Hiraki Sawa
dal 3/9/2007 al 13/10/2007
Segnalato da
3/9/2007
Hiraki Sawa
Chisenhale Gallery, London
Hako
Hako
Hiraki Sawa first gained attention in the UK through East International and New
Contemporaries in 2002. For his first solo exhibition in a London public gallery,
Sawa has created a newly commissioned multi-screen video with a soundtrack produced
by Takeshi Nishimoto and edited by Dale Berning. Hako comprises six videos with
subtle digital animation depicting extraordinary transformations of landscapes, a
nuclear powerstation, a Shinto monastery and constructed model interiors of rooms
and corridors.
Hako's development began with Sawa's interest in a Victorian doll's house and box
garden therapies. In this form of treatment a doctor gives a patient an empty
wooden box along with a set of miniature objects. Each of these objects is selected
for its symbolic meaning, as determined by the doctor. The patient is then asked to
furnish the box with these elements, to create his or her personal garden, which the
doctor then analyses. In both the box garden and Sawa’s doll's house there is a
controlled structure where rules and selected elements allow improvisation and play
to reveal unconscious processes.
Similarly the six scenes and events in Hako are charged with psychological and
mythological aspects as they shift between fantasy and reality. In these evocative
interrelated films, fireworks explode over a Japanese nuclear powerstation set
dramatically at the ocean’s edge, birds flock around warm churning water pumped into
the sea at Dungeness, a miniature toy clock is animated to keep real world time, a
carefully cultivated forest surrounding a Shinto monastery is shown as the light
shifts, and romantic land and seascapes morph into one another.
Hiraki Sawa received an MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art, London in
2003. He has a forthcoming solo exhibition at Centro de Arte de Caja (CAB) in
Burgos, Spain. Previous solo exhibitions include First Center for the Visual Arts
in Nashville, USA; Aichi Arts Centre in Aichi, Japan; National Gallery of Victoria
in Melbourne, Australia and Firstsite in Colchester, UK. His work was also shown in
Around the World in Eighty Days, a joint exhibition between South London Gallery and
ICA in London in 2006. Hiraki Sawa was born in Japan in 1977. He lives and works
in London and is represented by James Cohan Gallery, New York and Ota Fine Arts,
Tokyo.
This exhibition is a collaboration between Chisenhale Gallery and Centro de Arte de
Caja (CAB) in Burgos, Spain. It is accompanied by a full colour catalogue with an
introduction by Simon Wallis, Director of Chisenhale Gallery and an essay by
Jennifer Thatcher, Director of Talks, ICA.
Chisenhale Gallery
64 Chisenhale Road - London
Free admission