REVIEW
ART AWARD EXHIBITION "Neo-Japonisme takes stage"

Yebisu Garden place's 1,960-sq.-mater exhibition space allows for the display of large installations, including the mesmerizing work titles "Utsusemi" by Motoi Yamamoto, a crumbling brick staircase or wall made of 3tons of salt bricks.
Yamamoto, who was born in 1966 and studied painting at Kanazawa College of Art, has been using salt as a medium for artistic expression for the last three years because he likes its texture and plasticity. The use of salt is also an important means of purification in traditional Japanese rites.
Yamamoto, who considers each grain of salt to be a fragment of life, forms his bricks in a microwave oven, The stairs represent the historical process that envelops our lives and is repeated through the cycle of birth and death. Commenting on the installation, Yamamoto writes "I would like to express my belife in the cosmic nature of art, which represents the transience and ephemeral nature of our lives. In realizing this ephemerality, we learn that life is a process of approaching death,"
The installation title "Utsusemi" literally means "the land of the living," a term with deep, Buddhist-tinged echoes of the transitory, meaningless world in which we live.

春原陽子　ジャパン・タイムス