Permanent Collection Exhibition

Warp! Into a World of Wonder

Period: Sep 3, 2015 〜 Dec 15, 2015

Venue: Asia Gallery

Warp! Into a World of Wonder

When we see an object is illustrated much smaller than the others in a painting, our eyes would perceive the painting depicts the distance between things more realistic. However, we used to employ a different visual perception not long ago, which made us portray a subject much bigger according to its importance or authority, not by size.

This exhibition firstly closes in “the Wonders of Visual Sense” through paintings created at the time of the introduction of Western style perspective and shadow method in Asia. After the arrival of the new techniques, painters began to create paintings with depth perception, which illustrate buildings with three dimensional effects.

In the following, artworks that illustrate a seemingly bewitched world are presented as the second wonder. Although those works show mysterious landscapes, they could possibly be as common as our own mind-scape. This part of the exhibition invites us into such “Anywhere but Here.”

Lastly, the exhibition introduces artworks, which express a spatial strangeness. Those works make daily sceneries of our usual spots or everyday life warp into a surprisingly unexpected world and age and certainly make us wonder as “Something Strange in Our Usual Places!?”

1. The Wonders of Visual Sense
As the West was penetrating into Asia at the end of the 18th Century, new methodologies were brought to Asia, not only in the field of commerce and economics but also in art. The paintings by Asian artists who just learned new visual senses at that time, such as perspective and shadow method, may play trick on our today’s eyes as visually deluding and distorted.

2. Anywhere but Here
This part of the exhibition introduces artworks, which apparently traverse between the real and imaginary world. Mystically illustrating supernatural landscapes poured out from dreams or meditation along with an existence in nature beyond human intelligence, artists bring us to “Anywhere but Here” through their artworks.

3. Something Strange in Our Usual Places!?
Artworks here reveal unforeseen aspects of our ordinary everyday life, such as in our usual shopping street, the way to school or work, and even in the FAAM and make us ask “There is something strange in our regular places?”