Home > Highlighting JAPAN > Highlighting Japan OCTOBER 2011 > Yokohama Triennale 2011

Highlighting JAPAN

PrevlousNext

TOPICS

Caption: One Sentence (2011) by Chinese-born Yin Xiuzhen. The size of the containers is different depending on the fabric wearer's physique, gender and the season the clothes were made for. In the background is TELEPHONE IN MAZE.
Credit: MASATOSHI SAKAMOTO

Yokohama Triennale 2011

Japanese


In front of the Yokohama Museum of Art stand twelve sculptures, moonrise.east. (2005), by Swiss-born artist Ugo Rondinone. The features on each statue's face are intended to correspond to each month of the year.
Credit: MASATOSHI SAKAMOTO
Under the title "OUR MAGIC HOUR—How Much of the World Can We Know?" the Yokohama Triennale 2011 is being held until November 6 at two main venues in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture: the Yokohama Museum of Art and the NYK Waterfront Warehouse (BankART Studio NYK). More than 300 works from seventy-seven participating artists/groups (thirty-four of whom were born in Japan) are on display, spanning a wide range of art including oil paintings, photography, video and sculpture.

Each standing at a height of over two meters, twelve sculptures from Swiss-born artist Ugo Rondinone, moonrise.east. (2005), line up outside the Yokohama Museum of Art to greet visitors. Each humorous work has its own adorable expression and elicits cries of "how cute!" from children.

The three-dimensional work One Sentence (2011) by Chinese-born Yin Xiuzhen has been placed just inside the entrance to the Yokohama Museum of Art. In One Sentence the clothing from 108 individuals, from outerwear to socks, has been unraveled, wrapped into concentric circles and then placed into a cylindrical container reminiscent of a film canister used to store film. There are 108 such containers, which corresponds to the number of worldly desires in Buddhism, displayed in a spiraling shape.

Exhibited alongside is the work TELEPHONE IN MAZE (2011) by Japanese-born Yoko Ono, comprising a telephone placed in the center of a maze of transparent acrylic. As calls are infrequently placed to the telephone from Ono herself, lucky visitors may be able to speak directly with the artist.

Works from the likes of René Magritte, Isamu Noguchi and Nobuyoshi Araki are also on display at the museum.

Using a free bus service from the Yokohama Museum of Art, you can get to the NYK Waterfront Warehouse, the other main venue, in around ten minutes.

On the first floor of the NYK Waterfront Warehouse, Untitled (2007/2011) by Dewar & Gicquel (the artist unit comprising English-born Daniel Dewar and French-born Grégory Gicquel) is presented. Made from clay and weighing some twenty tons, the powerful image depicts a giant hippopotamus over six meters in length lying down.

On the third floor, Swedish-born Henrik Håkansson's Fallen Forest (2006/2009/2011) is on display. The piece features over ten different categories of trees grown in pots and lying on their sides. The work appears to imply environmental destruction while at the same time expressing the vitality of plant life.

"The Yokohama Triennale is a great place not just for famous artists but where you can encounter works from obscure, fresh artists," said a female Yokohama resident in her twenties who was visiting the venue. "There are some parts of contemporary art that are difficult to grasp, but it's also fun to think in your own way about what the artist is trying to say."

PrevlousNext