LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF THE EARTH TURNING

Press Release vol.1

April 13, 2022

LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF THE EARTH TURNING:OUR WELLBEING SINCE THE PANDEMIC
JUNE 29 [WED] - NOVEMBER 6 [SUN], 2022 MORI ART MUSEUM (53F, ROPPONGI HILLS MORI TOWER)

The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, is pleased to present an exhibition entitled Listen to the Sound of the EarthTurning: Our Wellbeing since the Pandemic , from Wednesday, June 29 to Sunday, November 6, 2022.
Since 2020, an invisible virus has stolen away our everyday, and wrought havoc on our way of life andstate of mind. Under these circumstances much artistic expression, including contemporary art, resonates
more keenly than ever. Listen to the Sound of the Earth Turning explores ways to live this new life as
the pandemic persists, and the nature of “ wellbeing ” that is the holistic health of both body and mind,
from multiple perspectives found in contemporary art. Works on subjects with a connection to life andexistence – nature and humans, the individual and society, family, the repetitious nature of daily living, thespiritual world, life and death – will encourage us to consider what it means to “ live well. ”
Emphasizing the type of experience only accessible in the real-life space of the museum, this exhibition
will showcase works of sixteen artists from both home and abroad - including installations, sculptures,video, photography, paintings and more. Honing the senses and engaging with art by experiencing firsthand the materials and scale of works will prompt viewers to consider what “ wellbeing ” means forthemselves, rather than what is suggested by others or wider society.
The title of the exhibition is a quote from a piece of instruction art* by Yoko Ono and invites us toexpand our consciousness to encompass all the majesty of the cosmos, reminding us that we are no morethan a tiny part of its workings, and guiding us toward new ways of thinking. As we address questions ofhuman life in the world at an essential level now that the pandemic has struck us, perhaps it is this very
imagination that will present to us possibilities for the future.
* A form of conceptual art where the artist’s “ instruction ” or its description is the work itself.

Wolfgang Laib installing Pollen from Hazelnut at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi,
2003
Courtesy: Kenji Taki Gallery, Nagoya/Tokyo
Photo: Ito Tetsuo* Referential image

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Press Contact Details: Machino Kayo (Ms.)
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum Tel: +81-(0)3-6406-6111 Fax: +81-(0)3-6406-9351
E-mail: pr@mori.art.museum Web: www.mori.art.museum/en

LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF THE EARTH TURNINGFEATURED ARTISTS
Ellen Altfest
Aono Fumiaki
Montien Boonma
Robert Coutelas
Horio Akiko
Horio Sadaharu
Iiyama Yuki
Kanasaki MasashiKanazawa Sumi
Koizumi Meiro
Wolfgang Laib
Zoe Leonard
Naito Masatoshi
Yoko Ono
Tsai Charwei
Guido van der Werve

Press Release vol.1

April 13, 2022

* In alphabetical order of the artists’ surnames

Born 1970 in New York; lives in New York and Kent, CT
Born 1968 in Miyagi, Japan; lives in Miyagi
Born 1953 in Bangkok; died 2000 in Bangkok
Born 1930 in Paris; died 1985 in Paris
Born 1937 in Tokushima, Japan; lives in Hyogo, Japan
Born 1939 in Hyogo; died 2018 in Hyogo
Born 1988 in Kanagawa, Japan; lives in Tokyo
Born 1990 in Tokyo; lives in Tokyo
Born 1979 in Hyogo; lives in Tokyo
Born 1976 in Gunma, Japan; lives in Kanagawa
Born 1950 in Metzingen, Germany; lives in Southern Germany, South India and New York
Born 1961 in New York; lives in New York
Born 1938 in Tokyo; lives in Tokyo
Born 1933 in Tokyo; lives in New York
Born 1980 in Taipei; lives in Taipei
Born 1977 in Papendrecht, the Netherlands; lives in Berlin, Amsterdam and Hassi, Finland

GENERAL INFORMATION
Exhibition Title:
Listen to the Sound of the Earth Turning: Our Wellbeing since the Pandemic
Organizer: Mori Art MuseumCurated by: Kataoka Mami (Director, Mori Art Museum)
Kumakura Haruko (Assistant Curator, Mori Art Museum)
Tokuyama Hirokazu (Associate Curator, Mori Art Museum)
Exhibition Period: June 29 [Wed] – November 6 [Sun], 2022
Venue: Mori Art Museum, 53F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1 Roppongi,Minato-ku, Tokyo
Hours: 10:00-22:00 | Tue: 10:00-17:00 | * Admission until 30 minutes
before closing. | * Open every day.
* See the Mori Art Museum website for our countermeasures against COVID-19.

Yoko Ono
EARTH PIECE
Spring 1963
Offset print
As published in Yoko Ono, Grapefruit(Wunternaum Press, Tokyo, 1964)

https://art-view.roppongihills.com/en/info/countermeasures/index.html
Admission: TBD[Also to Be on View] MAM Collection 015: Welcome to the Fairyland - Yanagi Miwa, Odani Motohiko, YooSeungho and Nawa Kohei ; MAM Screen 016: Cao Fei ; and MAM Research 009: Imagining Justice - Asian American
Art Movements
General Inquiries: 050-5541-8600 (Hello Dial, within Japan) / +81-(0)47-316-2772 (Hello Dial, from overseas)www.mori.art.museum/en
The latest exhibition press images are available on our website for downloads:
https://press.mori.art.museum/en/press-img
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Press Contact Details: Machino Kayo (Ms.)
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum Tel: +81-(0)3-6406-6111 Fax: +81-(0)3-6406-9351
E-mail: pr@mori.art.museum Web: www.mori.art.museum/en

LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF THE EARTH TURNING

Press Release vol.1

April 13, 2022

QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE EXHIBITION & FEATURED WORKS
How to now live with the pandemic?
When the world ground to a halt due to the global spread of COVID-19, what could humans havedone? What could art have done? And how ought we now coexist with the pandemic?
Yoko Ono ’ s book of instructions Grapefruit is full of words with the power to make our world
larger simply through imagination, including among its instructions, “Listen to the sound of theEarth turning, ” also the title of this exhibition. The performance by Guido van der Werve, inwhich he ran around his home thousands of times to cover a total of 100 kilometers, demonstrates
that repeated everyday actions can turn into grand endeavor. Wolfgang Laib meanwhile has
forged a career using familiar materials such as pollen,beeswax, and milk to present the essence of life in themost simple, yet stunningly beautiful ways. Ellen Altfest’s
pictures of trees painted in the forest reveal the essence ofthe natural world, including the teeming life within it.
Perhaps when considering how best to live in thesepandemic times, we might begin by borrowing theimagination in these works to reflect on the character
Guido van der Werveof our vast and complex world, and reexamine what Nummer
Negen, the Day I Didn’t Turn with the World
2007 High-definition video installation 8 min. 40 sec.
constitutes its essence.
Courtesy: Monitor, Rome; Grimm, Amsterdam; Luhring Augustine,New York
Photo: Ben Geraerts

How did our minds come to view society and what pictures did we paintin our minds?
COVID-19 not only brought a global health crisis, it highlighted latent problems, divisions andconflicts in our societies, and forced us to move away from the larger frameworks of nation, race,and religion and focus directly on the more familiar environments of community and family, andeven our lifestyles. Amid it all, what scenery were we painting in our minds?
Iiyama Yuki’s new work on a domestic violence theme is an installation centered on interviews
with both victim and abuser, which encourages each of us as viewers to ponder our own day-today life from a different viewpoint. Koizumi Meiro’s new video employs hypnotism to at once
elucidate the fragility of human cognition, with its relianceon language, and offer the possibility of healing trauma.
The installation by Zoe Leonard, dedicated to a friend
who died of AIDS in the 1990s, also shows the salvational
potential of everyday acts, and the power of unitedcommunities.
These works by artists who engage with society andthemselves in various situations demonstrate the importanceof observing and reassessing our lives and surroundings from Iiyama Yuki Moomin Family goes on a picnic to see Kannon
2014 Video, slide projection
different perspectives.
Photo: Miyazawa Hibiki* Referential image

press release

3 /4Press Contact Details: Machino Kayo (Ms.)
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum Tel: +81-(0)3-6406-6111 Fax: +81-(0)3-6406-9351
E-mail: pr@mori.art.museum Web: www.mori.art.museum/en

LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF THE EARTH TURNING

Press Release vol.1

April 13, 2022

Can living itself be art?
There are artists who paint, sculpt, engage in all kinds of expression
not to earn plaudits from others, but simply to go where their impulses
take them. Horio Sadaharu viewed artistic expression as like the air
we breathe, a “natural ” part of living, and devoted body and mind to
his practice using a wide variety of media - the number of works hemade counts over 100,000. His wife Horio Akiko lived in the same
household making works of an entirely different nature, the couple’s
day-to-day life in itself leading to artistic expression. Robert Coutelasput the art world behind him for a life of poverty pursuing an artistic
universe he could truly believe in. Exercising extraordinary powers ofconcentration, Kanasaki Masashi layers fragments from magazines,
advertising leaflets and similar to create abstract sculptures.
Perhaps now, with our definitions and preconceptions shaken, isthe time to address once more the question of “what it is to be alive.”
These works overflowing with creative impulse and energy, and directly
linked to the fundamental meaning of life, may well offer an answer.

Robert Coutelas
Composition of My Nights ( ReservedCards)
1970
Oil on cardboard
Approx. 12 x 6 cm (each)
Photo: Uchida Yoshitaka ＋ Okano Kei,
Katamura Fumihito

What connects the self with the universe, this moment today with eternity?
The history of homo sapiens is one of endless struggle with natural disaster, conflict, and disease.
How have we overcome such threats to our everyday lives? Perhaps one approach has been to learn
from the past and from nature, and try to position ourselves within the great flow of time and space.
The photographs of Naito Masatoshi and installation of Aono Fumiaki, both featuring theTohoku region, connect the distant past with the present, and give a feel for how a reverence fornature, the cosmos, the gods, and spirit beings has always been part of the human journey. The
work by Kanazawa Sumi, made using the quotidian material of newspaper, expresses in form of alarge installation how the chain of events major and minor covered in newspapers eventually form agreat current of time even reminiscent of the universe. Bringing the exhibition to an end, Montien
Boonma’s installation gives the spectator space to catch their breath and meditate, while that ofTsai Charwei seems to show that our own presence reflected in the mirror is part of the vastnessof the cosmos shown by a mandala.
[left] Tsai Charwei The Womb & The Diamond 2021
Hand-blown glass, mirrors, diamond 300 x 600 cm
Installation view: Charwei Tsai: The Womb & The Diamond , Live Forever Foundation,Taichung, 2021
[below] Kanazawa Sumi Installation view: 6th Emerging Artists Exhibition: Shadow ⇆ Light ,Kawaguchi Art Gallery ATLIA, Saitama, 2017
Photo: Abe Moemipress release

4 /4Press Contact Details: Machino Kayo (Ms.)
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum Tel: +81-(0)3-6406-6111 Fax: +81-(0)3-6406-9351
E-mail: pr@mori.art.museum Web: www.mori.art.museum/en