///// /////// /////, by Kazuki Nakahara, is the title of the 18th exhibition in the Appropriating Language series at Manière Noire. Impossible to pronounce, we silently wonder what it might stand for…

///// /////// ///// exists in haiku form, to be precise, in the characteristic number of syllables 5+7+5, an abstraction that also became the building block of the current installation. Haiku is a form of poetry based on strict rules. Imagery and mental shortcuts are mastered with the utmost compression of content and written in a language that is precisely measured and balanced.

In ///// /////// /////, Kazuki Nakahara explores the typical Japanese poetic form, which, after breaking it down into primary elements, he puts together again, albeit in a different way.
In Manière Noire, Nakahara has arranged an almost flat sculpture which consists of tall wooden sticks leaning against the wall, each of them ending with a sphere. The bars resemble pendulums frozen in motion, at a standstill; seen in seriality, they appear to transmit the musical meter as the viewer passes by. Additionally, each stake is delicately marked with 17 dots, paralleling the syllabic rhythm 5+7+5.

In ///// /////// /////, Nakahara refrains from the use of color, revealing shape within the same chroma. Placed in even constellations, the bars create a uniform, minimalistic structure that, with a slight spatial shift and through flickering differentiations of light and shadow, sets itself apart from the gallery walls.

While experiencing this see-through structure, we may think of the Zenga pictures, in which singular parts of the universe, solitarily shown on white backgrounds, describe the world both quickly and profoundly. Kazuki Nakahara creates a comparative architecture of forms by extracting from language a magic formula and by transfiguring it in space.

• Manière Noire
  Waldenserstr. 7A, 10551 Berlin
• www.manierenoire.net