Green Balloon

The Phatory is pleased to announce Yumi Kori's installation, "Green Balloon," which opens on December 16 and runs through January 9. An opening reception will be held December 16 from 4 – 9 P.M., and a closing reception will be held January 9, 3 – 6 P.M.

 

The Green Balloon project at The Phatory affectionately embraces seasonal Eastern and Western festivities. Regarding the 'breath' as a vehicle of the spirit, Kori's use of lights and balloons is a conceptual marriage between the immaterial and the material. The animated piece can be viewed nightly from dusk until midnight throughout the month of its installation. The opening and closing ceremonies will have a fluxus-like charm, as participants inflate the balloons with their exhalations at the opening and then deflate them at the closing of the show. During the installation visitors are welcome to enter in the gallery to experience the forces that keep the balloons in motion. Both Kori's architectural works and installations overcome the impersonal language of contemporary architectural design by drawing attention to the way one is physically affected by elements that make up the immediate environment.

Ms. Kori graduated from Kyoto Prefectoral University in 1983 and began working as an architect, establishing Studio MYU Architects, in 1991. She completed her Master's Degree in 1994 at Columbia University, New York, and has gone on to create art/architectural installations in Berlin, New York and Tokyo. Since 1998, Ms. Kori teaches a seminar entitled "The Principals of Japanese Architecture" at Columbia University. She has also taught at Yale University.