Exhibition
Exhibition 2022
In an Urbanized Wilderness
Taisuke Makihara / Hatsune Katayama
14th, 15th, 20th and 21st May 2022 (4 days)
11:00-18:00 *Reservation required
Venue: a mountain lodge in Minami-aiki, Nagano, Japan
Concept
In May 2022, Taisuke Makihara and Hatsune Katayama will hold a four-day exhibition at a mountain lodge and neighboring surrounds in Nagano Prefecture.We have been forced to make major changes in our lives over the last few years. Along with those changes, many have increasingly redirected their attention from the city to countryside. This is not just an escape but involves taking in or moving in wilderness with urban skills. The city and wilderness are now forming a seamless connection and the border between them is gradually becoming lost. Or perhaps there was no border to begin with. Wemustnow find a future guideline in an intermediate realm by confronting this very real ‘urbanized wilderness,’ not by escaping to a spiritual image of nature.
Event
Artist Talk
Taisuke Makihara, Hatsune Katayama
Moderator: Ryosuke Kondo (Art critic, History of Landscape)
15th May 2022
Guest Talk
Takako Itoh, Taisuke Makihara, Hatsune Katayama
Guest speaker: Takako Itoh (Associate Professor, School of Art and Design,University of Toyama, Environmental Aesthetics)
21st May 2022
Document
01 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
I selected several stones scattered around the mountain lodge and removed moss and other deposits on their surfaces with a high-pressure washer and a deck brush. These surfaceswere totally hidden at first, but were gradually exposed. I had heard that the strata in the area had seen a history of mining, with many strange rocks used for gardens. Each of the eleven stones in this work has its own formation process, casting the aspect of the mixed stone quality and the subtle differences in color. Only 01 has a border on its surface. The line was determined by the shadow +of the mountain lodge cast at a certain time. When the sunlight hits, the shadow overlaps.
02 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
03 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
04 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
Stakes, which mark property lines, were also tinged with moss and other deposits. In this exhibition, we have described both natural objects and artificial objects on the exhibition map so that visitors can see this field as an environment and observe substances or materials within a chaotic environment. This concrete stake was produced in the urban world, but is an aggregate of gravel and crushed stone. It may then share common quality with other stones.
05 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
06 Wood deck
Hatsune Katayama
The venue—the mountain lodge—is surrounded by nature, but we could posit that the human-managed woods is an artefact. While we may consider the environment through artefact-naturebinaries, I, however, assume there are no such polarities, but instead a broad gradation as ‘an intermediate realm.’
Reflecting, I have been contemplating borders and territories. I have been wondering about the impact that borders have on things and minds and how they lead them to another place.A border is considered a single line that makes things clear. However, a borderline itself has a realm of its own. To disregard these intermediate realms is to disregard the noises that flow in them, and thoughts and experiences arethen stranded. To include these realms in our observations: to think and to experience them. That may be the only way to understand what exists in this world.
I made a wooden deck in the woods with the same structure as a wooden deck belonging to the mountain lodge. Standing on the deck at the lodge, we spontaneously choose to observe the scenery from one direction. In other words, the deck provides us a dominant line of sight with a well-planned view. By placing a structure with such a feature in the woods away from the lodge, we may acknowledge the woods not just as an object of appreciation, but as a borderless place, or neither. An intermediate realm may appear when we experience standing in situ with awareness.
07 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
08 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
09 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
These two stones, onlysubtly visible, give off sensitive colors from their surfaces while indicating adistinct sense of time. They may have been originally one stone, if we were to go back in time thousands or even billions of years.
10 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
11 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
12 Raw stone
Taisuke Makihara
12 is located about a 10-minute walk from the mountain lodge. The exhibition will concludeas you admire the scenery as you make your way back to the lodge. The orderly larch and the road flanked with greenery tell us that they have been made by humankind.
