The Financial Times, 16th June 2001
Title: 'Live!, Move!"
Subtitle: Kroller Muller exhibits fascinating art from Japan
(....) Since 1997 Takahiro Suzuki has been writing the word IKIRO everyday.
The Japanese character IKIRO means "live, move". For Suzuki it is a way
of meditation, and a guide of living. The endless repeating movement with
ink on the chinese paper is a concentration on nothingness. It began in
Wasington Sq. Park in New York in 1996. He also wrote the word in front
of the holy mountain Kailash in Tibet, in a village in Tanzania , and
in a former Post Office in Berlin.
Most touting is his installation in the room, next to the Sculpture garden
of the Museum. In a perfect symmetrical order many tenth of clay tablets
have been put in lines on the floor. On each of them lay ten sheets of
paper with the character Ikiro, Ikiro, Ikiro. On the wall you can see
a large photographs of Suzuki sitting under Budda tree in Sri-lanka. He
says "For me it symbolises the return of everything into the earth."
Outside he built a desk of bricks, on which he is calligraphying his concept
every day during the exhibition. For Suzuki who was a student of Ufan
Lee, his way of expression or the appearance of his art is less important
than the action of the making. By means of his permanent presence in the
exhibition at the Museum , Suzuki is showing that also he himself is part
of nature, part of a bigger whole.
The artworks at this exhibition are familiar to us, but at the same time
not very well known.(....) Spirituality is the tangent plane, where East
and West meet and are connected, a sponnality, that is revealed through
a intuitive and emotional process.
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