Yuichiro Tamura
Night Spirits/Nachtgeist
Installation, Performance, 2025
https://futurenows.net/entry/yuichiro-tamura/
Placed inside a showcase that resembles the original exhibition furniture for the Neue Nationalgalerie are a traditionally crafted Japanese Noh mask that resembles Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s face and comic-style drawings about his afterlife. At midnight the Noh mask finds its performer and the ghost of Mies van der Rohe wanders the gallery space.
Having fled Nazi Germany in 1937, Mies van der Rohe became a US citizen in 1944. After completing numerous architecture projects in the United States, his last work was the Neue Nationalgalerie, the New National Gallery for (West) Berlin. Inaugurated in 1968, he was unable to attend the opening. The architectural plans were originally intended for the Bacardi headquarters in Havana, Cuba.
Mies’s trajectory across different countries and cultures coincide in a performative dialogue, which unfolds at midnight: drawing comparisons between architectural features of a Noh theatre stage and the Neue Nationalgalerie space lit at night, a ghostlike visitor appears. His appearance is linked to Noh tradition, his face mask resembles Mies’s features. Carrying attributes of an American superhero, he summons the bat’s spirit and ghosts of the past – that is, history. His silent monologue revolves around the Neue Nationalgalerie, the very venue that is at the crossroads of political and personal lines of flight. An ancient and ghostly theatre from issues warning to the present.
EXHIBITION
FESTIVAL OF FUTURE NOWS 2025
31. October – 2. November. 2025
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
CREDIT
Performance: Joaquín La Habana
Music: Siboney
Live Music: Habano MC (Oct.31) and Ricardo Moreno (Nov.1)
Performance Management & Assistance: Mahide Lein (AHOI Berlin)
Noh mask production by Yuto Okada
Manga by Ryoga Seko
Film Crews: Subaru Moriwaki (Oct.31) and Elias Fritz (Nov.1)
Production Coordination: Mariko Mikami