Exhibitions at Le Forum in 2024

2024
Rei Naito, untitled, 2024, flower, water, glass jar © Naoya Hatakeyama
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Installation views “Earth-Life Learning”, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Kate Newby, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Kate Newby, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Nicolas Floc’h, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Nicolas Floc’h, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Takeshi Yasura, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Takeshi Yasura, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Raphaël Zarka, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Exhibition views “Ephemeral Anchorind”, Raphaël Zarka, 2024 © Nacása & Partners Inc. / Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
In Tokyo, set in a building with a glass brick façade designed by Renzo Piano, Le Forum is characterised first and foremost by its interplay of light and transparency, imagined as a space open to the city and the most pressing issues of the times. Overseen by curator Reiko Setsuda, Le Forum welcomes artists from Japan and across the world whose work lends itself to both contemplation and reflection.

At Le Forum, the transition from 2023 to 2024 unfolded through a sustained dialogue and keen attention to ecology. Following on from Jaeeun Choi's solo exhibition "La Vita Nuova" in autumn 2023, the new year begins with "Ephemeral Anchoring", the second part of a diptych entitled "Ecology: Dialogue on Circulations". Bringing together four artists, this exhibition explores the circulation of energy between nature and people, and looks to unveil every facet of this phenomenon’s potential.

French photographer and visual artist Nicolas Floc'h (b. 1970), renowned for his images of underwater seascapes, presents a series of prints that document the invisible impacts of human activity on marine ecosystems. Returning to dry land, the "Riding Modern Art" series by visual artist Raphaël Zarka (b. 1977) reveals how the monumental sculptures found in public spaces are reinterpreted through an unlikely medium, namely the skateboarders who appropriate these works to perform their tricks. Meanwhile, an artist who works in situ with an acute attention to her surroundings, visual artist Kate Newby (b. 1979) from Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, presents ceramics created collectively between her curent base in Texas, United States, and Mashiko-machi, a village in central Japan renowned for its pottery. Her creations reflect at once her everyday life and the environment from which they derive. Finally, Japanese artist Takeshi Yasura (b. 1984) adopts an interdisciplinary approach to technology, the living world, inanimate objects and humans, creating installations that attest to an outlook infused with ecological thought. Committed to environmentally responsible artistic practices, the questions raised by the exhibition are extended through a programme of talks with participating artists and through a partnership with "Our Ecology: Toward a Planetary Living", a parallel event at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum till March 31 that also features Kate Newby and Takeshi Yasura.

 

Ecological considerations are also at the heart of the “Earth-Life Learning” event at Le Forum, a three-part presentation – on creation, activation and dismantling – programmed as part of the current Skills Academy Japan edition dedicated to earth. The project explores the constructive properties of this elemental material, one of the few that can be used to build by hand without using tools. Over the course of three weekend-long workshops led by architect and architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori, a dozen teenagers will build an earthen house set in the landscape. Designed on a human scale, this symbolic architectural structure will host talks and skill-sharing sessions. At the same time, it will interact with other earthen pieces installed in Le Forum, from contemporary works to historic artefacts and creations from the Skills Academy workshops dedicated to earth that took place in spring. As the summer draws to a close, the public will be invited to reflect upon the return of this ephemeral architecture to the earth from which it was made, and to consider the many possible connections between this universal material and our contemporary urban lives. This rich programme seeks to raise visitors' awareness of the many different aspects of tsuchi, a Japanese term that refers both to the planet Earth and to soil and clay.

 

Having opened on June 25 at the Tokyo National Museum, an extended version of Japanese artist Rei Naito’s exhibition " Rei Naito: come and live - go and live", will show at Le Forum, with a delicate touch, from September 7. A series of paintings and three-dimensional works connect the two overlapping yet separate venues. They will stand as premonitions and memories for each viewer, a reminder of the ephemeral nature of human existence. Nato invites us to transcend time and space, to glimpse the invisible worlds that await us, as those who went before might have.

Disciplines
Visual arts
Lieu
Le Forum
Tokyo
Japan
The group show "Ephemeral Anchoring" forms the second chapter of the diptych "Ecology: Dialogue on Circulations".
It brings together works by Nicolas Floc'h, Raphaël Zarka, Kate Newby and Takeshi Yasura, alongside the “Our Ecology: Toward a Planetary Living” exhibition at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum.
As part of the Skills Academy Japan dedicated to earth, the event “Earth-Life Learning” will take place at Le Forum.
Between the Tokyo National Museum and Le Forum, Rei Naito invites the public to transcend time and space.

Information

  • Exhibition dates
    • Ecology : Dialogue on Circulations – Dialogue 1,
      "La Vita Nuova", Jaeeun Choi,
      from 14/10/2023 to 28/01/2024
       
    • Ecology : Dialogue on Circulations – Dialogue 2,
      “Ephemeral Anchoring ”, Kate Newby, Yasura Takeshi, Nicolas Floc’h et Raphael Zarka,
      from 16/02/2024 to 26/05/2024
       
    • “come and live , go and live”, Rei Naito,
      from 07/09/2024 to 13/01/2025

     

    Curator

    Reiko Setsuda

  • Practical information

    Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum
    8F 5-4-1 Ginza Chuo-ku 
    104-0061 Tokyo 
    Japan

    Open daily 
    Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Last admission 7:30 p.m.) 
    Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Last admission 6:30 p.m.) 

    Contact: +81(0)3-3569-3300 

    Free Admission

See also