After a four-month renovation, the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi has finally reopened. To celebrate its reopening, the exhibition "Simple Forms: Where Does Beauty Come From?" (opens April 25th and runs until July 5th) was held. A briefing and preview were held the day before the opening. The press briefing was attended by a distinguished audience, including Mori Art Museum Director Nanjo, Associate Curator Tsubaki, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Chairman of the Hermès Foundation, Jean de Loissy, President of the Palais de Tokyo and co-curator of the exhibition, and Emma Lavigne, Director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, as well as exhibiting artists. This exhibition revisits the "beauty of simple forms," a concept that garnered attention in Europe from the 19th to the 20th centuries. This is the first Japanese exhibition to be held at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, a branch of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, in collaboration with the Fondation Hermès, and has now traveled to the Mori Art Museum. Of the approximately 130 works on display, 30 to 40 percent have been reorganized as works exclusive to the Japan exhibition. The exhibition, which spans a wide range of genres including fine art, design, archaeology, biology, mathematics, physics, and mechanical engineering, has been reorganized into nine sections, creating a large-scale thematic exhibition spanning approximately 20,000 years of time, from prehistoric stone tools to contemporary art. The exhibition's story begins with an interrogation of simple forms created by nature, such as stones found on the beach by Le Corbusier and Brassaï, and Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Lake Superior, Cascades," a photograph of the horizon. Xavier Veilhan's new large-scale installation, "Rays of Light," creates a tranquil space in the exhibition room befitting the appreciation of these simple forms. Chojiro's Kuroraku tea bowl, embodying the spirit of wabicha tea, is an exclusive piece for the Japan exhibition, evoking the simple beauty and tranquil spirituality that Japanese culture is so proud of. Other intriguing works include Olafur Eliasson's "Circular Rainbow" and Susanna Fritscher's "Breath," created specifically for this exhibition in collaboration with Saint-Louis glass artisans with close ties to Hermès. Shinji Ohmaki's "Liminal Air Space-Time" installation series, which suspends soft materials in mid-air using fans, presents breathtakingly beautiful forms in an impressive space overlooking the museum's panoramic vistas. The exhibition's climax, Carsten Nicolai's "Anti," is a large-scale, three-dimensional reproduction of the black monolith depicted in Albrecht Dürer's "Melancholia I." Touching it produces a mysterious, low-pitched sound, posing questions about the origins of humanity and the universe. Other works on display include Brancusi's "Birds in Space," inspired by aerodynamics; Anthony McCall's video installation "Lines Drawing a Cone," which focuses on geometric forms; and Anish Kapoor's "When I Was Pregnant," in which a pregnant woman's abdomen appears to protrude from the wall. "Although this exhibition is a collaboration between Japan and France, we were able to include many works that showcase the simple beauty of Japanese art and culture, making it a fitting exhibition for visitors to explore the newly renovated museum," Nanjo said. "Rather than being focused on art history, this exhibition is more of a 'sensual' theme, one that engages the senses to appreciate beauty. It is an extremely beautiful and sexy exhibition." From the 19th to the 20th century, modernization advanced in every field through new discoveries and inventions. While attention focused on functional beauty and the basic forms discovered by natural science, many artists were fascinated by the rich and universal beauty of simple forms, creating works that fascinated them. In this modern age, facing the waves of globalization and diversification of the 21st century, this exhibition asks whether there may be something we can see by returning to the rich world of beauty that lies behind these "simple forms."


[Event Information]
"Simple Forms: Where Does Beauty Come From?"
Venue: Mori Art Museum
Address: 53F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Dates: April 25th to July 5th
Hours: 10:00 to 22:00 (until 17:00 on Tuesdays only, until 6:00 the following morning on April 25th, until 22:00 on May 5th)
Admission Fee: Adults 1,800 yen, Students 1,200 yen, 500 yen for ages 4 to junior high school students, 1,500 yen for those 65 and over