fig. 1　"Drawing[ o n ]" (2010)
40×30×∞cm, paper, fire, rubber, cloth
photo by Hayato Wakabayashi

fig. 2　"o n" (2010)
30×90×15cm, sandstone
photo by Hayato Wakabayashi

fig. 3　"o n" (2010)
70×60×50cm, marble
photo by Hayato Wakabayash

fig. 4　"o n" (2010)
25×230×20cm, sandstone
photo by Hayato Wakabayashi

You have to take time to appreciate Ayako Ono's sculptures. This does not mean that you should stay at the venue for days. It means that you need a long time interval to forget the details after you have seen her works. This review is about her exhibition that was held a half year ago. The reason I decided to write a review about the exhibition now is because I think my memories of it are becoming obscured.

The works exhibited in the exhibition were three sculptures and a drawing. All three sculptures are all titled “On”. The drawing titled “Drawing[ on ]” (paper, fire, rubber, cloth) on the wall near the entrance is a work that is a piece of white paper over manuscript paper with small holes to lace up a rubber string. I went down the stairs, after seeing this drawing, to the exhibition space in the semi-basement.

The first sculpture “on” (sandstone, 2010, 30×90×15cm) is a designed shape of an arc like a drawer pull or the knob of an instrument.^*1 Both ends are stuck into the floor. The stone material reminded me of the coldness that I feel when I touch some metal parts. The next “on” (marble, 2010, 70×60×50cm) has a figure like a trumpet set upright. The surface of the marble made me remember the sensation I have when I press my lips to a trumpet to make sound with it. Although both sculptures are geometrically shaped, they rather make me remember components of something other than abstract artifacts. The forms were beautifully chipped off with the outline created by hand work which makes them exquisitely restrained. They evoke a sensation to try to determine their shapes by brushing up against them. They are tactile sculptures. The last “on” is in a form like a long pipe with both ends stuck in the ground. It looks inorganic when you see it separately. However when you see it with the other two, it appears as if you are seeing a pipe for some machinery or a guardrail or a part of something that you have seen somewhere before.

I looked around again from the top of the stairs into the semi-basement venue. There stretches out a landscape like a part of things that you have seen in your everyday life which is surfacing from or sinking into the boundary of your consciousness. It looks as if memories lost in oblivion come up to the surface--- as if time falls into oblivion. The texture of the material and the shape which makes you want to trace it with your line of sight evoke physical memories as well. The simplicity of the sculptures' forms was spawned from forgotten details of motifs seen in everyday life. As you see them, you will remember things lost in oblivion in daily life and you will be lightly shocked to realize how irresponsible your memories are. However, it also makes you think that the forgotten details were only unnecessary excesses. And this leads you to fall into a sweet illusion that the things you gaze at in your own way can produce beautiful images even if they are blurred.

We forget many things as time goes by. The remaining memories can be some beautiful forms that can only be viewed by yourself though they may not be very exact. Unknowingly, in your busy day-to-day life, you will start to think wistfully about times already past.

Now the shapes of the works have become vague inside me, I long to see the works again very much. Also, to think about the mounting surface from the point suggested by the title “on”, 　an invisible part of the sculptures under the floor is also assumed to exist. The invisible part is left for the viewers (to imagine). They will make you want to remember the works without the overconfidence that you are seeing everything. After you see them, appreciation of her works may last forever.
(Translated by Yoshikazu Noda)

*1
I asked her about the motif of the works at the opening party held on April 5, 2010. She said they were parts of instruments but she did not have to let viewers know it. I would like to note that I described the shapes of her works from my own point of view with the artist's intention in mind.

Referred exhibition: "Ayako OHNO: on" held in Akiyama Gallery, April 5 - 17, 2010