Simon Starling. At Twilight (After W. B. Yeats’ Noh Reincarnation)

Simon Starling. At Twilight (After W. B. Yeats’ Noh Reincarnation)

On Friday, October 14, Japan Society Gallery opens Simon Starling: At Twilight (After W. B. Yeats’ Noh Reincarnation), the debut solo exhibition of the Turner Prize winner’s work at a New York City institution. On view through January 15, 2017, this ambitious new multimedia project by Starling explores how Japanese traditional culture—particularly noh, Japan’s masked drama tradition—has inspired new forms of creativity from the early 20th century Western avant garde to the contemporary age.

The anchor for Starling’s project is Irish poet and playwright W. B. Yeats’ noh-inspired dance play At the Hawk’s Well, which premiered at a London salon in 1916, at the height of World War I. That staging was realized with members of the international art community, including American poet Ezra Pound, British heiress and activist Lady Nancy Cunard, and Japanese dancer Michio Ito, who played the signature role of the Hawk and who had escaped the devastation on the European continent.

Modernism’s innovative spirit and the transnational movements of people and ideas that have shaped cultural history have long been a source of interest for Starling. With At Twilight, he probes how links forged between distant historical eras and disparate cultural traditions can yield “creative misinterpretation.”

To commemorate the centennial of At the Hawk’s Well—a landmark in the history of East-West cultural exchange—Starling re-imagines the scantily documented original production in an immersive installation that transforms Japan Society’s gallery spaces. Newly created masks, costumes and a dance on video are juxtaposed with examples of classical Japanese art and masterpieces of Western modernism that inspired the new works, including key loans from the Museum of Modern Art and the Brancusi Estate. The exhibition reveals art’s ability to continuously evolve in ways that defy geographic borders.