Collection Exhibition2015-2 Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
July 25-October 18, 2015
This exhibition showcases a selection of works on the theme of Hiroshima from the museum’s collection, offering an overview of how contemporary artists have interpreted and dealt with the atomic bombing and its consequences. The art shown here is a part our search for the path to a brighter future amid the still ever-present threat of nuclear destruction.
Seventy years have passed since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and the event is gradually fading from our collective memory. However, the world today is built on a fragile peace, and once war breaks out there is no guarantee that nuclear weapons will not be used, driving the human race to extinction. And as the problems caused by the recent power plant accident in Fukushima clearly illustrate, nuclear energy poses another kind of threat to humankind.
The exhibition title Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness is also the title of a work by one of the artists featured here, Alfredo Jaar, but it originally comes from the British poet W.H. Auden and was quoted by novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who has often written about the Hiroshima bombing and used the phrase as a short story collection title. Since August 6, 1945, “Hiroshima” has been a byword for a universal human theme explored by numerous artists in diverse media. Contemporary art is a mirror of its times, and over the years has reflected people’s thinking on the significance of Hiroshima’s ordeal. We are still searching for a way to outgrow the madness of the atomic age.
|Alfredo Jaar||Henry Moore||HOSOE Eikoh|
|Isamu Noguchi||MIYAZAKI Shin||TAKAMATSU Jiro|
|TSUCHIDA Hiromi||YANOBE Kenji||YOKOO Tadanori|
|Yves Klein||and more..|