The Exhibition: Jūra - Yura Photographs by Kodo Chijiiwa
In these difficult times of global crisis, war and global warming, the exhibition invites us to connect, through these photographs, with the strength and breath of Nature.
The silent images of the photographer are thus set in resonance with the paintings of M. K. Čiurlionis (1875–1911) here, in his museum. It should be noted that Kodo Chijiiwa did not know the Lithuanian artist work when he began to produce the photographic series « Yurameki » (« Trembling ») during the 2015 typhoon. He thought at that time to use the technique of double exposure with his Rolleiflex, trying to capture the fury of the ocean surface, the energy of the wind, the permanence of the impermanent. Like a terrestrial sailor, Kodo Chijiiwa literally plunges into the fury of the raging elements and walks at random shaken by the ocean gusts.
The exhibition emphasizes the presence of the four elements in Chijiiwa's photography: earth, water, air and fire. He celebrates water in all its states: liquid, solid, gaseous; the continuous flow of life runs through his work, like a leitmotif. Figuring the intangible is also a challenge for the artist: air, the domain of wind and light, intermediary between sky and earth, interplanetary vibrations; volcanic vapor and the wind laden with spray, for example, help the photographer to grasp its materiality.
In the series « Gata », Chijiiwa photographs the traces left by the sea when it retreats after its furies, and dried up by the sun. Fantastic seabed with visible cracks on the ground at low tide as warning signs of future constructions for future human societies. Like mosaic tesserae, they recall the technique of Japanese ceramics "raku" and express the common history of earth, fire and water.
Kodo Chijiiwa shows us that nature is a unique pulsation where man and the universe are united, and that everything is linked, united in the multiplicity of life. He invites us to traverse the incessant flow of the metamorphoses of matter, in order to make us feel the depth of silence.
Yolita René-Šegždaitė,
Curator
Exhibition organizer: M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art
The main information partner is LRT Plus
Exhibition partners: MIMAKI ENGINEERING CO.LTD. GLOBAL, Jet Graph.co.ldt, Japan-Lithuania friendship association, KOPA
Friends of the exhibition: Embassy of Japan in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara memorial museum