Takashi Kuribayashi “In Between” at Beyond Museum

My first thought when I entered the museum was “OMG such a wonderful space”. So white, so mysterious, so incredible. This is the first personal Japanese artist Takashi Kuribayashi, whose interest is the conception of a border. In his young years he used to spend much time at the seaside or mountains, and now he tries to look into relationships which exist in “between” of different types of substances or spaces.

The main object called “Wald aus Wald” occupies all the 1^st floor of the museum. It’s a huge paper canvas fixed between ceiling and floor. It has holes on the surface, from which you can see outside space – it looks like a white forest with paper trees. This work provides an opportunity to have an experience of being above and underground at the same time.

Another way of studying borders is showed in Kuribayashi’s performance with yatai (traditional Japanese food stall). The artist was carrying the yatai to the different places in the world (on the exhibition are represented videos from Nepal, Singapore and Korea), meeting people who live there and try to research a concept of people’s relations and meaning of space in the modern globalized world.

After natural disasters have happened in Japan, he became to consider nature not only as a subject of aesthetical joy but also as a power which can manage people’s life. It comes out in the works “Iceberg” and “Icicle” through using an incredibly fragile medium such as ice.

It is worth visiting Beyond Museum just to see the fantastic forest landscape and feel yourself like in a dream, to have an experience of being on the border, being in “between”.

Directions: Cheongdam st., line 7, exit 9. Walk straight 5 min.

Entrance fee: 10,000 won

Thru October, 16

www.beyondmuseum.com