Resilience and Renewal
Leiko Ikemura's Presentation “With Blue Birds”

In various cultures and mythologies, including Christianity and both Western and Eastern traditions, the rabbit is an important symbolic animal. It represents not only fertility and abundance but also sacrifice and rebirth. The rabbit also plays an almost mythological role in contemporary art: Joseph Beuys famously attempted to explain art to a dead rabbit in a performance, while Welsh artist Barry Flanagan gained renown in the 1980s for his bronze rabbit sculptures, which were displayed throughout Europe.

This motif also plays a central role in the art of Leiko Ikemura. However, in her work it is not a male rabbit, but a female one, often with human features, dressed in a floor-length skirt that opens to reveal a mysterious, almost cosmic void. Many of the female figures in Ikemura's sculptural work wear conical, hollow skirts that are reminiscent of ritual garments or architecture. They thematize the relationship between inner and outer perception.

The rabbit first appeared in Ikemura's sculptural work in 2011, after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. This motif evolved from her paintings. In her native Japan, the mythological figure is known as the Moon Rabbit, ”Tsuki no Usagi.” For Ikemura, the creature with rabbit ears and a human face symbolizes universal mourning, but also resilience and renewal.

She is a wanderer between worlds. Born and raised in Japan, she began studying art in Spain in the 1970s before moving to Switzerland. She arrived in Germany in the early 1980s where she became internationally renowned as a painter. Her works have been included in the Deutsche Bank Collection since the beginning of her career. As part of the SculpturePopulaire series, the PalaisPopulaire is now mounting a show dedicated to her titled “With Blue Birds.” This presentation includes a sculpture in the outdoor space and an exhibition in the rotunda, featuring her early works on paper from the collection, more recent paintings, and a second sculptural work, "Hare Column III" (2022).

Ikemura's paintings, ceramics, and sculptures blend traditional influences from Asian and European art and culture. She draws inspiration from the old Japanese masters, surrealism, postwar modernism, and 1980s figurative painting. Her works are populated by hybrid, mythological creatures, as well as girls and women transitioning between human, animal, and plant forms. They works explore psychological, social, and spiritual states, focusing on the relationship between civilization and nature. Ikemura develops a feminine, visionary world with a profound perspective on social, spiritual, and ecological themes.

Ikemura's sculpture “Figure with three birds” (2021), installed on a plinth on Bebelplatz, features a headless figure wearing a skirt reminiscent of dervish attire. Birds perch on the figure's shoulders, symbolizing thoughts that have replaced the human mind. The figure's arms are held protectively before its chest, conveying both strength and extreme vulnerability. This pose suggests both a warning and a plea for a new, empathetic way of thinking.

The round shape of the skirt is taken up again in the rotunda inside the building. At its center stands the totemic “Hare Column III,” surrounded by rarely exhibited early drawings. This arrangement guides the viewer's gaze in a circular motion, moving from the interior to the exterior and back to the outdoor sculpture. The experience creates an almost serene meditation on the fragile state of the world.