Kosen Ohtsubo & Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham
Flower Planet
February 1 – April 24, 2025
The artists Kosen Ohtsubo and Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham share an unusual approach to ikebana and an interest in how one person enables the work of the other. Working with living material, the practices confront us with questions of being in and with this world, processes of decay, transient beauty, and the elusive nature of human control.
With Flower Planet, Kunstverein München presents two artists in ongoing dialog with each other that create fragile sculptures that challenge us to see the earth as a living entity and not as territory to be owned. This understanding of ecology and conceptual art practice is an urgent component in the current state of our (surrounding) world.
The Japanese artist Kosen Ohtsubo is one of the most important practitioners and teachers of the art form of ikebana. Traditionally, the ikebana arrangement is intended to bring nature into the human habitat through precious plants, arranged in such a way to represent the cosmic order. In the 1970s, however, Ohtsubo became well-known for his use of everyday materials such as vegetables and waste. His works give a subversive and completely surprising form to the elegant materials that have, for centuries, made up the art form of ikebana. “I want to explode the idea of beautiful ikebana,” says Ohtsubo, who utilizes traditional botanical materials that take unexpected detours, resulting in bathtubs becoming vessels for bodies and flowers, entire junkyards becoming entangled in sprawling arrangements, or fashioning elaborate torture devices that split trees in half.
Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham is concerned with the relationships inscribed in the production and life of things. They understand ikebana and working with living matter as acts of negotiation. A negotiation of time, space, material, of human interrelations. Ikebana—for them—is also an almost-performative display of the illusion of control. In 2013, Oldham first saw Ohtsubo’s work in a book and contacted him. What followed were years of correspondence and training with Ohtsubo in Japan in an intensive teacher-student relationship. Parallel to their training as an ikebana master, Oldham began archiving the majority of Ohtsubo’s extensive photo archive from the last fifty years and giving lectures on the development and teaching of the practice. This was followed by exhibitions of photographs of Ohtsubo’s work in Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles. These acts of mediation and concern for the visibility of Ohtsubo’s practice became a medium for Oldham to negotiate questions of collective authorship and appropriation, (il)legibility, and acts of advocacy.
Exhibition brochure DE / EN
PROGRAM OF EVENTS
Saturday, February 1, 4pm
Artist Talk with Kosen Ohtsubo & Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham
Saturday, April 12, 12–6pm
Ikebana Workshop with Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham
- fully booked -
The workshop is free of charge, but we would be grateful for a small donation.
between April 15–17, 12–6pm
Flower Planet for Kids
Open workshops for children during the first week of the Easter holidays
Images:
[1]; [4]; [6]; [8]; [12]; [19] IInstallation view: Kosen Ohtsubo & Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2025. Courtesy the artists and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[2] Kosen Ohtsubo, 龍生展のゴミ⅕ / ⅕ the Rubbish of the Ryusei Exhibition, ikebana exhibition trash, machine-sewn cotton canvas replica of jute department store exhibition trash bags, made by Kosen Ohtsubo and wife, Tosen Nishitani, ink applied with calligraphy brush, Produced and exhibited in October, 1971 at Ikebana Ryusei Exhibition, Matsuzakaya, Ueno, Tokyo, First published in Ikebana Ryusei Magazine, December, 1971, Photographer: Ryusei Photo Department.
[3] Kosen Ohtsubo, 何に見える？ / What Can You See?, glass, New Zealand flax, wool yarn, produced in February, 1974, first published in Ikebana Ryusei Magazine, April, 1974, Photographer: Ryusei Photo
[5] Detail: Christian Alborz Oldham, The Speaking Machine, 2024–2025, 12 MP3 sound recordings, all Kunstverein München surfaces, Wi-Fi network, recorded in Vienna, Austria, with a modified reproduction of Wolfgang von Kempelen’s Speaking Machine, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[7] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, SAME?「青桐に何が起ったか？」 / SAME? “What Happened to the Chinese Parasol Tree?”, [Chinese parasol tree, produced in December 1989, first published in Nihon Jhosei Shimbun, January, 1980, photo: Kosen Ohtsubo], Fine Art Print, 2024, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[9] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, Linga München, 2025, 300 Basket willow branches, candle, metal frame, plastic and metal ties, scrap metal, soil, various flowers and leaves, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[10] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, Linga München, 2025, 300 Basket willow branches, candle, metal frame, plastic and metal ties, scrap metal, soil, various flowers and leaves, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[11] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, Linga München, 2025, 300 Basket willow branches, candle, metal frame, plastic and metal ties, scrap metal, soil, various flowers and leaves, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[13] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, 怪芋III / Strange Callas III, 2025, Calla lily, willow, custom-designed iron box, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[14] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, 怪芋III / Strange Callas III, 2025, Calla lily, willow, custom-designed iron box, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[15] Detail: Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Penny Waking up from a Dream, 2025, carrot, Chinese long bean, reflecting sphere, Japanese woven bamboo basket, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[16] Detail: Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Penny Waking up from a Dream, 2025, carrot, Chinese long bean, reflecting sphere, Japanese woven bamboo basket, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[17] Detail: Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Dateline, 2025, Lightning rod, Medjool date, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[18] Detail: Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Dateline, 2025, Lightning rod, Medjool date, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
[20] Detail: Kosen Ohtsubo, Willow Rain, 2025, 800 basket willow branches, metal frame, in: Flower Planet, Kunstverein München, Munich, 2024. Courtesy the artist and Kunstverein München e.V.; photo: Maximilian Geuter.
The project is funded by the Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung.
