Art
#installation
#light
#sculpture
#Shinji Ohmaki

“Gravity and Grace” (2023), set up view at Nationwide Artwork Heart. Photograph by Keizo Kioku. All photos courtesy of Nationwide Artwork Heart
In “Gravity and Grace,” Japanese artist Shinji Ohmaki poses a broad, if not daunting, query: what does it imply to exist? The set up, which options an imposing vessel carved with wildlife, radiates from the middle and casts shadows in different sizes and opacities across the gallery. Bulbous close to the bottom with a slimmer neck that reaches towards the ceiling, the work’s form evokes the tower of a nuclear energy plant and spills gentle in each path.
This iteration of “Gravity and Grace,” which is a part of a sequence ongoing since 2016, is included in Ohmaki’s exhibition Interface of Being on view now at Tokyo’s National Art Center. The solo present options works made in response to the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed almost 20,000 folks and brought about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Energy Plant to soften down and launch radioactive water.
Reaching as much as a whopping 840,000 lumens, “Gravity and Grace” harnesses the interaction of sunshine and shadow to critique trendy society’s dependence on vitality, actually mapping illuminated patterns onto the viewers who move by. The distinction additionally attracts consideration to nature’s cycles and the artist’s enduring curiosity in time and house, significantly the reminder that all of us inhabit this planet for a comparatively transient second.
If you happen to’re in Tokyo, you possibly can see Interface of Being, which additionally features a gossamer sculpture that undulates throughout the gallery like billowing cloth, via December 25. In any other case, discover extra from Ohmaki on his site and Instagram.

Element of “Gravity and Grace” (2023). Picture courtesy of A4 Artwork Museum

“Gravity and Grace” (2023), set up view at Nationwide Artwork Heart. Photograph by Keizo Kioku

Element of “Gravity and Grace” (2023)

“Liminal Air Area—Time Vacuum Fluctuations,” set up view Nationwide Artwork Heart. Photograph by Keizo Kioku
#installation
#light
#sculpture
#Shinji Ohmaki
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