Mariko Mori, Transcircle, 2004.

Mariko Mori, Connected World, (Photopaintings I-VI), Installation view, 2002, Cibachrome, lucite frame, 48" diameter x 3" each.

Mariko Mori, Oneness, 2003, Technogel®, cast aluminum, electric system, 135 (height) x 75.6 (width) x 37.4 (depth) cm.

Mariko Mori, TOM NA H-IU (3 meter), 2005-2006, Courtesy of SCAI/Shiraishi Contemporary Art, Inc., Tokyo, Photograph Richard Learoyd.

ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum
Aros Allé 2
+45 8730 6600
Aarhus
Mariko Mori — Oneness
October 13, 2007-January 29, 2008

As an internationally known artist, Mori is a highly esteemed representative of Japan and Japanese culture, IT technology, and creativity. With a seductive, high technological, cyber-poetic and interactive art, Mariko Mori has achieved recognition and popularity all over the world, having been presented in major museums and galleries in the USA, Europe and Japan.

With its 2000 square metres, the exhibition is one of Mariko Mori’s largest exhibitions.

Mariko Mori (b. 1967 in Tokyo, Japan), studied at Bunka Fashion College, she worked as a fashion model in the late 1980s. This strongly influenced her early works, such as Play with Me, in which she takes control of her role in the image, becoming an exotic, alien creature in everyday scenes. In 1989, she moved to London to study at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.

The juxtaposition of Eastern mythology with Western culture is a common theme in Mori's works, often through layering photography and digital imaging, such as in her 1995 installation Birth of a Star. Later works, such as Nirvana show her as a goddess, transcending her early roles via technology and image, and abandoning realistic urban scenes for more alien landscapes.

Mariko Mori lives and works in New York. Mori's Tom Na H-iu was exhibited at Deitch Projects in Manhattan in November and December 2007. The title of the exhibition draws its name from the monumental 4.5 meter sculpture of the same name, and was shown with two other large-scale sculptures, Flatstone and Roundstone. The works develop Mori’s continued interest in a fusion of art and technology, Buddhism, and the idea of universal spiritual consciousness. Drawing from ancient rituals and symbols, Mori uses cutting edge technology and material to create a strikingly beautiful vision for the 21st century.

Oneness was installed at Deitch Projects in Manhattan in 2003, in conjunction with the Public Art Fund’s installation of her Wave UFO project. Oneness is an allegory of connectedness, a representation of the disappearance of boundaries between the self and others. It is a symbol of the acceptance of otherness and a model for overcoming national and cultural borders. It also is a representation of the Buddhist concept of oneness, of the world existing as one interconnected organism.

Mariko Mori’s remarkable sculpture, Wave UFO was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale, after being exhibited in New York with the Public Art Fund and at the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa. It was recently included in her solo exhibition at The Groniger Museum.

Artists Statement
for Connected World exhibition,
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, France, 2003
Our prehistoric ancestors coexisted with the spirits in nature. There are various signs that demonstrate this in Jomon culture, which spanned over 10,000 years. We who live in the modern world can barely understand this. Still, our ancestors speak to our souls, transcending the gulf of time.

In Jomon culture, only that which is universal seems to have existed. Stone circles in the late Jomon period (2,000-1,000 B.C.) have a multi-dimensional composition reminiscent of Buddhist mandalas. The Order inherent in a seemingly illogical arrangement embodies the cosmos itself. Liberated from the natural law of life and death, which governs all living beings, as well as the continuous series of life and death, the external and the internal merged into one. This space continues to breathe today. Soaring stone pillars, arranged in a circle, might be antennae linking us to a space of higher dimensions. They stir my imagination.

Doors to the sacred world of another dimension. Dynamic installations of stones on the earth.

Staged at the best possible locations within a vast nature these stone circles transcend time and space. They make me feel the Earth's life force, its power of regeneration. I trembled whenever I encountered it, whenever I touched it. I was awakened by something emotive, something passionate that rose from deep inside. Would it be because I, too, inherit the genes of prehistoric Jomon people?

Therein I found something precious for all human beings. We privilege anthropocentric subjectitivity, oblivious to the harmony within the global environment. We can learn much from Jomon culture, when we think about how to improve the natural environment. Jomon mind embraced a kind of consciousness that we sorely need today.

In this exhibition, my work is guided by the great spirits of Jomon, invigorated by the energy of Jomon. I want to open a door to the sacred world of another dimension, which has long been locked. I wish to represent the world in which life and death, the past and the future, time and space are all merged. Transcircle breathes in eternity, departs from the material world, and links to the ultra-dimensional space.

In prayer for regeneration and fertility for another one hundred generations.

Jomon (literally — rope pattern) culture existed on the islands of Japan from about 13,000-12,000 B.C. to 240-230 B.C. The Jomon period was preceded by the Paleolithic age and succeeded by the Yayoi period. Reliant on hunting and gathering, Jomon culture also shows signs of a nascent form of cultivation, Jomon people employed chipped and polished stone tools, produced a characteristic expressive earthenware, and lived in pit house dwellings.
— Mariko Mori

Beginning of the End
I am currently in the process of creating a work entitled Beginning of the End — an appeal for spiritual peace for humanity in the 21st century. The work consists of 13 segments. In each of these segments I visit an international city that symbolizes human civilization to execute a performance-based filming. To date I have finished six segments in Tokyo, New York, Paris, London and Shanghai. At each location, I encased myself in a Body Capsule to express a transcendence over space-time, and photographed the surroundings with a 360 degree revolving camera. The whole project is intended to "link the world," connecting the photographs taken in all the cities.

The 21st century is rapidly approaching; it promises a new era when a city in space may well become a reality. In the future, we can transcend our national borders to share one consciousness as interconnected life forms and truly global being. It is my hope that Beginning of the End will serve as a symbol of the eternal harmony of the human spirit.

— Mariko Mori
— Translated by Reiko Tomii