
Soft Cover, German / English, Glue Binding, 120 Pages, 2025, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
Yuki Okumura
Concurrent with the exhibition Yuki Okumura, a publication features a conversation among the artist, Aaron Amar Bhamra, and Monika Georgieva, an essay by James Gatt, and numerous illustrations. On the cover, the Secession name is hand-painted by the artist through a stencil, with the special white paint that is used to cover the walls of the Secession, making each copy unique.
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The so-called white cube is a seemingly “neutral” and “pure” space with plain-white walls that is supposed to ensure the undisturbed autonomy of art. The Hauptraum, the largest gallery of Secession, is one of the earliest and most representative examples of it.
Like many artists who have exhibited here, Yuki Okumura took its empty state as a departure point for his working process. But instead of bringing works to this ideal backdrop to isolate art from the world, the artist conceived three site-specific projects to rediscover the space as a lived room interconnected with the world marked by its own conditions and contexts. For each project, Okumura designed a playful procedure and asked people related to the Hauptraum to enact it.