Mariko Mori takes you in a sensuous voyage to a cosmic aesthetics and brings you back into nature in a cycle of universal connection. The birth and rebirth of a star is the central theme of Rebirth and is also the path she lays for the visitor. The exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, until February 17, presents her most important works in celebration of 11 years of her career.
Working in the dualism between ancient cultures and futuristic technology, she creates a universal connection that goes beyond words. She places us before magical and impressive structures like the large illuminated totem that greets us on our way in. Tom Na H-iu II (2006) reminded me of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. In both, abstraction is used to represent the force behind all things.
These almost alien materials, such as lucite, a scintillating resin she uses for the cast of a Jomon vase in Flat Stone (2006), connects us to ritualistic sites such as Stonehenge. Transcircle (2001) is a perfect match to the site. Stones shine with light colours that go on and off, round and round, provoking a meditative state in who contemplates it. Places like these were constructed by ancient holistic cultures to mark solstices and other natural events, but for many it seems like something left there by aliens.
If we have to look outside our planet to reconnect with nature maybe we are the aliens. She would like to thinks so. Mariko Mori has built UFO-like structures and her installations go in the same direction. They really elevate one’s self. Her ciberchrome prints are pictures of particles, molecules, atom-like forms exploding, expanding and creating mandalas. It relaxes and at the same time brings a sublime feeling. But we shouldn’t be scared of this cosmic force beyond us, we are all made of stardust after all.
Mariko Mori could be David Bowie’s daughter. She uses lots of glitter in her drawings of suns, planets and galaxies. With a very clever flip, she turns the rays into planets and the solar system into galaxies, crowning her intention to represent this deep connection of all things with the universe. She shows that we all come from the same oneness and that the universe transforms itself, for ever and ever. In a cycle like that of a star, that dies and another is born, in this eternal and universal rebirth.
