Leiko Ikemura: With Blue Birds

Entitled With Blue Birds, the PalaisPopulaire is dedicating a presentation to Leiko Ikemura, which combines sculptural loans with works on paper from the Deutsche Bank Collection in front of the institution and in the rotunda.

Ikemura’s art draws inspiration from old Japanese masters, surrealism, postwar modernism, and the renewed figurative painting of the 1980s. Her work presents hybrid, mythological beings, girls, and women transitioning between human, animal, and plant forms. They explore psychological, social, and spiritual states and the relationship between civilization and nature. The usagi, Japanese for rabbit, first appeared as a central motif in Ikemura's sculptural work in 2011 after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, evolving from her paintings. This creature with rabbit ears and a human face symbolizes universal mourning, but also resilience and renewal. Ikemura’s figures wear cone-shaped, hollow skirts reminiscent of ritual robes or architecture, addressing the relationship between inner and outer reality.

The presentation highlights this dialectic. On Bebelplatz, the Figure with Three Birds (2021) invites visitors to linger. This round form is echoed in the rotunda inside the building, where the totemic Hare Column III (2021) stands in the center, surrounded by early, rarely shown drawings. The view circles back outside to the other sculpture, offering an almost serene meditation on the delicate state of the world.

Opening in the presence of the Artist
June 7, 5 – 7 p.m.