Kohei Nawa goes 'cosmic' in his disturbingly mesmerizing world

Japanese artist Kohei Nawa is a master at striking a balance between the mesmerizing and the disquieting.

His most representative works to date feature a string of taxidermied creatures embellished with gleaming glass orbs – with each bead magnifying and distorting the animal’s hide beneath.

Even without the incorporation of such disturbingly entrancing materials, his pieces still allude to an unsettling mix of fears and anticipation – familiar feelings experienced within today’s world with its breakneck growth.

Consider, for instance, the golden “Throne,” installed at the Louvre’s iconic glass pyramids in 2018, where he left the seat open for artificial intelligence that could potentially replace traditional political and economic authority – a future that may be closer than we think.

This winter, the 48-year-old has filled the three floors of Pace Gallery Seoul with five series of works that are all interconnected by the rather contemplative theme of “cosmic sensibility.”

The pieces on display aim to look at organisms at their cellular level, as well as our sense of reality, from the vast perspective of the universe, the artist noted during a recent press conference at the gallery.

The exhibition starts on the gallery’s second floor, transporting viewers into a world of Nawa’s latest “PixCell” sculptures. To a certain extent, they deviate from his previous trademark series in that they present a surreal mix of taxidermied animals and antique furniture – bantam and chair, owl and table, butterfly and television – all bedecked with beads of crystal glass. But the core of his artistic concern remains the same.

“I started learning sculpture in 1994, the time when our society was undergoing a sweeping information-based transition. We began to think and view everything, including living beings, through filters of digital information.”

The glass orbs in his series are thus a veiled reference to our present-day fixation with looking at everything through a glass lens – smartphones, cameras and social media – that inevitably distort our perception of the world we inhabit.

As visitors descend to the ground floor, they are greeted by a lone rectangular grid illuminating the otherwise pitch-dark interior.

Nawa’s “Biomatrix” is a mesmeric fountain of viscous silicone oil bubbles that continue to rise and burst, gently guiding the observer’s breath.

Through countless repetitions of ascent and descent – somewhat evocative of “avici,” or an interminable hell in Buddhism, according to the artist – Nawa’s installation mirrors the perpetual cycle of birth and death for all living beings.

“They are consistently brought down but continue to defy gravity and rebound. I wondered if that might be the force of life,” he said, his voice tinged with thoughtful excitement.

While the bubbles within “Biomatrix” emphasize the hypnotic motion of ascent, “Ether,” a series of 3D-modeled sculptures placed at the opposite end of the room, freeze the moment of the liquid’s various stages of descent.

The show’s highlight comes in a curiously prickly shape, reminiscent of viral particles or sea urchins.

The never-before-exhibited, “Spark” series, coated in jet-black velvet, hovers on the gallery’s third floor in a gravity-defying manner, visualizing the forceful energy released by agitated cells.

The piece captures Nawa’s sense of unease as he observes the deepening ruptures and cracks in the fabric of our reality, caused by ongoing deadly conflicts and military actions that show no signs of abating.

“Cosmic Sensibility” runs through Jan. 6, 2024, at Pace Gallery Seoul.