Mariko Mori: Dream Temple

Rating:
Summary: Documents an artwork in the best Japanese tradition
Review: I first saw the work of Mariko Mori in the Museum of photography in Tokyo in 1998. Mori tends to use her own image a lot in the manner of Cindy Sherman. The Dream Temple, however, is not self-referential but, instead, points back to Japanese history.

Mori doesn't build her art herself but designs and supervises. This is similar to the way the wonderful Japanese woodblock prints were produced with the artist executing the design and specialists carving and printing the works.

The book is the documentation of her preliminary designs and drawings and then proceeds to show computer simulations and finally the finished artwork itself.

This is a very finely produced book. The reproductions of the pencil drawings, for example, look so much like real pencil works that you expect them to smudge. Even the feel of the paper makes the experience of looking at the book a very tactile one.

My only criticism of the book is that there is no explanation about the final status of the temple itself. Did it only exist during the exhibition? Will it be permanently on display somewhere?

And, of course, it is an expensive book but one who's value is there.