Leiko Ikemura's First Italian Retrospective Opens During Milan Design Week

During Milan Design Week, Building gallery inaugurated the first Italian solo exhibition of Japanese-born, Swiss-naturalized artist Leiko Ikemura (b. 1951). The extensive retrospective, titled 'Prima del tuono, dopo il buio' (Before Thunder, After Dark), spans over forty years of her career, organized by thematic nuclei across the gallery's multiple floors. Ikemura, who moved to Europe in the 1970s and lived in Switzerland, Cologne, and Berlin—where she became a professor at Universität der Künste—explores human figures floating between ethereal landscapes and cosmic worlds. The show includes large-scale paintings from the early 1980s, a bronze sculpture retaining its casting structures, a large pastel titled 'Ohne Titel' (1983) made during her stay in Nuremberg, and a new glass sculpture created in collaboration with Berengo Studio in Venice. The titular diptych 'Before Thunder' (2014-17) and 'After Dark' (2014-17) anchors the exhibition, addressing themes of change and environmental concern. Curator Frank Boehm dedicated each floor to a mini-exhibition, creating a vertical narrative that represents the cycle of life, from abstract paintings on the top floor to the ground floor bronze.