When did I turn Bald? | TABlog | Tokyo Art Beat

There were interesting forms among the bizarre assemblages of smashed cameras and radios, but nothing that felt truly compelling. And as a documentary projected in the center of the exhibition made clear, the exhibition was more about the artist’s life and history, than his art.

De Vacherie, we are instructed, suffers from a rare amnesia that is the result of a traffic accident. This disorder renders him unable to remember more than the past day, and thus his works are created in order to capture moments of his past. Throughout the video we follow de Vacherie and his care taker/ promoter/ sister as they explain his condition to the staff at Art Front, and then further through scenes of de Vacherie in frustrated emotional outbursts.

Taking the story at face value it would be easy to gawk and try to find connections among the works. But de Vacherie -whose last name means something to the effect of “a bad joke” in English- employs methods that are too tricky and too critical and inevitably we question the claims behind them. In one work messages were burned into a piece of toast, while in another inkan stamps -from people he ostensibly met in Japan- are glued to the soles of sneakers.

It seemed impossible to avoid the sense that the exhibit didn’t add up. Not only was the video difficult to watch because of its poor quality, but also because I kept having the feeling that the artist was going to wink at the camera revealing all as an undisclosed episode of performance art pulled from a Memento sequel script.

So then what is it that we are experiencing, and what is it that the artist wants us to experience? We leave the exhibition filled only with uncertainties and questions about the ethically dubious nature of an artist making use of a simulated mental disorder as a starting point for the making of art.