A Tale of Two Cities -- Tokyo and Berlin
June 15, 2006
The story of cross-cultural inspiration between Germany and Japan begins around 1870, when Japan began to open itself up after two centuries and a half of self-imposed isolation. Berlin, by European standards, was also a late bloomer.
"But Berlin had started to get going as well, and what impressed the Japanese when they came here was the constitution, the medical knowledge and also the military knowledge," David Elliott, curator of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, told DW-TV.
His museum recently hosted the exhibit "Berlin-Tokyo / Tokyo-Berlin. The Art of Two Cities" on the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower in the Japanese capital. There it was viewed by 340,000 visitors before the 500 exhibits were transported to the New National Gallery in Berlin.
Early contacts -- Dada and Mavo
Artistic ties between the two countries, separated by some 9,000 kilometers (5,592 miles), began in the late 19th century, even though it took much longer than a 15-hour plane trip to get from one country to the other.
Around the turn of the century, German artists from Berlin's "Brücke" school, like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde, were taken by Japan's exoticism and eroticism, particularly its colorful woodcuts, fabric designs and bright costumes.
A decade later, Japanese painter Tomeyoshi Murayama got to know the Dadaists in Berlin, including Hannah Höch and George Grosz. Influenced by the artistic absurdism and nihilism characteristic of the Dada movement, Murayama returned to Tokyo in 1922 and founded the artists' group Mavo, a counterpart to Dada.
Avant-garde Japanese style
The exhibit also offers examples of more recent works of art. One highlight is a red room painted from floor to ceiling with large white polka dots and containing human-sized spheres with the same motif. Entitled "Dots Obsession," the hands-on piece was created by 76-year old Yayoi Kusama. Not far away is a series of fully-equipped, air-conditioned sleeping containers, constructed by Tsuyoshi Ozawa, that invite guests to recharge during their museum visit.
Tokyo's beloved architect Toyo Ito also contributed a piece that guests can walk into, featuring wave-shaped mountains and valleys. In addition, he was commissioned to complete the architectural design of the National Gallery's Upper Hall.
For Ito, the exhibition's new location is an ideal space for showing art, "a perfect building," since it is so open and allows artists to largely shape the space.
"The National Gallery is the masterpiece of Mies van der Rohe. He uses the pattern of the rectangle and subordinates everything to it," he said. "The city flows right in; that was Mies' idea. That's why we didn't want to put up any walls: we wanted an open landscape."
The New National Gallery is located on Potsdamer Strasse in Berlin and is open from Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Thursdays until 10:00 p.m. The exhibition runs until October 3.