{"id":23525,"date":"2008-02-29T13:25:19","date_gmt":"2008-02-29T12:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/?p=23525"},"modified":"2022-03-18T14:58:25","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T13:58:25","slug":"88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/88\/","title":{"rendered":"8\/8"},"content":{"rendered":"

8\/8<\/h2>
<\/div>
HAYATO GOTO<\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>

29.02.2008 \u2013 22.06.2008<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

The exhibition was accompanied by a booklet<\/a><\/strong> with a text by Arie Hartog and photography by Werner J. Hannappel.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/div>
Hayato Goto, Exhibition View Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>
<\/div><\/div>

Growing in a Circle<\/span>: <\/span>On Hayato Goto\u2019s New Works<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is tempting to look for traces of a typical Japanese aesthetic in Hayato Goto\u2019s sculptures. <\/span>The simplicity of these works \u2014 their clarity and tranquility, simultaneously overt and hidden <\/span>symbolism \u2014 combines in the mind with the artist\u2019s name and the knowledge that he was born <\/span>in Kyoto: a context that, with the help of translated classical Japanese texts and contemporary <\/span>interpretations, might well permit the building of an interpretive framework. Constructing <\/span>such a framework is a reflex nowadays \u2014 one that, even when it pretends otherwise, <\/span>emphasizes the foreign. It is a reflex that relocates the uniqueness of the artwork to a faraway <\/span>place, when the challenge might be to experience it here and now. Forms and ideas have <\/span>always traveled (and entrenched themselves not on account of their origins, but because they <\/span>develop various levels of meaning in their respective environment).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

At first glance, Goto\u2019s eight sculptural circles would seem to highlight the obvious contrast between laminated, machine-processed wood and the material as it appears in nature, as a tree <\/span>trunk or branch. Though this contrast certainly exists, it is in no way emphasized: their two <\/span>parts move not counter to, but synchronous with one another. Branches bend around a <\/span>laminate frame as though they had coiled themselves there, and this extreme bending reveals a <\/span>peculiar, highly aestheticized force. Not immediately, as it takes the viewer some time to get <\/span>away from the crystal-clear visual logic of synchronicity: Trees do not grow in circles. Since <\/span>the bend of wood also has its limits, the shape of these branches also hints at the time-<\/span>consuming-process of imposing an unnatural shape on nature \u2014and one that looks natural at <\/span>that. While Goto\u2019s bent and glued wooden slats show obvious craftsmanship, the shape of the <\/span>branches also points to the highly protracted, ultimately violent process of their making. <\/span><\/p>\n

The two-part circles conceal gliding transitions between nature and design. Though each <\/span>clearly comes from a tree, human intervention has shifted their forms far from the point of <\/span>origin. And while the branches appear natural at first glance, their handling has arguably <\/span>moved them even further away from nature than their machine-processed brethren. Thus <\/span>while the seemingly simple visual language proves to be highly symbolic, it speaks to an open <\/span>sort of perception that \u2014 rather than look for recognizable visual patterns \u2014 attentively waits <\/span>for the sparingly and precisely employed means, the hidden dualisms and simultaneous unity <\/span>to take effect. From this, in a next stage, a symbolic perception develops around the element <\/span>of time: Trees and branches grow in one direction, have a beginning and a temporary end, <\/span>while circles represent endless loops and, in a figurative sense, infinity as well. The viewer, <\/span>who observes in each case a coherent, natural form that has been bent, looks for a beginning <\/span>and an end and sees how these elements intersect. Even things that grow and develop in one <\/span>direction return to a beginning; it is an image that contains a great deal of philosophy, subtle <\/span>as it may be.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The discovery t ontains a branch raises the question of format: The curving of <\/span>a long shape renders its size more manageable. At the same time, its original length remains <\/span>difficult to imagine. Notably, Goto\u2019s circular wood sculptures bear no resemblance to human <\/span>proportions. Any vertical form recalls that of a human being; with any other shaped object in <\/span>space, a viewer will often look for and imbue such dimensions or proportions with <\/span>
anthropologically-anchored significance, a process that enables them to explore their own <\/span>spatial relationship to that object. Given the size of Goto\u2019s circles (between 150 and 250 cm in <\/span>diameter) \u2014 dimensions that would normally make these kinds of associations manifold and <\/span>almost inescapable, the complete absence of humans as a reference is all the more evident <\/span>here. The apparent contradiction between that absence and the gradual manifestation of the <\/span>human-made, coupled with the hedged presence of nature, is what characterizes this work in the context of contemporary sculpture.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

While the none-too-subtle, everyday visual vocabulary of many contemporary artworks all too easily feigns relevance (despite its flat reduction of symbolic levels), the mastered <\/span>concentration of visual means presented here evokes multi-layered content that \u2014 despite its <\/span>reliance on the experiences, cultural context, and knowledge of respective viewers \u2014 is <\/span>anything but empty. It is extremely open. What we have here, in lieu of a search for clear <\/span>opposites, contrasts and dissonances, an essential part of the visual vocabulary of our time \u2014 a <\/span>work with visible parallels, dualisms and dualities. The real hallmark of Hayato Goto\u2019s art is <\/span>that it is at once subtle and highly legible, a combination that explains its particular symbolic <\/span>impact. It relies not on conspicuous contrasts but on an apparently logical, yet by no means <\/span>self-evident juxtaposition of elements that only gradually reveals itself to a viewer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


Aria Hartog<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Translation: Amy Patton<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAYATO GOTO (JP)
\n29.02.2008 \u2013 22.06.2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,31,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exh-archive-gdkm","category-exhibition","category-pk-hg-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23525"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31465,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23525\/revisions\/31465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}