Art follows religion in `Life as Cinema'
Saturday, May 08, 2004, Page 16
[image] Anika at rest in what she calls her ``opium den.'' PHOTO: BEN ZULLO

Life as Cinema by Anika Tokarchuk is a 56-minute documentary about the making of The Cup (1999) (高山上的足球盃), the debut feature film of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche (aka Khyentse Norbu).

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, a spiritual director of several Buddhist colleges in India, Bhutan and Sikkim, is recognized in his culture as the third incarnation of the Khyentse lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Life as Cinema voices his Buddhist reflections on the impermanence of life.

The film begins with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche making a shadow butterfly on the wall with his hands. While the butterfly's magnified shadow flaps its dark wings on a white wall, he asks, "How do you know this is a butterfly?"

The shadow on the wall is like reality projected on the screen of our mind. The layers of illusion and reality are interwoven into each other. While the theme of illusion is dominant in the film, the encounter between modernity and tradition in everyday Tibetan culture is also telescoped into Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's character.

Educated in London and given his first movie-related job by Bernardo Bertolucci in Little Buddha, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoch rides the tide of westernization and redefines his role as a Rinpoche.

When Tokarchuk informs the Dalai Lama that Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is making a feature film based on the real events of the monks at Dzongsar Institute, he breaks into laughter commenting, "Oh, I see, lamas are actors now."

As she reveals in her documentary, the actors in The Cup are all from a real monastery and cast by their ecclesiastical superior. (Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche coaxed 14-year-old Jamyang Lodro into playing the role of Orgyen in The Cup with a promise of taking him to Disneyland.)

Jovial and with a sense of absurdity, Life as Cinema rings quiet notes of political urgency. Unlike other dramas on Tibet such as Kundun (1997) and Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Tokarchuk does not portray Tibet as mired in Chinese suppression. Instead, Life as Cinema tracks the footsteps of Tibetan Buddhists to India, France, England, Canada, Hong Kong, and of course Taiwan.

It is, after all, a documentary on Tibet-on-the-move, a film on the nature of change and openness.

The second part of the trilogy will go into the background of Dzongsar monastery in Tibet and focus on Karpu Lama, a Tibetan who now lives in Taiwan.

In a partial preview, Karpu's exile from Tibet is captured in a soliloquy that drifts across beautifully crafted images of Tibetan valleys and Taipei's streets. "Life is dreamlike," says Tokarchuk, "but it is also telling a history."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/05/08/2003154653

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Art of darkness
Chris Petit faces up to new horrors from Mo Hayder
Saturday May 8, 2004 The Guardian
[image] Tokyo by Mo Hayder. 361pp, Bantam, £12.99

The Nanking massacre of 1937 is an unlikely starting point for a modern thriller, but with two successful books already (Birdman and The Treatment), Mo Hayder is established enough to go her own way, which in the trammelled world of genre fiction is to be applauded. Although a departure, Tokyo continues the confrontation with horror of her previous work, asserting her place in the new tough school of female writing that depends on successive trumpings in nastiness. And what could be nastier than a massacre? The rapes, the killing competitions and worse are rumoured to exist on a lost film. Further titillation is provided by the tease of a brutality beyond imagination, cruelty elevated to an art form. Hayder's implicit challenge is: how much can you take?

She splits the search for the Nanking film, in 1990 Tokyo, with the journal of a Chinese resident, Shi Chongming, covering the Japanese invasion and massacre. This well-researched documentary account is propelled by the simple mechanism of impending disaster. By 1990 Shi Chongming is a visiting professor at Todai University. Grey, a young female academic from the University of London studying war atrocities, arrives in search of the film. Shi Chongming sees her as a harbinger of a past he is unwilling to confront.

None of the impulses that drives the search is particularly believable, but skilful care is taken to hide the fact. Hayder teases with a flirtatious construction, releasing information piecemeal about her heroine's damaged past. Part of her inheritance is the horror film, in which characters are disposable; and hers hover uneasily, supported by a cast of comic grotesques that provide the book's liveliness, while Grey, self-proclaimed ghost, is obedient to her author's demands.

In an awkward transition, an enigmatic American, Jason, introduces Grey to the world of bar-hostessing and gives her a room in a large, deserted house. Grey's city is defined by an erotic tension, symbolised by the overgrown luxuriance of the house's wild garden, which, like the world in which she finds herself, is coded and arcane. At its best, the novel achieves a semi-magical suspension, a sense of lives in the balance, and at these times Hayder's prose is at its most focused and dreamlike, alert to a febrile sexuality.

With the introduction of the yakuza, and an elixir of life, the story reverts to the traditional suspense of woman-in-jeopardy: we have a 90-year-old gangster in a wheelchair; his fearsome "nurse", whose party trick is literally turning people inside out; and Grey prowling hostile space on behalf of Shi Chongming, in exchange for a look at his atrocity film. What had seemed delicately suspended takes on the determined character of a Brian De Palma movie. Page-turning momentum is sustained by the author's glancing prose and askance observations, but look back and the book falls apart, especially in areas of motivation, including whether Grey's obsession amounts to anything more than a narrative hook or a slice of the History Channel. The Nanking material, deferential in the face of historical atrocity, is no match for Ballard's Shanghai in Empire of the Sun; nor does it add to history in the way of, say, Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time.

There are signs that Hayder might be ambivalent towards the extremes of her material and its power to degrade. Jason is shown to be a victim of such extremes, and part of Hayder seems to be saying, who but freaks would want to inhabit this world? It's part of the contract with the reader, however, that these misgivings remain coded. More arresting is what she smuggles in beneath the surface: the emotional tugs of loss, for example. It is in these depths, rather than in the breaking of taboos, that she is most interesting. The taboo tackled in Tokyo is routinely grotesque and adds nothing to our understanding of cruelty, while elsewhere Hayder's observant prose works hard to convey the small defining moments that make up life.

It makes her more rewarding than the tough, forensic women whose routine work dominates the world of crime-thrillers. I liked sections of the book very much, without being much bothered with the scaffolding of the story or believing in or caring about the characters. I enjoyed the psychological and geographical spaces they inhabited, and the way Hayder nails what she sees. It was a brave choice, too, to situate her story in a complex cultural context. The writer she reminded me of most was Derek Raymond in The Devil's Home on Leave; there is a shared metaphysical quality, making Hayder quite Jacobean in that her true subject is death and its constant presence in life. What she does best is damage, much of it self-inflicted, and this is the book's strongest theme: the ways in which we haunt ourselves.

Chris Petit's thriller The Human Pool is published by Scribner

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/crime/story/0,6000,1211620,00.html

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What the future holds for Beijing's architecture
www.chinaview.cn 2004-05-08 15:02:16

BEIJING, May 8, (Xinhuanet) -- You are in a city like no other on earth. Beijing is not the New York of China, nor the London of northeast Asia, nor the Mexico City of the Orient. Within a few years it may resemble the set of Blade Runner or Fritz Lang's Metropolis more than any of those places.

Consider that by 2008, the following are some of the ambitious projects that will be completed in the capital: More than ten million square metres of construction in the CBD (the area around the China World complex); 148.5 kilometres of new light rail and subway tracks, giving the city a total of 202 kilometres; the Fifth Ring Road, the Sixth Ring Road and the Beijing-Miyun Expressway, giving Beijing 718 kilometres of expressways and thousands of kilometres of motorways; the construction and expansion of 318 kilometres of downtown urban streets.

Those figures are compiled from Xinhua reports and statistics released by the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (or BOCOG). Different sets of numbers are reported in newspapers in China and abroad on an almost daily basis, and that is one of the problems when trying to figure out what this city will look like in a few year's time: everything is in a state of flux.

There motivations behind the construction of new infrastructure projects and new are different buildings: some of them are designed to alleviate problems that have been building for years, others have been planned especially for the Olympics, but built in the hope that they will contribute to the city's environment long after the athletes and spectators have departed. No matter what the results may be, Beijing in 2008 will be dramatically different from the city we know today. Let's take a closer look:

A Good First Impression

The Beijing International Airport received its last facelift in 1999 based on designs by the Beijing Institute of Architecture and Design (BIAD). There is currently a new plan for the construction of a third terminal that will do more than just increase capacity, it will provide the first impression of Beijing, and China as a whole, for arriving passengers.

The design is by Norman Foster whose credits include the HSBC building, Hong Kong's airport at Chek Lap and the notoriously phallic Swiss Re building in London (otherwise known as the Gherkin). The airport itself is not the only facility getting changed. Whereas now the only way to get from Beijing's airport to the city is on shuttle buses or in not-always-fragrant cabs, by 2008 there will be a light railway going all the way to Dongzhimen, where a new public transport interchange is already in the early stages of construction.

Beijing's transportation plans are vital to the sustainability of its ferocious urbanisation. The Dongzhimen interchange will link the airport to the city's subway system, long distance bus stations, and of course to the Olympic village. The rest of Beijing's plans for transport infrastructure include expanding the subway system, with two new lines to be operational by the Olympics and many more post-Games, as well as increasing road capacity along several major routes currently intersecting the city.

Skeptics, however, are already raising questions about the efficiency of such massive transport interchanges, pointing out that existing transportation hubs at Dongzhimen and Xizhimen are already over-congested. A source close to the project noted that adding to the capacity of these hubs would not ease traffic congestion but increase pressure on them. In the case of Dongzhimen especially, its proximity to the airport may make it less efficient because it will be the only link to the airport. Compounded with the congestion of roads and the crowded subway that take people from other places in the city to Dongzhimen, it is unlikely that people will be attracted to making a special journey to Dongzhimen just to get on a train: Car owners are more likely to continue driving the extra 20 minutes to the airport.

Another interesting feature of the area will be the future contrast between international travellers arriving from the airport, people from the countryside arriving on long-distance buses, and the upmarket residents of new apartment buildings surrounding the Dongzhimen interchange. The would-be upscale mall and apartment complex Oriental Kenzo, just south of Dongzhimen, is already open for business. Renowned film director Zhang Yimou recently bought the entire top floor of MOMA, a new development still in construction just north of Dongzhimen that is being sold as environmentally friendly, because of water recycling equipment and green heating technologies.

From Dongzhimen it will be possible to take the subway, light railway or bus to the Olympic Village. The two most notable Olympic projects are the Olympic Stadium, nicknamed 'Bird's Nest' and the National Swimming Centre, also known as the 'Water Cube.' The Bird's Nest was designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & De Meuron. This firm's previous projects include the renovation of an old power station on the banks of the Thames in London, which was turned into the Tate Modern Art Museum. Herzog & De Meuron also won last year's Sterling Prize for Architecture for their design of the Laban Dance Centre in a rundown area of London.

The Water Cube was designed by PTW, an Australian firm that designed the International Athletics Centre and the Aquatic Centre of the 2000 Sydney Games, together with Ove Arup Engineering. PTW has completed many projects in China and maintains offices in Shanghai and Beijing. Ove Arup is the renowned architectural engineering firm that is single-handedly responsible for the engineering work of the majority of new showcase projects in Beijing, including the airport's new terminal, the Dongzhimen interchange, and the new CCTV headquarters.

Tower of Power

This building will probably become a must-see tourist site for Olympic visitors. The CCTV building is like nothing China, and indeed the world, has ever seen. It will challenge people's perceptions of the roles that such grand architectural projects, all designed by foreign architects, have in China. The CCTV project was designed by OMA, the studio led by Rem Koolhaas. In the 1980s and '90s, Koolhaas was the enfant terrible of international architecture who made his name by writing books such as Delirious New York before any of his major designs were actually constructed. Koolhaas' credits include the Prada flagship store in New York and the Dutch embassy in Berlin. He is now on the commission charged with designing new headquarters for the European Parliament.

Interestingly enough, while the CCTV headquarters may become the most avant-garde building in Beijing, Koolhaas has also been selected to write a report on the demolition and preservation of Beijing's hutongs, and how best to preserve them while keeping pace with the city's need to modernise.

In the case of the CCTV building, some of the problems and criticisms it has faced are representative of the difficulties facing international architectural firms coming to China: that their designs are not Chinese enough, and that these ambitious projects are allowing foreign architects to use China as an experimental playground for designs that they will never have to inhabit.

Walking on the Eggshell

One of the most controversial new buildings is the new National Theatre, designed by French architect Paul Andreu and nicknamed the 'Eggshell,' on the west side of the Great Hall of the People at Tian'anmen Square. Paul Andreu's previous works include the Osaka Maritime Museum and the Dubai airport.

The oval dome of the theatre is already nearing completion and is a striking contrast to its surroundings. Complaints about the building have included objections that it ruins the feng shui of central Beijing, and that it matches neither the Great Hall of the People nor the traditional housing surrounding the nearby Forbidden City. Yet China's modern city planning has always looked to the West, starting from the grid plan of urban housing in cities like Tianjin, Shanghai and Harbin, to the more recent highways reminiscent of America's spaghetti junctions. Beijing's choice of cutting-edge international architects is a predictable manifestation of its desire to enter the modern world stage, and of what China perceives 'modern' to mean at the beginning of the 21st Century. With the Olympics as its greatest chance to showcase itself to the world, one cannot but expect notable, grand, and eye-catching projects.

In the Red Zone

Although these projects are truly Olympian in scale, and no matter how much it may appear that Beijing's skyline will be fantastic and futuristic, they may just end up being isolated reminders of the 2008 Games. The establishment of the Olympic Village has indeed helped push up property prices in the area to those matching the CBD, but it is still a long way from being a social or community centre of Beijing's northern districts. With the project needing to recoup its initial investment and remain financially viable post-Olympics, facilities such as the Water Cube will be hired out or used as ultra-high-class gyms. All indications from the financial directors of Beijing's Olympic Games to the media are that their primary focus is on making them commercially viable.

The organisers have looked to the Barcelona Games as a model and hope the 2008 Games will raise the profile of the Chinese capital as the Games did for Barcelona in 1992. The Olympics did more for Barcelona than for any other Olympic city, mostly because its mayor saw the Games as an opportunity to develop and address underlying problems of the city as a whole. Barcelonans now occupy the villas where athletes lived, and the Olympic Village is a fully integrated, thriving part of the city, and a magnet for business and the arts. It is hard at this stage to imagine that Beijing will come to the same end, though the momentum and impetus to change the city is plainly there.

One of the other problems facing the Olympic projects is a discrepancy between these world-name architects, and problems with workmanship and getting high quality materials. The architects have in mind a full vision of how their buildings will look, right down to the last detail and the texture of the materials, which doesn't always work out in the finished product.

The Silver Lining

Nonetheless, the current phase of Olympic-driven development certainly presents the city with many opportunities. There is a regulation in place that specifies all foreign architectural firms must work with a Chinese partner. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for interaction between Chinese and foreign architects and potentially bodes well for a new, cosmopolitan generation of Chinese architects.

This is already happening. Some private sector property developers are pushing the architectural envelope with bold designs that are a radical departure from the poured concrete blocks and ersatz Chinese roofs that characterized late twentieth century urban Chinese design. One noticeable success in this respect is CLASS, an apartment complex near Wangjing in northeast Beijing. Trading on its unique designs alone, CLASS has managed to sell all its flats at prices comparable to those in the CBD despite its relatively disadvantageous location. The previously mentioned MOMA, Central Park in the CBD (a Hong Kong Land project), and Park Avenue (built by American construction firm Hines) are all examples of the private sector showing an awareness of high quality construction and design.

The developer that pioneered this approach is SOHO China, headed by the media-savvy husband and wife team Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin. SOHO first made its name with the Commune by the Great Wall project, which won Pan and Zhang awards at the Venice Biennale last year for their support of modern architecture, the first time Chinese nationals have received such international acclaim.

SOHO has gone on to create SOHO New Town (Xiandaicheng) and the just-completed Jianwai SOHO, both of which appear at this stage to have been financially successful, as well as unique in their vision of building new modern complexes. Both projects have explicitly marketed themselves on the basis of their designs, using renowned architects in their bid to introduce high-quality international standard housing to Beijing. They are also projects that directly affect the living standards of Beijing residents, though of course only available to certain high-income earners.

SOHO has now embarked on one of the largest and most ambitious private- sector architectural projects in the world: SOHO City. Situated to the southeast of Beijing next to the highway to Tianjin, SOHO City will be a million square metre community of apartments, offices, shops and parks. The project is being designed by Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi born British architect who has just been awarded the Pritzker Prize, the architectural equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Hadid's previous work includes designs for the just-opened Rosenthal Centre For Contemporary Art in Cincinnati and the Central Building of the BMW Plant in Leipzig.

SOHO City comprises a variety of different buildings, all of them asymmetrical, which are supposed to flow together and facilitate the flow of people and activities. It is hoped that SOHO City will become a thriving micro-city, with its own socio-cultural life, that will grow organically without contributing to congestion and other problems associated with Beijing's development. As always with projects before they are fully realised, one will have to wait until SOHO City is built and inhabited before judging its marketing claims.

But more importantly, the private property sector players show that investment in good quality housing is both sought-after and financially successful. This bodes well for the future of urban design in what is still the world's most populous nation.

So when the first visitors arrive for the Olympics in 2008, will they find themselves in a city that resembles an anime Neo-Tokyo? Will the city work as a place to live or will it be a mere showcase for international architecture? Will there be anything distinctively Chinese left of Beijing?

These questions are impossible to answer. What is certain is that in the next few years, Beijing will continue to be a world hot spot for avant-garde architecture, and a living experiment in the construction of a twenty first century city.Enditem

(That's Beijing)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/08/content_1456910.htm

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8. Mai 2004, 02:12,
Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Zuckerguss und Projektionen
Das Schaulager in Basel zeigt die Architekten Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron bauen ein Museum in San Francisco, projektieren ein Hochhaus auf der Davoser Schatzalp und entwerfen das Nationalstadion für die Olympischen Spiele 2008 in Peking. In China sind die Basler nicht nur für diesen Prestigebau verantwortlich, sie planen inzwischen ganze Stadtteile. Eine Ausstellung im Schaulager der Laurenz-Stiftung in Basel gewährt einen Blick in die Werkstatt der Architekten.


Zwischen dem Projekt Nr. 1, dem Dachausbau eines Wohnhauses in Riehen, und Projekt Nr. 250, der eigenen Retrospektive im Schaulager, liegen 26 Jahre einer beispiellosen Architektenkarriere. Vom Steinhaus in Tavole über das Privatmuseum Goetz in München, die Bibliothek in Eberswalde, die Tate Modern in London bis zur Dominus Winery im Napa Valley ist der Einfluss von Herzog & de Meuron auf die Gegenwartsarchitektur stets gewachsen. Doch damit ist längst kein Schlusspunkt erreicht: Mit Projekten wie der Allianz-Arena in München, dem Nationalstadion in Peking und anderen Grossaufträgen zwischen Kalifornien und China haben die Basler sämtliche Grenzen gesprengt.

Bricolage und scharfes Denken
Wie wird aus einem hot shop von zwei verschworenen Kunst- und Fussballfanatikern, die mit unscheinbaren, aber hoch differenzierten Projekten die Fachwelt begeistern, ein globales Architektur-Unternehmen? Ein Büro, das weltweit die prestigeträchtigsten Bauaufgaben ergattert? Lautet die Antwort . . . Bricolage? Dieser Schluss liegt nahe beim ersten Blick in die Ausstellung, die von der Kuratorin Theodora Vischer im Schaulager in Münchenstein bei Basel am Freitag eröffnet worden ist. Die triviale Erklärung greift jedoch zu kurz, obschon Basteleien mit Schwämmen und Pflastersteinen, Gips und Lego, Spiegeln und Wachs, Plastic und Blech zentrale Elemente des Entwurfes bei Herzog & de Meuron sind.

Das Architekturbüro an der Rheinschanze in Basel ist kein Spielplatz, sondern ein Laboratorium. Hier wird getüftelt und erprobt, gesucht und wieder verworfen - try and error. Was in der Ausstellung ebenfalls schnell sichtbar wird: Es gibt keine geheimnisvolle Formel X, die den Erfolg des Duos, das längst ein Sextett mit zweihundert Mitarbeitern geworden ist, sichert. Kein Auftrag lässt sich mit dem anderen vergleichen, jedes Projekt basiert auf Grundlagenforschung.

Anteil an dieser Suche haben nicht nur Studenten von Hochschulen wie Harvard oder der ETH, wo die Architekten lehren und forschen, sondern als Spezialisten des Visuellen auch zahlreiche Künstler. Legendär ist ein Auftritt von Herzog & de Meuron mit Joseph Beuys an der Basler Fasnacht 1978. Mit Rémy Zaugg und Thomas Ruff verbindet sie eine enge Beziehung, die in verschiedenen Projekten zum Ausdruck kommt. Auch Gerhard Richter, Jeff Wall, Adrian Schiess oder Rosemarie Trockel spielen eine Rolle im Werk der Architekten.

Herzog & de Meuron setzen bei der Entwicklung von neuen Bildern und autonomen Denkansätzen konsequent auf Kunst, und zwar nicht auf Kunst als addierte Dekoration, sondern als Teil ihrer Strategie. Entsprechend wird das gebaute Werk in der derzeitigen Retrospektive von verschiedenen Künstlern gespiegelt - in Videoprojektionen von Zilla Leutenegger und Armin Linke etwa, in Fotografien von Thomas Ruff und Andreas Gursky.

Eine Sonderstellung nimmt der chinesische Künstler Ai Weiwei ein, der den Baslern als kultureller Berater für ihre Projekte in China zur Seite steht. Ai Weiwei, der gegenwärtig in der Kunsthalle Bern ausstellt (NZZ 5. 5. 04), zeigt im Schaulager ein Video, auf dem eine 153 Stunden lange Fahrt durch Pekings Strassen zu sehen ist. Der international erfolgreichste Künstler Chinas ist auch präsent in der Sektion «Beijing, Tree Village und Jinhua: Zwei städtebauliche Projekte». Anders als beim chinesischen Nationalstadion, von dem in der Ausstellung Modelle in verschiedenen Projektierungsphasen zu sehen sind, geht es bei den urbanistischen Studien um den Entwurf ganzer Stadtteile. Neben Landschaftsmodellen werden hier Bilder von Materialien, Oberflächen, Bauten und Menschen gezeigt, die den Planern geholfen haben, den jeweiligen Genius Loci zu erfassen und adäquat darauf zu reagieren.

Made in China
Für die Stadt Jinhua haben Herzog & de Meuron eine städtische Struktur entworfen, die sich in «Mountains», «Fields» und ein «Village» gliedert - d. h. in Zonen verschiedener räumlicher Ausdehnung. Ausgehend von diesem Masterplan sollen die Architekten den neuen Stadtteil bis hin zu einzelnen Gebäuden realisieren. Ähnlich entwerfen sie in Peking den «Tree Village Campus», ein Zentrum für Freizeit, Bildung, Kultur und Kommerz. Die Architekten orientieren sich in beiden Fällen an ihrer städtebaulichen Studie «Eine Stadt im Werden?», die sie zusammen mit Rémy Zaugg 1991/92 für Basel erarbeitet haben, und profitieren von ihrer Forschungsarbeit an der ETH. Herzog & de Meuron gehen von den kontextuellen Gegebenheiten, von den physischen Realitäten des Ortes aus und setzen dabei nicht auf die branchenüblichen, ideologisch geprägten Reissbrett-Stadtvisionen. Dass ihnen bei dieser Arbeit ein anerkannter und respektierter Kulturvermittler wie Ai Weiwei von grossem Nutzen sein kann, ist offensichtlich.

Dies, obwohl die Architekten selber über ausserordentliche visuelle und haptische Sensualität verfügen. Das zeigt nicht zuletzt die Sektion «Zeichnungen», wo Skizzen Jacques Herzogs ausgestellt sind. Man glaubt bei der Betrachtung dieser dynamisch-expressiven Papiere dem Architekten beim Denken und Argumentieren, beim Erklären und Entwickeln zusehen zu können. Für seine Visualisierungen schien ihm der nächstliegende Fetzen Papier jeweils gerade gut genug.

Wie gross der Schritt von der Zeichnung zu einem fertigen Gebäude dann doch ist, wird den Besuchern in einem Raum bewusst, dessen Wände bis in vier Meter Höhe mit Tausenden von Abbildungen tapeziert sind. Es handelt sich bei den Fotos um das «Sourcebook» zum Projekt Nr. 169, dem Schaulager selbst. In der Terminologie der Architekten wird damit die Bilderchronik eines Projekts bezeichnet - eine visuelle Spur und ein mentaler Bildteppich zugleich. Den grössten Raum in der Ausstellung nimmt indessen eine Auslegeordnung des Archivs von Herzog & de Meuron ein. Auf einer Vielzahl von Tischen sind - eingerahmt von Fassadenmustern, Attrappen und Schablonen - thematisch gruppierte Modelle und Materialien ausgestellt, die sich im Laufe von Entwurfsarbeiten angesammelt haben.

Von diesem assoziativen Flohmarkt der Ideen profitiert am meisten, wer viele fertige Gebäude kennt. Anderseits erlaubt es die sinnlich gestaltete Ausstellung, durch diesen Fundus zu streifen und einfach zu staunen. Projekt Nr. 250, wie die neue Interpretation des Typus «Architekturausstellung» durch Herzog & de Meuron betitelt ist, zeigt eines vor allem: Architektur - zumindest im Verständnis dieser Architekten - hat mit mentaler Offenheit zu tun. Mit der Offenheit zum Beispiel, nicht davor zurückzuschrecken, als Merchandising-Objekt eine Stadtlandschaft aus Zuckerguss herzustellen. Noch scheint der Gedanke absurd, aber es kann nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass dieses Monumental-Bonbon der Nukleus ist für ein weiteres verführerisches Projekt, das Herzog & de Meuron demnächst laut raschelnd aus dem Cellophan klauben.

Urs Steiner

Bis zum 12. September im Schaulager der Laurenz-Stiftung in Münchenstein bei Basel. Zur Ausstellung ist ein Vademecum erschienen. Begleitpublikation: Herzog & de Meuron. Naturgeschichte. Hrsg. Philip Ursprung. Lars Müller Publishers, Baden 2002. 472 S., Fr. 89.-.

http://www.nzz.ch/2004/05/08/fe/page-article9KYRM.html

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The Japan Times: May 12, 2004

CERAMIC SCENE
BIZEN -- AND BEYOND
The Emperor's phantom porcelain set
By ROBERT YELLIN

Rarely, if ever, has a dinner set taken on such a mysterious aura as the maboroshi (phantom) porcelain service made by the late Yoshimichi Fujimoto (1919-92). Used only once and then, for reasons that remain enigmatic, hidden away for years, it comprises 230 pieces, enough to serve 15 diners. Only two, though, have ever used the set -- the Showa Emperor and Empress, who dined off it in 1976. The dinner service was then sentenced to a dark and fabled existence . . . until now.

Clockwiserl from above: sake bottles with designs of magnolia, grapevines and eggplants (1975); vase with yubyokasai motif of a night heron (1989); one of five plates from the phantom dinner service, with kingfisher motif, all by Yoshimichi Fujimoto PHOTOS COURTESY OF MUSEE TOMO

Showing at the wonderful Musee Tomo in Tokyo until Sept. 23 is an exhibition -- "Yoshimichi Fujimoto Overglaze Porcelain: The Phantom Dinner Set for the Showa Emperor" -- that gives visitors the chance to see this historical set along with other Fujimoto masterpieces. All are simply enchanting.

Fujimoto's career was twofold: besides being a ceramic artist par excellence, he was also an extremely influential teacher at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts. The impact he made in the latter role is clearly evident from the works of his students, now established potters, some of whom are regrettably so in thrall to their late master that they produce dull and lifeless Fujimoto copies.

Fujimoto's work is bewitching in the way images of nature seem to burst off the porcelain forms with stunning clarity. Standing before the magical pots he made at the end of his career, we enter a ceramic world never seen before: birds perch in apricot branches or fly over streams in which fallen maple leaves flow, all depicted with startling realism. To achieve this, Fujimoto devised his own techniques of layering enamel colors over each other to create an effect like that of watercolor.

Meanwhile, early in his career, Fujimoto used a stoneware body, painted over with fanciful, lively designs. He switched to porcelain in 1973, as it was better suited for his enamel technique and the designs he wished to create. In March 1973, he embarked upon a porcelain-testing phase that would last more than a year. He used a color scheme of red, yellow, green, dark blue and purple known as gosai, which is the standard palette for Ko-Kutani porcelain. In 1976, at the request of Tomo Kikuchi -- the museum is named after her -- Fujimoto was commissioned to make the maboroshi set.

One would imagine an out-of-the-ordinary menu for the Imperial couple, yet what was served on Fujimoto's dishes was quite mundane: an appetizer of sliced salmon, consomme soup, shrimp pie -- and custard pudding for dessert.

Fujimoto said years after the set's completion that it "was and would be the most unforgettable work of my life."

Great as this set is, though, it is surely not the defining moment of Fujimoto's career. That would have to be his development of a glaze style called yubyokasai, in which he painted on a pure white porcelain body. This technique gives a three-dimensional, painterly depth to his nature motifs that defy the clay medium. We are able to stand on the shore with a snowy heron, or perch on a branch with a wagtail as it stares out to a white infinity on a jar or plate.

Fujimoto used yubyokasai from 1983 onward; in 1986 it earned him the designation of living national treasure -- one of the few such honors bestowed in the pottery world in the last 20 years that I wholeheartedly agree with. In this generous and blessed artist we find the best of Japan's ceramic art combined with his enlightened gift of teaching.

"Yoshimichi Fujimoto Overglaze Porcelain" runs till Sept. 23 at Musee Tomo, Nishikubo Bldg. B1F, Toranomon 4-1-35, behind the Okura Hotel; (03) 5733-5131. For a detailed map, see www.musee-tomo.or.jp/usage.html Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m-6 p.m.; admission 1,300 yen.

May brings many wonderful exhibitions on the ceramic scene, including a sweeping historical review of Bizen ware at the Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum. Titled "Captivation of Bizen Unglazed Stoneware," this runs until June 27. Bizen, as with most pottery styles, is named after a town, in this case one located in Okayama Prefecture. Bizen ware, which has been crafted since the late Heian/early Kamakura periods (late 12th-early 13th centuries), mainly comprised earthy everyday items before the style was introduced to the exclusive tea world during the 16th century.

Falling out of favor in the 19th century and facing extinction, Bizen kilns were figuratively "re-lit" after Toyo Kaneshige (1896-1967) revitalized the spirit of Bizen in the early 20th century. It is to Kaneshige that all current Bizen potters owe the style's present popularity.

On display in this comprehensive exhibition are 134 works, including such legendary pieces as a vase dating from 1557 and a Kaneshige mizusashi (water jug) that was used to decorate 62 yen postage stamps in 1991. The show concludes with works by the definer of contemporary Bizen, Ryuichi Kakurezaki (1950-).

"Captivation of Bizen Unglazed Stoneware" runs till June 27 at Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum. Open 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; admission 700 yen. The museum is a 70-minute express train ride from Ueno Station on the Joban Line to Tomobe Station, from where there is a free city bus service. By car, the museum is a 10-minute drive from the Tomobe exit on the Kita-Kanto Expressway.

Starting May 12 in Tokyo, then traveling to four other locales, is an exhibition offering the chance to see two legendary potters showing together for the first time. The impact on 20th-century Japanese Mino ceramics (Shino, Oribe, Yellow Seto and Black Seto) of Toyozo Arakawa (1894-1985) and Tokuro Kato (1897-1985) was so profound that, like Kaneshige for Bizen, they are responsible for rekindling the flames in their respective areas of Toki, Gifu Prefecture, and Seto in Aichi Prefecture. Both specializing in tea wares, the "quiet" Arakawa and the "dynamic" Kato were rivals of sorts -- but their rivalry brought out the best in each. Held at Nihonbashi Takashimaya's eighth-floor hall, this is sure to be a very popular exhibition. (The exhibition runs till May 24 in Nihonbashi, then travels to Yokohama Takashimaya, May 26-June 7; Nagoya Matsuzakaya Museum, Sept. 11-Oct. 3; Sano Museum, Mishima, Saitama Prefecture, Oct. 8-Nov. 8; and Kyoto Takashimaya, Feb. 23-Mar. 7, 2005.)

Other exhibitions of note include a showing of tea wares by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa at Kochukyo, next to Nihonbashi Takashimaya, May 18-22. Hosokawa is a very able potter making a variety of styles, including Raku and Shigaraki.

At Ginza Wako is Kyoto's Kazuo Takiguchi, who has a wonderful sense of humor and line. The exhibition will focus on everyday wares and runs May 18-25. (Please note Wako is closed on Sundays.)

John Dix will be showing his wood-fired pots at Gallery Shun, May 12-16. Dix hails from Michigan and studied in Bizen before establishing his own kiln in Hyogo Prefecture in 1995. Gallery Shun, (03) 3444-7665, is located in Hiroo, Tokyo, near Meijiya Plaza.

In Kansai, potter Ken Matsuzaki, who is based in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, celebrates his 25th exhibition at Umeda Hankyu in Osaka, May 26-June 1. Matsuzaki's exhibitions always feature hundreds of works in Shino and Oribe, as well as sublime ash-glazed works fired in a wood-burning kiln.

Finally, don't miss the powerful black works of one of the most important ceramic sculptors of our day, Yo Akiyama -- on display at the Inax Tile Museum in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, till June 6.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fc20040512ry.htm

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Matthias Arnold M.A.
Digital Resources
Institute of Chinese Studies
University of Heidelberg
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