Leiko Ikemura. No No Noh Leiko Ikemura in dialog with selected works by Walter Pichler from the Diethard Leopold Collection.

This publication was released to mark the first exhibition by Leiko Ikemura at Beck & Eggeling in Vienna. Under the title Noh Noh Noh, she combines selected works by the artist with works by Walter Pichler from the Diethard Leopold collection. This publication documents this extraordinary and fascinating encounter.

Leiko Ikemura not only works in Europe, but all over the world, though her work originated exclusively in the West, in Europe. However, she gains a special voice through the presence of the Asian cultural space of her homeland; she involves Japanese items in our art world, as it were. At her request, in the exhibition her works entered into a dialog with the great Austrian artist Walter Pichler. A thoroughly inspiring first contact, through which it becomes clear: phenomena of cultural transfer, the artistic exchange between different geographical and cultural spaces, between different languages of art and artistic mentalities have long interested Leiko Ikemura, in fact, since her artistic beginnings, which lie in the seventies. An immensely rich and thoroughly coherent oeuvre has since emerged.

The Noh mask, which the artist has placed as the opening act, and the title Noh Noh Noh make it clear: Japan is there – doubly affirmed and thereby negated. The mask shows its concave reverse, so that it gives an insight into what is otherwise out of sight. The Noh mask, which, like the Pichler drawings, is also borrowed from the Diethard Leopold collection, opens up the perception for Ikemura’s other vision that materializes in her sculptural figurations.

Artists: Leiko Ikemura, Walter Pichler
Editor: Ute Eggeling, Michael Beck
Text: Pia Müller-Tamm, Diethard Leopold
Design: Beck & Eggeling (Martina Löhle)

German, English
Softcover, 26 x 23 cm
78 pages

Associated exhibition

Leiko Ikemura. NO NO NOH

Vienna / 18 May – 26 August 2017

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