Japanese Version

ROOM "EARTH"

UTSUROHI - a moment of movement

Earth Room

Passing between existing and not existing - is not this what is meant by kokoro (heart and mind)? A shadow crossing the road, a breeze caressing the cheek, cirrocumulus clouds passing across the sky. Who are you? What is the message? Is that what is meant by ki (mental or spiritual energy)? A presence which is difficult to name, it continually teaches us the preciousness of existence.

Utsurohi is formed by arching lengths of hard but flexible stainless steel wire above a square pool, like an atrium or a stage. Utsurohi is suspended above water, against the background framed by the wall behind it. Then into a long narrow room like a hallway. The condition of "Earth" implies being surrounded by expansiveness and thickness sufficient to receive a great load, not just ground or surface. The expansiveness and thickness of certain transitions-transitions between above and below, outside andinside, place and time. Many "moments of movement" appear between the light and the shadow.

Water. Iike a mirror. Black stones laid tightly together. Walking down a sloping stone hallway straight along the wall. It somehow recalls the engawa, a traditional wooden porch, on the side of a fondly-remembered house. Coming down into a garden paved with stones like a river bank is another good way to be led into utsurohi A bit of friendly talk, and...










A wind rises outside. It shivers. The sun passes, the shadows move. Inside the room,you linger in light and shadow. Like traces of a beloved life which has flown away. Like melodies in a duet which appear and disappear. Like dancers jumping as they turn. Hovering, coming together, passing. People arrive here from somewhere, linger, walk about, and leave. Something is rediscovered and taken away.

One might also enjoy idea of idling in a mythological world. The world of Gaia, the great mother goddess of the earth. A journey to the underworld. Wind and thunder gods in the mountains. Dragons in the lake.... An unseen presence spoken of and contained in the story of these physical things, a nonphysical process which can only be referred to as nature.

There is no need to say once again that all things in nature are in motion. The reverberations left behind by all these moving elements together become events which involve all the senses. Nostalgic memory or fleeting premonition. A presence which is difficult to name. These feelings teach us the preciousness of an existence surrounded by nothingness. They are related to the Japanese aesthetic of the autumn grass, the vanity of existence which is expressed by the word utsurohi, This is an aesthetic of plainness, simplicity, openness, but also an aesthetic of intense darkness and light. The interface between life and death. The passage of life between being and nothingness. Or rather the preciousness of being supported by nonbeing. Aware.

Extract from "THREE CONVERSATIONS" Koji Takahashi
(Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)

ROOM "EARTH" UTSUROHI A MOMENT OF MOVEMENT