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Email PageHiraki Sawa 2006
April 22, 2006- June 3, 2006
Reception: April 22, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Hiraki Sawa
James Cohan Gallery
533 W 26th St Hiraki Sawa Going Places Sitting Down (2004) |  Hiraki Sawa Going Places Sitting Down (2004) |
Sawa, a Japanese artist living in London, uses video animation to create poetic dreamscapes that are ruminations on ideas of time and movement; innocence and alienation; dislocation and displacement. These themes are evident in his work of the past 5 years, including the widely exhibited Dwelling, 2003, where the artist’s apartment serves as both a domicile and international airport with miniature jets gliding past everyday household objects and surroundings.
In Going Places Sitting Down, an English country home serves as the stage where graceful rocking horses are the main characters. A perfect object for playing out Sawa’s themes, the rocking horse has the capability to be in perpetual motion without ever really going anywhere. Projected onto three large-scale screens, the miniature horses move fluidly on an enchanted journey through the metaphysical terrain of the domestic interior. They navigate what becomes a vast magical landscape, floating in the current produced by a dripping faucet and galloping along what first appears to be a snow-covered forest but is, in fact, a sheepskin carpet.
In Murmuring, Sawa is interested in simultaneously exploring the rhythms of the living space and those who inhabit it. Images of plants, animals, and fireworks are drawn directly on to the surfaces of a domestic interior. Sawa animates these images and in doing so suggests the ephemeral nature of their fleeting reality.
Sawa focuses on making visible the realm of our imaginations, allowing us to travel the world without physically relocating. By taking us on an exploration of these interior landscapes, the artist reminds us that the human mind is a limitless terrain of discovery.
Sawa currently has a solo exhibition at FirstSite in Colchester, UK. Over the past year he has had solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC and the Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles. He will have an exhibition of new work at the Saint Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia during the coming year. Sawa was also included in the Yokohama Triennial, 2005 and the Lyon Biennial, 2003.
Art Reviews of Hiraki Sawa 2006
| New York Times May 26, 2006 | Ken Johnson | "...The other work, called ''Murmuring,'' is a black-and-white video diptych shown on wide television screens turned sideways (i.e., vertically) and installed on adjacent walls in a gallery corner. In this one you see a hand drawing animals, plants, a Ferris wheel and exploding fireworks on apartment walls and surfaces. These linear images come to ghostly life and move about the various rooms to the accompaniment of a haunting, reverberating soundtrack of drums...." |
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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