WAVE UFO

Mariko Mori

Exhibition duration: February 8, thru March 23, 2003

Opening: Friday, February 7, 2003, 7:00 p.m.

Press conference: Friday, February 7, 2003, 1:00 p.m.
The artist will be present.

At the core of our exhibition program for 2003 is the discourse on the radicalism of the artificial with its heterogeneous aesthetic, technological, and social facets.

The Japanese artist Mariko Mori (* 1967 in Tokyo, lives and works in Tokyo and New York) has for several years already been considered one of the major young representatives in the contemporary Japanese art scene. In her artificial environments she constructs visions of an ideal world: a fusion of Japanese tradition, hybrid virtual realities, and models of the future. Like a temptress from a future world Mori "landed" in the art scene in the mid-nineties. Her photos show herself, dressed like a futuristic comic book hero. They are a celebration of her as if she were a music or fashion industry icon. Mariko Mori's more recent works take on more complexity: the photos have given way to multi-layered images that produce the illusion of motion. These were followed by videos with compelling music, and last but not least a 3-D video.

The role of the make-believe star evolves into a kind of stylized psychic being. Her message is that we need to believe in utopias. Yet however they may seem, her works are neither ironic nor naive. Her fantastical visions are sensible journeys, expeditions to a realm where the rules of modern civilization have been annulled ...