has chosen dichroic
glass, whose color shifts according to the
position of the viewer relative to the surface of
the glass. Her work Enlightenment Capsule,
1998, consists of a transparent lotus blossom
made from fiber-optical cables in a glass
capsule. The capsule is connected to a sensor
on the roof of the museum which utilizes
chromatic deviation to separate ultraviolet and
infrared rays from the rays of sunlight. Light has
a dualistic material and metaphysical function:
visible and invisible forces working together to
achieve a combination of the spiritual and
science. Other works include photography:
Kumano, 1997-98; a video installation: Kumano
(Alaya), 1997-98, and Garden of Purification,
1999, a Japanese garden created from salt
crystals, colored stones that symbolize the
gradual purification of the various parts of the
human body, and 51 stepping stones for the
garden. In addition, there are some 30 drawings
based on the film shown in Dream Temple.
Mariko Mori's recent solo exhibitions include
Centre national d'art contemporain de Grenoble
(1996), Dallas Museum of Art (1997), Andy
Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (1998), Los
Angeles County Museum of Art (1998), Museum
of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1998),
Sepentine Gallery, London (1998), Brooklyn
Museum of Art (1999), Fondazione Prada, Milan
(1999), and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (1999).
She received an award for young artists at the
Venice Biennale in 1997.
Rooseum
Malmo,
SE Sweden