SMALL CORPORATION_JP_23, Marianne Mueller & Heidi Schöni,
Shinshu Takato Museum of Art Ina City, Nagano, Japan
SMALL CORPORATION_JP_23, installation using paintings, painted objects, ready mades, photographs,
ceramics, mt photographic tape
WHITE CIRCLE, 2023, acrylic paint on found wooden lid
BLACK CIRCLE, 2023, acrylic paint on found wooden lid
SMALL CORPORATION_JP_23, installation using paintings, painted objects, ready mades, photographs,
ceramics, mt photographic tape
BUCHARA PIECE, 2017, styrofoam, gypsum, nail polish
DUNG, 2021, glazed ceramic. PAPILLON CITRON, 2022, glazed ceramic
TOO MUCH PHANTASTIC STRESS, 2023, parts 6-11, acrylic paint on (leftover bookbinder) linen and silk textile, TYPHOON 27 HITS MATSUMOTO, 2018, photograph
TOO MUCH PHANTASTIC STRESS, 2023, parts 5-9, acrylic paint on (leftover bookbinder) linen and silk textile,
TYPHOON 27 HITS MATSUMOTO, 2018, photograph
TOO MUCH PHANTASTIC STRESS, 2023, parts 3,4, acrylic paint on (leftover bookbinder) linen and silk textile, WHITE CIRCLE, 2023, acrylic paint on found wooden lid, BLACK CIRCLE, 2023, acrylic paint on found wooden lid, TYPHOON 27 HITS MATSUMOTO, 2018, photograph
SMALL CORPORATION (Paintings # 1-72), Otsu, Takayama, Utsubo, Matsumoto, Kusatsu, Minakami, Yubiso, Tokio, 2018, gesso, acrylic paint and ink on linen panels; GRID, 2023, mt photographic tape
SMALL CORPORATION (Paintings # 1-72), Otsu, Takayama, Utsubo, Matsumoto, Kusatsu, Minakami, Yubiso, Tokio, 2018, gesso, acrylic paint and ink on linen panels; GRID, 2023, mt photographic tape
SMALL CORPORATION (Paintings # 1-72), Otsu, Takayama, Utsubo, Matsumoto, Kusatsu, Minakami, Yubiso, Tokio, 2018, gesso, acrylic paint and ink on linen panels; GRID, 2023, mt photographic tape
SMALL CORPORATION (Paintings # 1-72), Otsu, Takayama, Utsubo, Matsumoto, Kusatsu, Minakami, Yubiso, Tokio, 2018, gesso, acrylic paint and ink on linen panels; GRID, 2023, mt photographic tape
TABI, 2023, Margiela Tabi T-shirt from arielzorri, New York, N.Y, cotton, on alu transport-box
For their exhibition at the Takato Museum of Art, the Swiss artists Marianne Mueller and Heidi Schöni developed a site-specific installation intervening in the museum's traditional display system. Their intervention in the postmodernist building by Tadanaga architects projects a grid adapting to the bent floor plan and walls as a chessboard pattern, thus disrupting the conventional reading of the space and enabling new references. The chequerboard pattern, jap. Ishidatami-mon appeared in Japan in the Heian period (794–1185) and existed in early Western and Islamic building cultures.
Here, it reactivates Mueller's and Schöni's co-authored body of work Small Corporation JP18, 2018, based on the "Eight Views," which extends far beyond
the number eight. The "Eight Views of Xiaoxiang" motif originated in 11th-century China. Through the transfer of Zen painting, corresponding landscape views also established themselves as a popular subject in Japan between the 14th and 15th centuries. Sometimes the motifs of the series remained true to their Chinese model; sometimes, they varied. With a view to this tradition, the artists worked out contemporary interpretations of the topos’ during a 2018 road trip around central Japan, starting from Lake Biwa. In contrast to representational-abstract ink painting, the artists pushed the spontaneous ductus in acrylic paints on canvas, based on found atmospheres, into non-figurative multi- and monochromes. Subsequently, the canvases imported to Japan traveled to Switzerland as paintings, were further developed, and are now transferred back. Objects and artifacts that became carriers of meaning during the project are arranged in the sizeable concave display case of the museum. Found objects, ready-mades, photographs, situate the paintings and trace their itinerary
and context of their creation. On the back wall of the showcase, new rag-like canvas pieces created on-site are placed above the grid. The sequential features of the objects' history of origin are rearranged to form a spatial organization. The objects and tableaux stand out from the presentation grid as independent artifacts. At the same time, the grid relates them to the transfer history of the different elements in the exhibition. The breaks and interruptions in the grid leave room for open-ended interpretation. The presentation hence not only reflects aspects of cultural transfer and modes of (re-)presentation. It differentiates between situatedness and translatability and traces the multiple local and temporal shifts leading to institutional display.
Gabrielle Schaad, 2023