A play of the visible and the invisible dominates Youki Hirakawa’s works. He works in the media film, video and photography, but also with objects. One continuing theme is the way in which the human eye sees and observes. In many works he uses our brain’s ability to complete incomplete projections, so that despite missing parts the whole is imaginable. Repeatedly, time also plays a significant part – the time we need to recognize and understand things, and time as an artistic means with which to represent the changes to a state of being.

Close your Eyes consists of old silver prints found in Berlin flea markets. All those portrayed have their eyes closed as if they were peacefully asleep. The photos presentation refers to the late 19th-century “post mortem” photographs that paid a final tribute to the dead. In A root for a room a glass stands on the floor, filled with groundwater from a place near the exhibition location. Due to external changes, the contents trickle out slowly over a period of several weeks, returning to the ground – the water’s place of origin. Hirakawa documents the time that passes before all the water has disappeared, and therefore the passing of the artwork.

Youki Hirakawa is receiving a fellowship from the Pola Art Foundation and the Nomura Foundation.