April 5th -May 19th , 2014
Opening: Saturday 5th April – h: 07.00 p.m.
Galleria Paola Verrengia is pleased to present the group show “The Drifting Clouds” by the artists Kaori Miyayama (Tokyo,1975), Masaharu Sato (Oita,1973) and Shinya Sakurai (Hiroshima,1981), curated by Antonio d’Avossa.
The artists employ different techniques – photography and installation for Kaori Miyayama, video and digital painting for Masaharu Sato and mix media on canvas for Shinya Sakurai- in order to create a complex and intriguing project, specifically realized for the Galleria Paola Verrengia.
Antonio d’Avossa writes:
“The single word ukigumo in Japanese refers to floating clouds which are suspended but moving. Western languages use two words to indicate the same thing: drifting clouds, ziehende polke, or nuages flottant. However, for Japanese people, ukigumo is not only a word which indicates drifting clouds, but also the one which indicates an existential condition of perpetual movement, of being adrift suspended and buoyant, between here and there, inside and outside. This state of drifting, this cultural and existential suspension has visual references in both Japanese and European culture. Firstly, the novel Ukigumo by Futabatei Shimei (1887), which inspired the novel by the writer Fumiko Hayashi in 1951 and the film with the same title, Ukigumo, directed by Mikio Naruse in 1955. In German and Finnish culture there are two further examples: one is the extraordinary canvas by Kaspar David Friedrich of 1830 entitled Ziehende Wolken and the other is a film of 1996 by the Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, entitled Kauas pilvet karkaavat.
The concept of ukigumo, which exists in other art forms including visual arts, has also been fully represented by the Japanese artists Kaori Miyayama, Shinya Sakurai and Masaharu Sato, who, in life, spend their time between Milan, Turin, Tokyo and Hiroshima. Thus their suspended existential condition is inevitably reflected in the visual result of their work.
In the work of Shinya Sakurai, the idea of suspension and floating is expressed by dabs of colour which overflow the canvas creating clouds of different shape and colours. They become a real cloud made of clouds, macula in the clear sky represented by the canvas and extending across the open horizon of images.
The work of Masaharu Sato represents suspension at the threshold of vision. His photography is based on the suspension of the gaze between inside and outside or internal and external vision. Even though the latter is never represented, this postponement is deliberately directed at our gazing, forcing us to look and imagine at the same time. It is this process that the images make us see.
In Kaori Miyayama’s works we find ourselves without gravity, we observe with the physical lightness of feeling suspended. We look at transparency both inside and outside as if we can see only by passing through the same clouds twice in a row. This is something impossible in real life, but it becomes possible through the visual condition which always emerges from her installations.” (Antonio d’Avossa)
Kaori Miyayama, Selected Solo Exhibitions: “The way down to the sky”, Base Gallery, Tokyo (2013); “Falling towards the sky”, 3001LAB-Rossosegnale, Milan, Italy (2013); “The Hidden Dimention”, curated by M. Galbiati, M. Rancan, Pinacoteca Villa Soranzo, Varallo Pombia, Italy (2011). Selected Exhibitions: “La natura rigenerata”, Villa Braghieri, Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Piacenza, Italy (2013); “SP ESTAMPA 2012”, Galeria Gravura Brasileira, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2012)
Masaharu Sato, Selected Solo Exhibition: “9 HOLES”, Kawasaki City Museum, Kanagawa (2013); “Signs”, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, Germany (2009) Selected Exhibitions “From a distance, keep a distance”, The Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul, Korea (2011); “Not only paper”, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, Cina (2012); “2:46 and there after”, Edison Place Gallery, Washington, D.C, USA (2012); “15th JAPAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL Exbition of Award-winning Works”, The National Art Center, Tokyo (2012).
Shinya Sakurai, Selected Solo Exhibition: “United Colors”, Base Gallery, Tokyo (2013); “Saluzzo Arte”, Fondazione Amleto Bertoni, Saluzzo, Italia (2012); “Shinya Sakurai 2007-2012”, Palazzo Mistrot, Torino (2012); “Paese dei Nidi”, curated by Andrea Pozzoli, Castello di Racconigi, Racconigi, Italia ( 2011).
For Masaharu Sato special thanks to Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf.
