“I want to explode the idea of beautiful ikebana,” says Kosen Ohtsubo, one of many foremost conceptual artists working within the Japanese custom.
Because the 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 metallic, the artist approaches making with the mindset of a jazz musician, a style he steadily listens to whereas working. Improvisation and experimentation are on the core, together with an unquenchable want 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 guide in 2013, grew to become his pupil. Titled Flower Planet—which references an indication that hangs exterior Ohtsubo’s Tokorozawa dwelling and studio—the present presents varied 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, pictures performs an vital position in most ikebana practices because it preserves an association lengthy after it has wilted. This exhibition, due to this fact, pairs pictures 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 metallic constructions and positions a small candle inside its heart.
Equally immersive is “Willow Rain,” which suspends skinny branches from the ceiling. Subverting the way in which we sometimes encounter fields of development, the work is certainly one of 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 April 21. Discover Ohstubo’s huge archive on Instagram.
reflecting sphere, Japanese woven bamboo basket
