Dani Karavan

Our exhibition at the FIAC and in the Gallery will present the different models related to his last environmental sculpture of Murou in Japan; some of the large-scale on site sculptures have been moulded into small bronze sculptures and will be exhibited for the first time in our show just as the drawings which evoke all the spirit of the environmental sculpture. The photographies and the video will reveal the full scale of the site specific project.

In the Nara region, the old Japanese capital, a small village named Murou houses a legendary temple of 1200 years which contains wooden sculptures, considered the most beautiful of the era. This temple, which sits on the bottom of a totally preserved valley, surrounded by mountains and forests, welcomes each year 400 to 500 000 visitors, astonished by the beauty of the site. Recent landslides, which do not allow proper waterflow, have seriously endangered the site. In order to preserve this area, the mayor of Murou with the support of high Japanese authorities, ordered an environmental sculpture to the international artist Dani Karavan.

This sculpture would not only answer to the preservation of the site but would equally leave an artwork of the XXIst century. In progress for the last six years, this contemporary sculpture which stretches over a kilometer long, has «the aim to reveal the links between man and nature» and «to serve his spirit» ; its conception totally answers the preservation concerns, with the creation of two artificial lakes intended to drain the water and dry out the land. The parcours of this gigantic environmental sculpture, finalized in spring 2006, requires « an active participation from the visitor by stimulating his five senses: seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell » and therefore brings him to feel his connection to the universe. With this piece, Dani Karavan surprises us once more with the perfect adequation created between a traditional preserved site and a contemporary artwork, which in its deployment establishes an ordeal of the world.

Pressetext

Dani Karavan
The environmental sculpture of Murou, Japon