Page 35 - Studio International - November 1965

Taro Okamoto

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model suitably in its public environment, he designed
and made 'burning hands', candles. each with five
undulating upward-reaching digital shapes containing
wicks. moulded from waxes of various colours. Each
hand rises from a long metal stem. and the lighted
fingers burn down to unpredictable shapes as the
dripping wax hardens in swirling designs around the
bases of the stems. These burning hands encircle the
bronze bell. the object of their devotion, hanging in the
centre of the room from a heavy wooden cross-beam
supported by trestles.
The catalogue to this exhibition is a masterpiece of
ingenuity: it includes stereoscopic photographs of the
bell, taken from different angles. and a detachable page
of the catalogue has built into it a pair of spectacle
lenses, one of blue cellophane, the other red. So that
by looking at the pictures through the spectacles we
are provided with a 3-dimensional visual impression of
the bell which no ordinary photographs could suggest.

The bronze temple bell is a formidable object, its upper
surface bristling with horn-like projections curving
gently upwards. Taro has named the bell Kanki­
'rejoice·. The visitor to the gallery may strike the rim
of the bell with a stout wooden mallet hanging from a
peg at the side of the supporting structure: when he
does so, the bell gives forth a deep, sweet sound which
sends its resonance vibrating around the room, so
that even the small bright flames at the tips of the
burning hands seem to shiver slightly. And five minutes
later, the low, humming echo is still reverberating
through the room ... if one listens carefully. ■

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