exhibition: electrifying art

Atsuko Tanaka was one of the most important avant-garde artist in Japan. A member of Gutai group which against the historical backdrop of WWII, anticipated in a very radical way the most significant concepts of Western Art in the 50s. Gutai art in general, and Tanaka in particular, expended and redefined the relation between the body, artistic material and objects as well as space by introducing a performative dimension. Of Tanakas prolific body of work, it is Electric Dress that is most frequently mentioned and that has most captured the public's attention including myself. I saw it first at Documenta 12 and only now learnt the story behind it. The idea came to Tanaka while she was waiting at the Osaka station, sitting on the bench on the platform surrounded by neon signs advertising medicines. It occurred to her to transfer and adapt this new industrial technology to clothing. And so she fused the traditional kimono with the latest technology interrelating the body with a whole system of wires and connections.


For Tanaka the most interesting part of this project was the process of switching the lights on and off. At the 2nd Gutai Art Exhibition held at the Ohara Kaikan in Tokyo in 1956 she entered the work as it was suspended from the ceiling by a rope. Electric Clothes were presented also the following year at the Gutai Art on Stage. During the performance there was a preceding part in which Tanaka changed clothes in front of the audience in quick succession so that as she undressed she stayed dressed. She would unfurled her consumes from hem of a dress or pair of gloves, changing from a green knee length one-piece dress to a light red evening dress and then to a gown that was half yellow and half pink. To some degree, though totally unaware of it, Atsuko Tanaka was a pioneer of the feminism turning herself into image and through that raising questions about how fashion, gender, and ideas about femininity transform and imprison women.



all photos come from the catalogue of Atsuko Tanaka. The Art of Connecting show running currently at MOT.

beauty 'n the beast

Japanese culture has become too clean. Our five senses are too blunt, says artist Fuyuko Matsui in a recent interview at the Yokohama Museum of Art. I think Japan needs some fear to stimulate the sense of pain. continue reading

Fuyuko Matsui, Keeping up the Pureness, 2004

Matsui's works, undoubtedly deliver a sense of pain and horror to the viewer. An artist highly skilled in nihonga (Japanese painting) techniques, she sets herself apart from others in the genre with her unsettling subject matter.

hightlights of 2011

Yuken Teruya, Minding My Own Business, 2011
Beginning of the year witnessed series of contemporary events such as The Yebisu International Festival for Art&Alternative visions, New Tokyo Contemporaries and Tokyo Frontline, a new art fair held at 3331 Chiyoda Arts in Akihabara which in tandem with G-Tokyo now in its second year emerged as a competitive alternative to Art Fair Tokyo. G-Tokyo which is limited to 15 of Tokyo's top contemporary galleries opened on Feb 19th with an impressive group of Japanese artists on view. Although rising young artists has been Tomio Koyama Gallery successful card this time the gallery took a bold step to present veteran conceptual artist Kishio Suga hoping for his revival while Mizuma Gallery showed works by Akira Yamaguchi which sold out in the the first 30 minutes of the collectors' preview.

The Great East Japan Earthquake and the tsunami that followed sent the Japanese art world into a kind of stunned silence. Some exhibitions and events were postponed immediately in the disaster aftermath. By mid year life in Japan started to come back to normal though throughout the year numerous galleries held several auctions to rise the money for the victims and shows featuring past and present works addressing the disaster.

Kohei Nawa, PixCell-Elk#2, 2009
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT) run by renown curator Yuko Hasegawa, presented sculptor Kohei Nawa whose work has been getting attention both in Japan and overseas. The exhibition brought together sculptures and drawings created using six mediums that Nawa is famous for: beads, prisms, liquids, glue, polyurethane foam mist and ink droplets. It was followed by Architecture space for the 21st Century, a show curated by SANAA which was a vital follow up to World Congress of Architects held for the first time in Tokyo. National Museum of Modern Art (MOMAT) showed a retrospective of Taro Okamoto that marked the centennial of his birth. Privately run Mori Art Museum (MAM) presented stop-motion video of Berlin-based Yukihiro Taguchi followed by Metabolism - the City of the Future.
Located in the commercial complex in Shinjuku Tokyo Opera City art gallery held Takashi Homma New Documentary along with Lee Ufan retrospective followed by House Inside City Outside House: Tokyo Metabolizing featuring contemporary architects such as Atelier Bow-Wow and Ryue Nishizawa seen from the Metabolist perspective. Next door NTT InterCommunication Center which focus on new media art presented emerging artist Seiko Mikami's interactive installations while Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography organized mid career show of Naoya Hatakeyama.

In Tokyo's neighbouring metropolis of Yokohama, Yokohama Museum of Arts hosted Tadasu Takamine ambiguous show Too far to see followed by the fourth Yokohama Triennale Our Magic Hour organized by the museum's director, Eriko Osaka, and Akiko Miki, chief curator at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Among works by 77 artists were pieces from graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo, Yagi Lyota, Taro Izumi, Imamura Ryosuke, Yokoo Tadanori, Takahiro Iwasaki and Noguchi Rika. Northwest of the capital, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, held a large solo show of monochrome, metallic paintings and installations by New York-based veteran minimalist Tadaaki Kuwayama. To the southwest, National Museum of Art, Osaka presented Kuwayama's all-white paintings and retrospective of photographer Daido Moriyama.

Makoto Aida, Ash Color Mountains, 2009-10
Abroad, Japanese art were present at the Venice Biennale with Tabaimo new animated video telecosoup on view in Japanese Pavillion, Tatzu Nishi installation at the Singapore Biennale and Yuken Teruya, Saburo Ora and Yanobe Kenji at the biennale City_net Asia at Seoul Museum of Art. It was particularly big year for Yayoi Kusama, who exhibited recent sculptors and paintings at Victoria Miro in London, Gagosian Gallery in Rome, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and had her first French retrospective at Centre Pompidou. In New York , The Guggenheim Museum held a major retrospective of Lee Ufan, a Mono-ha artist and Japan Society presented Bye, Bye Kitty !!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art curated by David Elliot, a former director of MAM, presenting 16 artists who rejected kawaii aesthetic of contemporary Japanese pop culture. Hopefully those shows steal back some attention for Japan from Asian hottest Chinese, Indian and Korean art.

tida dome

Mariko Mori, Tida Dome, installation, 2011
Journey to Seven Light Bay, a new, much anticipated exhibition by Mariko Mori opened Dec 6. at Adobe Museum of Digital Media. This digital project transports AMDM visitors to the tranquil Miyako Island in Okinawa, Japan, where Mori has installed the first part of her monumental earth work, Primal Rhythm, consisting of a sun pillar and a moonstone which are moved by the sun and ocean tide. Mori's artistic philosophy encourages greater awareness of the natural world. According to Mori, this work is designed to unite the celestial and the terrestrial. It will be a lasting testimony that pays respect to the natural beauty of our surroundings on earth. The real time installation of Primal Rhythm will open in Okinawa on the winter solstice, December 22, upon completion of Sun Pillar.

sokushinbutsu

Chim ↑ Pom, Making of the Sokushinbutsu, 2009
Chim ↑ Pom out-spooked everyone at ArtGig event which took place in the abandoned hospital on Halloween. The place itself with its empty CT rooms, crematorium, broken windows and rotten tatami mats could be a location of a horror movie however the top of the bill was the rooms where Chim ↑ Pom installed a mummy sculpture of Motomu Inaoka. The inspiration for this piece came from the sect of Japanese Buddhism called Shingon whose monks mummified themselves. The whole process was called sokushinbutsu and started in 17c. in the times of horrible famine in Japan when one of the Shingon monk decided the best way to end the famine would to mummify himself alive. The other monks follow and upon many experiments they came up with the method which they thought would be best process of mummification.

Here is the Shingon-approved self-mummification process in a few easy steps.

For three years, eat nothing but nuts and berries.
For the next three years, only eat bark and roots
Drink a special tea. By drinking tea made out of urushi tree, a substance which
is poisonous and usually used to lacquer bowls. The latter supposedly made
the body bacteria proof.
Bury yourself alive.
Seal yourself in a giant stone tomb. The monks gave the mummy-to-be a bamboo pipe for air and a bell to rang it every day so the fellow monks know that he was alive. When they didn’t hear the bell ring, they knew that the monk had died.

It is not clear however if Inaoka followed any of these process but it was recorded that by the end of the performance during which he fasted for several days being on the display of the exhibition he lost as much as 18kg. The group claims that the artist was fine after the end of the whole ordeal.

post-3/11 art

The events of March 11 left Japan shaken in almost every way. Hundreds of thousands Japanese lost their families and homes. The country known as the one of most technologically advanced was facing shortages of fuel, electricity and food due to three fold tragedy - earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. Till then Japanese people often referred to their society as suffering from heiwa boke (lit. peace foolish) that long period of stability and prosperity made the country complacent.

Chim↑Pom, Kiss, video still, 2011

The first to react was always trouble-stirring artist group Chim↑Pom who surreptitiously added a panel of burning Fukushima nuclear plant to Taro Okamoto mural 'The myth of tomorrow' which depicts atomic bombs exploding over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

They also sneaked in to the nuclear plant facility to make a video that later appeared on the youtube in which alleged worker points out an accusatory finger at plant operator's (TEPCO). One of the most recent works entitled, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, focus our attention on social issues related to Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis. The video depicts two light bulbs, decorated with cartoonish faces of a man and a woman cuddling and courting. An allegory uses light bulbs to express the anxiety and loneliness people are suffering from after the earthquake and unprecedented growth of marriages. But light bulbs are also clear reference to energy issues and encouragement to public discourse about nuclear power.

Artists responded to the post-tsunami situation in a various way from participation in charity actions to workshops with people from tsunami affected areas. I found particularly interesting those which were socially and politically involved since I do not have much chances to see these kind of art in Japan.

Shimabuku, Stop and Think, installation for Yokohama Triennale 2011

Shimabuku, for the Yokohama Triennale installed a billboard along the shinkansen rail line which read Stop and think . The message was addressed to the people crossing the country on a high speed bullet trains to stop and consider their life styles and where the world is heading to in the context of recent events.

Tsubasa Kato, 11.3 PROJECT: The Light Houses, 2011

Another interesting project organized in tsunami hammered North was that of a young artist Tsubasa Kato who gathered around 300 locals to help him pull up a model of light house previously damaged the tsunami. Raised through a massive communal effort, the light house seemed to raise hopes for reconstruction.

Koki Tanaka, Painting to the Public (open-air), walking event including friends, painters, artist, people who received information through Twitter, from Meguro Museum of Art to Gallery Aoyama Meguro, Tokyo, March 2012

Least but not last the first of Koki Tanaka post-3/11 works, Painting to the Public (open-air) performed on the streets of Tokyo on March 24, 2012, roughly one year after the earthquake. Tanaka invited participants to join him and other artists on a walk through the Meguro area of Tokyo as they presented their paintings directly to the public. The walk symbolically began at the Meguro Museum of Art, which a year earlier had canceled its exhibition “Genbaku wo miru 1945–1970” (“Visualizing the Atomic Bomb 1945–1970”) in the immediate aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake. Walking with their paintings in hand or mounted to wooden boards like picket signs, the group of about 30 participants resembled a political protest—a connection Tanaka made explicit in his statement for the project. Conflating ideas of plein-air painting with the 1964 Anti-Art actions of artists Hiroshi Nakamura and Koichi Tateishi (known together as the Research Center for Art Tourism), Tanaka reimagines the act of presenting painting directly to the public—without the aid of electricity or artificial light—as a form of protest against the Japanese government’s sponsorship and continued use of nuclear power. Following the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactors, Japanese businesses were required to reduce electricity usage by 15 percent in order to relieve stress on the country’s crippled electrical infrastructure. For ecologically conscious individuals, small changes in their daily routine to conserve electricity quickly took on a political dimension—being “green” became synonymous with an antinuclear position. In a similar fashion, Tanaka’s performance transformed the public display of painting into a form of protest, exploring painting’s newly realized subversive potential in post-3/11 Japan. 

architecture: utopian modernity

Kisho Kurokawa Nakagin Capsule 1972
This fall is an architecture season in Tokyo with World Congress of Architects as a centerpiece and related exhibitions such as the one in Mori Art Museum which takes a look at the revolutionary architectural movement from 60s. The Metabolism movement was developed during the period of reconstruction in which war-torn Japan worked to move toward its period of rapid economic growth. Gathered around the iconic figure of Kenzo Tange the group of young architects including Masato Otaka, Fumihiko Maki, Kiyonori Kikutake, Arata Isozaki and Kisho Kurokawa engaged in heated debates over the ideal city, and planned a great deal of experimental architecture and cities based on ideas of lifestyles and communities for a new era. As their name suggests, the Metabolists responded to urgent problems like the sudden increase in population and expansion of cities by proposing large-scale architecture and urban planning that would continue to change in form organically as opposed to static urban conditions illustrated in Le Corbusier schemes. These ideas first surfaced in 1960 at the World Design Conference where the Metabolist group presented a manifesto entitled: Metabolism 1960: Proposals for a New Urbanism. It coincided directly with the Income Doubling Plan that the Hayato Ikeda cabinet implemented in 1960. This moment constituted, in the words of Rem Koolhaas — perhaps the most influential architect alive and an avid student of the Metabolists' ideas — a rare moment where government, bureaucrats and artistic architectural circles were connected in a single enterprise.


Kiyonori Kikutake Marine City 1963

Isozaki Arata Shibuya Project: City in the Air 1962
Assembling more than 500 items, the exhibition reveals visions of cities floating on water and spiraling into the air; towers bristling with plug-in capsules for dwelling, linked by huge tubes for services and movement; grand plans for cities and farms presented in models, sketches, plans, archive film footage and 3D animations.




photos: courtesy Mori Art Museum and Kikutake Kiyonori