An evening at the EKÔ-House

Beautiful Japanese garden waiting for the autumn colours

Friday night there was another vernissage at the EKÔ-House in Düsseldorf, this time Japanese scroll paintings. Special scroll paintings, kakemono, also called kakejiku, with stamps collected at pilgrimage. The focus was the 88 Temple Pilgrimage at Shikoku Island and the 33 Temple Pilgrimage close to Kyoto. We had a possibility to listen to a presentation about it. Really something completely different. Well, for me since I have some kakejiku (normal one, not from a pilgrimage) it was interesting to see the beautiful scroll paintings. And the presentation was well done and not boring at all.

Before the opening the was a small meditation at the temple at the EKÔ-House and since my friends were late... I was alone there and I had the opportunity to meet two English men, who only came to pray at the temple. They were fluent in Japanese and sung the sutras. Impressive. My friends came afterwards to the presentation at the begin of the exhibition.We were impressed and amused listening to the stories about the equipment and the rites at the pilgrimage. Funny since more and more Japanese like to do a pilgrimage the are also some for children. Well, somehow there is a whole industry behind it.

The weather was great at the evening, being hungry we went to an Indian restaurant to have dinner afterwards.

yummy, Indian food....

something different to the Japanese temple....inside the Indian restaurant

Japanese influence

150 years German Japanese friendship and a beautiful Ukiyo-e exhibition we could not miss.  I am looking forward to more nice events to come. Next time Akiro Kurosawa at the cinema museum

I hope we can go to a vernissage at the Eko House on Friday night.

Modern Art

Today everything was about architecture and art. We went to visit the Langen Foundation.

This museum of modern art, witch contains a large collection of Japanese art works and contemporary art is located within a missile station, one of NATO's former base. The complex is a masterpiece built by Tadao Ando, who won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995. The buildings were quite impressive and huge going into the earth, in some rooms with only four or five works on the walls I was thinking about the missiles all the time and James Bond movies. This was real modern art.

Unfortunately this time there were more contemporary works on display than Japanese art. There no pictures allowed inside, quelle dommage. I really liked the antic kakejiku (Japanese wall scrolls) they were more than beautiful.

And then we found this:

And I have fallen in love with this rhinoceros :) But this was not the Langen Foundation.

Japanese night out

We went to the EKO-House on Friday evening. Vernissage of Yōko Nakamura’s oshi-e, silk and brokade pictures. It was a very beautiful interpretation of the 54 chapters of The Tale of Genji Monogatari. She created with her helping hands (some other Japanese women) 54 picturs in 15 years. We were really impressed by the beauty of these three dimension pictures. 

Oshi-e

I am not sure you can get an idea from my fotos, how beatiful the pictures were. I hope the dimension are a bit regognizable.

And how do you describe a Japanese German event for someone who never joint one before? A bit strange, I would say. No it was great. Everyone thanked the others for being there at the beginning but the opening speeches weren’t that bad and long compared to the New Year Event we went this year. Nice koto players and interesting people.

We escaped after a while to Fuga, our favourite Japanese diner at the moment and afterwards we had a great time at a typical brewery. It was really funny!!! And we got home at 2 am.... thanx Nadja!!!