Vertical Hold

Yuriko Kurimoto's installation work plays on 20th century building methods and the arrangement of space within the architecture of semi-public areas, such as art galleries and foyers. In this type of architecture, with its skeletal construction of steel girders and concrete flesh, the framework construction is invariably disguised by a decorative façade, both on the interior and the exterior -- a sort of Russian doll: a building within a building within a building. The large reinforced beams which are above our heads at every moment in a building constructed from pre-stressed concrete, are frequently hidden by suspended ceilings: an aluminium armature and synthetic panel chessboard that gives a lightness of touch to the weight of concrete and steel.

When the structure is not disguised, as is often the case in older buildings where brutalism and raw concrete were thought of as character forming, it is still invisible in the sense that we take no real notice of it, never thinking of its weight, its strength or the forces with which it deals in preventing the ceiling from crashing to the floor. The modular arrangement of elements in standard industrial units that comprise this type of architecture, and which remains for the most part hidden from view behind phenomenally involved attempts at surface finishing and cladding, provide the source material for Kurimoto's work.

Kurimoto selects these structural and decorative elements of the ceiling in the space she is working with and duplicates them on the oor. The installations are disorientating in this respect because, at first glance, it may not be entirely apparent that the floor construction is virtually a mirror image of the ceiling. Walking across a space where your movements are impeded by foot-high beams, bizarrely dimensioned platforms, or dish-like shallow trays is a strange experience: their size and apparent sense of purpose suggest a function that can only be guessed at. In turn, looking at the real architecture of the building, you start to wonder what all the pipes, beams and boxed-in areas are actually for. The installations never duplicate the architecture entirely: there are always elements that are omitted. The question seems to be one of when to stop. Kurimoto's recent installation at the Riverside Gallery, for example, mirrored the very visible main beams of the ceiling and also the hidden beams, whose edges were only noticeable as a strip of smooth plaster at the top of the brickwork of the wall. Looking around the space, you are tempted to try and work out what is art and what is architecture: matching what you can see on the floor with its companion on the ceiling. The light fittings, the tangled pipework of power conduits and the window grilles were not duplicated, but the lack of them seems strangely unremarkable: perhaps because they look so much like additions to the structure - a metal cobweb spun over the essentials of a very forceful, blunt architecture that has been chopped, changed and 'modernised' with all the finesse for which British builders are renowned.

There is also a powerful sense of illusion involved in Kurimoto's work, and, appropriately perhaps, it is the same kind of manipulation of the appearance of structures, weights and apparent size that architects habitually indulge in. Classical architecture is essentially about the movement of sunlight across façades: a composition with light and shadow punctuated with clusters of narrative detail. Kurimoto's installation work carries something of a Baroque playfulness with scale into the rational Modernist interior. This sense of illusion and transformation is carried through in the materials used: plywood, plaster and emulsion. These are the standard building materials for modern interiors, used to hide the true construction of the architecture, but they are also the materials of the theatre. The installations' hollow construction belies their perfect imitation of solid concrete, and carries a theatrical sense of the suspension of disbelief. There is an irony in the fact that the lighter of the two beams is resting on the oor while the heavier is hanging, unnervingly, above the viewer's head.

The physical and optical experience of the viewer on entering the space is no less a part of the work than the gradual revelation of the building's construction. When working in a 'classic' Modernist gallery, the space becomes a white-out: the floor, wall and ceilings are saturated with white emulsion and the whole interior occupies a very narrow band of tones that stretches the capacity of the eye to distinguish form. Within this high-key environment, the space appears to be enveloped in a kind of white fog in which edges, corners and the joints between walls and the floor dissolve into each other. This sense of immateriality disorientates the viewer: there are no longer any anchoring points with which to locate oneself within the space and an eerie floating sensation takes hold. The floor no longer seems, visually at least, to rest under the viewer's feet, and this discrepancy between the senses of physical touch and visual perception creates an enormous spatial confusion. Within this overwhelming whiteness there is also a contradiction between the sense of intangibility of the architecture and the physical size and presence of the structures occupying the floor space. The beams resting on the floor appear intangible and weightless from a distance, but moving through the space they have to be negotiated: stepped, or tripped over.

The transformation from a rational, Modernist architecture, driven by economics, to a non-functional space which provides an entirely sensory experience, is similarly visible in her 1991 installation at Seed Hall in the Parco fashion building in Tokyo. Kurimoto's installation mimicked the boxiness of the real architecture, where the installation and the functional structure of the space become almost indistinguishable: it is only the details of the building's use - the lighting and air conditioning system - that give the game away. The intrusion of a second set of angled columns and a suspended oor create a kind of architectural insanity: there is no longer any room for the viewer, as the highly compressed space is now almost entirely occupied by structures that were intended to create space. The siting of the installation in a narrow walkway that was intended to provide a sub-panoramic view over the Shibuya area and allow access to the separate rooms of the hall area, confounds the original purpose of the space: nothing is visible and you can't walk through it. When function is taken away, the only thing left to look at is the stuff of the building itself.

This abstracting of space is found in another form in Kurimoto's symmetrical installation at Tokiwa Gallery in Tokyo, where the articulation of the gallery ceiling structure was almost entirely duplicated on the oor. More importantly, however, the duplication could plausibly be read as a real oor: it has the right sense of normality and purposefulness. The shallow stepped-edge of the ceiling translates into an entirely believable raised area around the perimeter of the gallery exhibition space that is not too high, nor too apparently non-functional, to be unlikely - although it renders the space entirely useless for its nominal purpose of showing 'art'. Perhaps the difference between functional and decorative elements is sometimes only a question of scale. Kurimoto's interest in how spaces are perceived unconsciously by the viewer appeared in an earlier installation entitled The Wall, 1990. Here the space was occupied by monolithic white slabs standing upright in the gallery - itself a disused office unit. Each of the slabs corresponded to the dimensions of the individual doors and windows of the room. Their monumentality emphasised the weight of the architecture: the thickness of the walls and the height of the windows. When you look through a window you usually focus on what is outside, rather than on the depth of material through which the hole has been punched. When standing in the centre of the gallery, all the apertures into the room were blocked from sight, radically altering the viewer's perception of the space. The entrance of light and air are so much taken for granted within architecture that it is only when they are removed that their importance in creating the 'feel' of the room and a sense of location within space becomes noticeable. When these are taken away, the final thread with the outside world and the orientation provided instinctively by daylight is lost - which is why everyone loses their car in underground car parks.

In viewing Kurimoto's work, located in the relatively familiar spaces of galleries, offices and lobbies, it becomes clear how little is consciously seen of the constructed world around us, and how unaware we are of its effects on our sense of location, mood and relationship with our surroundings. In addition to revealing the transparency of architecture through bringing about an awareness of the juggling of physical forces involved in keeping a building standing, Kurimoto's work returns an impression of articulation and transformation to a form of architecture that sought to strip it away in the name of modernity and economy of scale. The vast majority of contemporary urban architecture has attempted in vain to rediscover that sense of play through applied finish and the superfi;cial meanings that are attached to it. To rediscover tangible space again is a revelation.