"Mineko Grimmer: Remembering Plato"
2001-09-25 until 2002-02-03
Menil Collection
Houston, TX, USA

Mineko Grimmer, an artist born and raised in Japan and living in Los Angeles for many years, reflects upon various aspects of human awareness through installation art. Remembering Plato, the title of Grimmer’s work, is a gentle offering. The artist places the viewer within a room-sized sculpture, a space where time and motion are noticeably different from what we normally experience in our daily lives.

She deliberately strips down the moving parts of her sculpture into an essential process that is both quiet and engaging. Matter is transformed from one state into another: ice, frozen into pyramids that are impregnated with tiny stones, melts into droplets that fall with the freed pebbles into larger basins of water. The process is elegant and soothing. It is an experience of sheer and simple pleasure, inducing a state of consciousness that is both hypnotic and peacefully meditative.

The emission of stones from the melting forms is initially slow, then progressively quickens, creating a counterpoint of waiting and anticipation; as in so much of life. As the frozen pyramids eventually yield water, the drops falling slowly into the water-filled basins activate concentric ripples outward from the point of impact. As we recognize the correspondence between this primary phenomenon of water entering water and the light-projected animation of shadows on the walls, we have the opportunity to grasp the relationship between object and image, motion and emotion—the metaphorical connection between fluid interior and fragmented exterior. These evocations of Plato’s shadows projected onto the gallery walls are mere shadows and reflections: partial distillations and traces of the primary experience. They are like memories or images captured in film, animating the internal mechanism of a clock we do not ordinarily see or use, one that corresponds to the soul’s tempo. Time is metaphorical and elastic here, delineating a place of peace and tranquility.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Texas

Other Important Exhibitions in Houston