Rie Hachiyanagi at the University of Northern Iowa

Art in America, Feb, 2004 by Richard Vine

Six installations and three suites of performance photos composed this mini-retrospective for the 32-year-old Japanese-born artist Rie Hachiyanagi. Spanning the years 1995-2003, the works--several of which, like the ceiling-hung Silence (1999), feature textured paper handmade by the artist--convey a deep Eastern-style spirituality undiminished during 16 years of residence in the U.S.

All the sculptural pieces are marked by formal elegance--from the extremely simple Kami (2003), 100 miles of cotton thread strung back and forth between two gallery walls in a gentle downward arc, to the multipart Houses of Being (2000-03), a still-evolving ensemble that includes such elements as a long, thin shelf of side-by-side burnt pencils and a grid of blank business cards pinned to the wall. The translucent sides of Paper Shrine (1995) provide a low, light-infused meditation space at the end of a dark passageway. In The Golden River (2001), combining references to the papers that fluttered eerily from the collapsing Twin Towers on Sept. 11 and to a D.H. Lawrence poem titled "The Ship of Death," hundreds of small, podlike paper "soul boats" were hung on monofilament in a swirling flow across the gallery space. The Lucid Absurdity (1998) juxtaposes a large, wavelike sheet of handmade paper--a potential carrier of written words--with a yard-high cone-shaped mound of ashes the artist obtained by deliberately burning her own journals.

Given this degree of soulfulness, the physical violence alluded to, or actually enacted, in Hachiyanagi's performances can be startling. In Ritual in Red (1997), set in an environment covered with paper the color of blood, she made--and mailed to friends--medicinal packets of the clothes cut from her body following a nearly fatal road accident. Business Woman (2000) had her dressed in a business suit and running repeatedly into walls. For Misemono Sideshow (2001), she donned white makeup, a wig and a kimono, only to somersault continuously for 40 minutes until the traditional attire was in tatters and disarray.

This contrast between static works and frenetic performances suggests an underlying theme in the artist's career to date. Hachiyanagi, who has shown several times in New York City and currently teaches at Alfred University, focuses persistently on the creative symbiosis between social dislocation and inner peace.