{"id":24118,"date":"2004-05-10T13:29:07","date_gmt":"2004-05-10T11:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/?p=24118"},"modified":"2022-03-09T19:32:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T18:32:17","slug":"seven-blue-stone-pedestals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/seven-blue-stone-pedestals\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Blue Stone Pedestals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven Blue Stone Pedestals<\/h2>
<\/div>
YUJI TAKEOKA<\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>

10.05.2004 \u2013 08.08.2004<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

I believe that art will never be changed,<\/strong><\/em>
\ninsofar as our society does not become an art,<\/strong><\/em>
\nour art is not transformed into a society.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Yuji Takeoka<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Seven<\/div>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>
<\/div><\/div>

Pedestal For World<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

What <\/span>happens<\/span><\/em> when a pedestal becomes sculpture? What does a pedestal <\/span>effect<\/span><\/em> as sculpture? <\/span>What <\/span>changes<\/span><\/em> when the moment of presentation, the pedestal, becomes the object of <\/span>contemplation?<\/span><\/p>\n

Yuji Takeoka – an artist born 1946 in Kyoto, Japan, who has been living in Germany and <\/span>exhibiting internationally since 1973 – consistently explores those same questions. In doing <\/span>so, he always relies on the visual experience of the viewer, on the senses-based experience of <\/span>his art as a necessary, <\/span>absolutely indispensable<\/span> precondition for its understanding. He insists <\/span>on this despite an obvious conceptual component to his output, a factor that generally <\/span>downplays the importance of senses-based experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/a>
Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

The bicultural Takeoka reconciles the conceptual with the sensual, as it were. For how else <\/span>but with inquisitiveness should one encounter works that have the formal look of \u00abmedia\u00bb <\/span>(more precisely, like pedestals used to bolster a sculpture to an evident presence), but which, <\/span>in a consistency only typical of \u00abartworks\u00bb, are all fashioned from the same Belgian granite <\/span>material? Each has a finely-worked surface, the same height and thus somewhat isocephalic dimensions (105 centimeters), and each – given to their volumes – unambiguously asserts an <\/span>independent presence in the space.<\/span><\/p>\n

Takeoka calls his seven sculptures <\/span>Seven Blue Stone Pedestals<\/span><\/em>. Inevitably, one thinks of the <\/span>Seven Wonders of the World and the seven candleholders on a menorah; invariably one <\/span>thinks of meaning, in other words: what is <\/span>happening<\/span><\/em>, what is <\/span>affected<\/span><\/em>, what <\/span>changes<\/span><\/em>? They <\/span>stand there, in a space that is first and foremost a showcase window. Only they demand to be <\/span>looked at. And yet as soon as one does so, the space, for example, also becomes part of what <\/span>you see. The not-thereness of what is de facto presented on the pedestals becomes an also-<\/span>seeing of both what is<\/span> there and also that which is materially no-longer-there – space,<\/span>surrounding space around, space in between – and\u00a0 also that which is <\/span>still there<\/span>, in the <\/span>surroundings, the environment, … the world.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The floor becomes the de facto pedestal of the pedestals-as-sculptures; beyond that, <\/span>everything else becomes the thing presented. It follows from this that that which is materially <\/span>there no longer takes center stage in terms of what is meant to be perceived. We also see <\/span>everything else that is both abundantly obvious and yet rarely the object of attention – all <\/span>other things that hardly ever come into consciousness as something to be perceived.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On the one hand, Takeoka\u2019s <\/span>Seven Pedestals<\/span><\/em> themselves appear as autonomous sculptures. <\/span>This is how the eyes take in forms, which is to say volumes, bodies, shapes, and architectural <\/span>structures…. Consequently, they appear as concrete or minimalist works.<\/span> Yet at the same time <\/span>their respective Being (and this primarily because they are presented as a seven-part group) is <\/span>always below the horizon of their recognizability as a pedestal – something that triggers a <\/span>looking for and seeing of what else might be there besides them, which is to say the presented <\/span>objects.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With a view to the history of twentieth-century art, one could argue that these works oscillate <\/span>between objects and \u00abthings\u00bb (as we know them as ready -mades or from Pop Art), on the one <\/span>hand, and concrete forms and volumes (with allusions to European Concrete Art and its <\/span>American successor, Minimal Art) on the other. Postmodernists might see an aspect of irony. <\/span>But Takeoka\u2019s sculptures refuse to be interpreted as ironic. They are too authentic, too <\/span>sensitive, too clear, too serious, too present in what they are.<\/span> What they strive for instead is a <\/span>visual presence that is at once unique to them and also an influence on their environment.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>this way, Takeoka\u2019s sculptures also present their own, unique form as an intrinsic value – irrespective of their superficial resemblance to pedestals – even if they can never ridthemselves of it entirely. Therein lies the secret of Tak\u00a0 works, albeit an extroverted one: They look for the aesthetically (perceptibly) effective in the usually aesthetically overlooked. It just so <\/span>happens <\/span><\/em>that when pedestals become sculptures, the entire periphery comes into view. Pedestals as sculptures <\/span>change <\/span><\/em>the way we see what is there, because we look for what is missing. And <\/span>most importantly: pedestals-as-sculptures <\/span>present<\/span><\/em> the world itself.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


Raimund Stecker<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

YUJI TAKEOKA (JP\/DE)
\n10.05.2004 \u2013 08.08.2004<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,31,230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exh-archive-gdkm","category-exhibition","category-pk-yt-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24118","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=24118"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33848,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24118\/revisions\/33848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}