A.A.Murakami's "Floating World" exhibition at MFAH blends technology and ephemeral beauty, offering a sensory experience grounded in cultural history.
By Arts Editorial Staff
Where technology and nature collide, Tokyo and London-based artist duo A.A.Murakami is crafting a new sensory vocabulary. Their highly anticipated exhibition, Floating World, set to open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) on May 4th, marks their first solo U.S. museum presentation. The show promises to be an immersive journey, inviting visitors to transcend the limits of ordinary perception through four transformative environments that explore the intersections of space, time, and materiality.
Running through September 21, Floating World draws on A.A.Murakami's signature "Ephemeral Tech" approach—a practice that harnesses advanced technology to evoke the transient beauty of natural phenomena. Informed by the ukiyo, or "Floating World" concept of Edo-era Japan, where one could momentarily escape daily life and enter a realm of sensory delight, the exhibition creates a space for contemplation, transformation, and fleeting beauty.
Upon entering the galleries, visitors first encounter Cell (2020), a series of futuristic sculptures crafted from polished steel and foamed aluminum. Typically used in aerospace applications, these industrial materials have been re-imagined as organic, porous forms, evoking both East Asian Scholar's Rocks and primordial oceanic life. The juxtaposition of technology and nature in these works sets the tone for the exhibition’s overarching theme.
In close proximity, Neon Sun (2020) bathes the gallery in an ethereal glow, utilizing custom-made glass tubes filled with noble gases. These vacuum-sealed vessels, activated by wireless electromagnetic fields, mimic the plasma reactions of the Aurora Borealis, oscillating between soft green-blues and vibrant orange-reds, enveloping viewers in a transcendent light display.
The exhibition's centerpiece, Beyond the Horizon (2024), previously commissioned by M+ in Hong Kong, transports viewers into a cloud-like realm where massive, amorphous bubbles float gracefully in the air. As they capture and reflect light, these bubbles burst and return to their ephemeral state in an endless, mesmerizing choreography—capturing the beauty of impermanence.
Passage (2023) invites visitors into an immersive environment of light and fog, where 18 fog cannons mounted on scaffold towers launch wisps of fog rings throughout the space. The interplay between fog, light, and movement dissolves the boundaries between the artwork and the viewer, transforming the gallery into a dynamic and participatory experience.
Finally, Under a Flowing Field (2023) uses krypton-filled glass tubes to create lightning-like white lines that traverse a colored void, evolving in a random, natural rhythm akin to falling rain. These luminous patterns gradually synchronize into formations accompanied by subtle, resonating sounds, evoking "crickets in autumn grass," as described by the artists. This installation encapsulates the fluidity and transience of nature.
Bradley Bailey, Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao curator of Asian Art at MFAH, notes that these installations "not only push the boundaries of art and technology; they brilliantly evoke a touchstone of Japanese cultural history." The exhibition is as much a philosophical inquiry as a visual spectacle, challenging viewers to rethink their relationship with time, space, and the natural world.
A.A.Murakami themselves cite the auspicious clouds in Asian art as a key influence, symbolizing perpetual motion—coiling and uncoiling in a state of constant flux. This dynamic sense of formation and dissolution serves as a metaphor for the ever-changing nature of existence.
With works already in the permanent collections of MoMA, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and M+ in Hong Kong, A.A.Murakami's growing international prominence is firmly established. Floating World further places them forefront of contemporary art, offering a space for reflection where technology and nature converge. The immersive exhibition urges us to reconnect with the elemental, fleeting beauty that surrounds us. To learn more, please visit mfah.org.