Morio Nishimura: Sweet Rain
OUT-LOOK – January 25 – June 13, 2020
Cabinet exhibition, Galerie Drees

The works of Morio Nishimura exhibited in the project room of the Galerie Drees exemplify the fundamental concept of the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Arts and Culture Foundation collection. But at the same time – as could likely be said of any artistic work – they also embody something specific and particular.

Unusually, the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Arts and Culture Foundation collection has chosen meditation and contemplation as selection criteria for its acquisition of contemporary art. This does not mean the collection purchases religious art. Instead, it means paying attention to artists who set about questioning and infusing reality using artistic methods, who invite the viewer to leave the familiar behind, to redefine what is important, and to experience it anew. On viewing this art, the spectator is thrown back on him- or herself; emptiness, colour, and form allow the viewer to discover something new and personal. In place of mimetic representation, they find something that points ahead: a new way of seeing, a new freedom, a new form of knowledge. For the collection, this concept is above all embodied in the works of the works of the artists of the Zero and Gutai groups.

The works of Morio Nishimura

Morio Nishimura is another artist whose works inhabit this field of tension. His works remain the most narratively-oriented of all the works in the collection. The spectator can recognise elements of the lotus flower: petals, blossoms, and clusters of fruit. In Kalpa-8, Nishimura combines lotus leaves with handmade paper, integrating the lotus blossoms into new form. He does this in formal terms by including them within a collage, measuring 180 cm x 64.5 cm, but also in a more ideal sense, by protecting them from decay. Within Buddhism, kalpa is a term used for a world epoch, a cycle running from beginning to end; in this manner, Nishimura’s specific lotus flower makes reference to an overarching dimension of time and being.

Nishimura’s three sculptural works in the collection each bear the title Sweet Rain, accompanied by a number. Here too, he takes the leaves and fruits of the lotus as his starting point. But the material used is not as obvious: in Sweet Rain – B 19, the material is bronze, for Sweet Rain – Wall Sculpture 29, he uses solid wood, while Sweet Rain No. 12 features layers of chipboard glued together. In each case, Nishimura processes this substance as a block of sculptural material.

The floral forms of the lotus, realised in different materials, allow Nishimura to pursue his artistic preoccupations: the relationship of man and nature and how this relation can develop in freedom and respect. The lotus plant, as a motif, thus becomes an expression of the search for alternatives to an anthropocentric and destructive relationship with nature. Nishimura’s use of the lotus also contains a reference to ‘an idea of the universe, of metaphysical existence and of transmigration of souls’.
This brings us back to the central theme of the development of the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Arts and Culture Foundation collection: how the work of contemporary artists can address contemplation and meditation, as a process, as a movement, and as a challenge. Moreover, these questions make their appearance precisely in works which do not regard themselves as sacred art. Our eyes are opened when we view these issues in a dimension which transcends them.