Isola

2010
tempered glass, brass, aluminium, air, chain, anchor
182×182×4cm
Installation view at Oberuckersee, Uckermark, Germany

Photo: Roman März

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The artworks of sculptor Reijiro Wada are transmitters of both the viewer´s aesthetic and spiritual relationship to the world. They don´t act mimetically, in the sense of representing reality, but refer to the natural environment and to intellectual concepts via an entirely abstract vocabulary. In this manner, the material existence of the artwork not only includes the concrete plastic material shaped by the sculptor, but also nature itself.

 

The work Isola, created in 2010 for the Uckermark Festival near Berlin, introduces this creative approach. It consists of two square glass plates, each 180 cm on a side. The air trapped between them allows the object to float on the surface of the water. To prevent the artwork from drifting away, it was anchored to the bottom of the Oberucker Lake with a cable. Depending on wind, waves sometimes washed over the glass plate. Seen from a distance, the glass plate was in clear contrast to the moving surface of the water. It inserts a segment of the sky, which is reflected on the glass plate, into the water, thereby connecting these two elements of nature. Viewed materially, the lined glass plate is a raft, but through the reflection, and the contrast between nature in motion and the mathematical form, Wada offers the viewer a diversity of associations, even ranging to a mysterious opening in the lake.

 

Dr. Marc Wellmann, Artistic Director of Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin