|
Indepth Arts News:
"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:
| | 
|
