“I wish to explode the thought of lovely ikebana,” says Kosen Ohtsubo, one of many foremost conceptual artists working within the Japanese custom.
For the reason that Seventies, Ohtsubo has been unsettling the traditional artwork of flower arranging. Incorporating atypical botanicals like cabbage leaves or weaving in unconventional supplies like bathtubs and scrap steel, the artist approaches making with the mindset of a jazz musician, a style he incessantly listens to whereas working. Improvisation and experimentation are on the core, together with an unquenchable need for the sudden.
An exhibition at Kunstverein München in Munich pairs Ohtsubo with Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham who, after discovering the ikebana icon’s work in a e-book in 2013, turned his scholar. Titled Flower Planet—which references a sign that hangs exterior Ohtsubo’s Tokorozawa residence and studio—the present presents numerous sculptures and installations that invite viewers to contemplate fragility, decay, and the elusive qualities of magnificence and management.
Given the ephemeral nature of the supplies, images performs an necessary position in most ikebana practices because it preserves an association lengthy after it has wilted. This exhibition, subsequently, pairs photographs of earlier works with new commissions, together with Ohtsubo’s standout orb titled “Linga München.” Nested in a mattress of soil and leaves, the large-scale sculpture wraps willow with steel constructions and positions a small candle inside its heart.
Equally immersive is “Willow Rain,” which suspends skinny branches from the ceiling. Subverting the best way we usually encounter fields of progress, the work is one among many within the exhibition that seeds questions on our relationship to the pure world and the bounds of human management.
Flower Planet is on view by means of April 21. Discover Ohstubo’s huge archive on Instagram.
reflecting sphere, Japanese woven bamboo basket
