Tokyo Graphic Passport
at Belle Salle Harajuku
in the Shibuya, Setagaya area
This event has ended - (2009-10-11)
2 people bookmarked this.
1 person recommend this.
I’ll come straight out with it: I left Tokyo Graphic Passport feeling bitterly disappointed. Promised thought-provoking discussion involving some of the major players in the Japanese art world, there seemed to be nothing but subdued and slightly self-indulgent artists talking about the circumstances, but not the thought processes, behind their work.
I should have expected it, really. I’ve heard and read too many Western journalists interview major Japanese creatives, probing for the answer to “What is the motivation behind your work?” But their curiosity is all too often rewarded with nothing but a blank stare and a disarming, “Well, there was no particular reason I made this. I just did.” Fine if you’re a disciple of Nike philosophy, of course, but rather disappointing if you’re an internationally renowned modern artist.
To her credit, Tomoko Konoike, who opened up Sunday’s proceedings, was more interesting than those who followed her. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she was interviewed, which produced an actual discussion of sorts. Reflecting on her recent Opera City exhibition, based around the concept of “travelling to the centre of the earth” and a search for worldly wisdom, she described its genesis as “organic” rather than entirely planned, noting that the constraints of the gallery space dictated its layout and her choice of pieces. Filled with motifs of wolves, blood and knives, the work does seem more fitting to the rural island setting of Kirishima (an island near Kagoshima) that she later moved it to, than the white expanses of the Opera City gallery. Yet in the latter, Konoike made an effort to transform entirely the interior, strictly controlling the lighting to illuminate only the central pieces and cloaking the corridors in a stiff and murky darkness. Viewers moved through dark and supernatural landscapes of bleeding hands and skulls exhaling gold dust, before finally arriving at the “centre of the earth”, a mosaic sculpture of a baby’s head. Even without having visited the exhibition, I was able to get a sense of the atmosphere that Konoike was trying to cultivate.
Yet as to the message she was trying to transmit to her audience, she remained silent. In previous interviews she has seemed puzzled at Western symbolic interpretations of the wolves often depicted in her work. Here, she hinted at their ‘eroticism,’ but went no further into reasoning why she felt that, or why she was drawn to use them so frequently. Instead, she seemed more driven by aesthetics – “this part needed less light,” “I like the silver bit in this.”
The same would seem true for Kohei Nawa, who was up next for a solo speech. Shuffling awkwardly onto the podium, he was visibly nervous. Told to re-adjust his microphone, he spent a few minutes fiddling to bring up his website, which he then led the audience through with all the charisma of a family member taking you through their holiday snaps. “This one was in Berlin… I think I drew this in New York… this is a very early one…” He gave the disappointing, “no real reason” explanation for the thought processes behind his famous “Bead” series, where objects are covered in a thick coat of reflective glass baubles. “I, ah, started with vegetables because they were readily available and cheap. I think this cabbage was the first thing I did,” he muttered, bringing up a slide image. “By the time the exhibition ended, though, it was entirely rotten and was leaking black juice.” Unfortunately, this was the sole humorous point of his talk.
The paucity of any real analysis or critical comment was made all the more frustrating by the beauty of Nawa’s work: the fractalised ink drawings, the glacial stares of stuffed animals trapped in beads and prisms, the hypnotizing bubbling liquids. As a long-term fan of his, I have always wanted a more comprehensive explanation of why he started making art in the way he did. But none was forthcoming.
However, after a few days thinking over my disappointment, I wondered if perhaps what Nawa and Konoike didn’t mention said more about the differences between Western and Japanese art than any debate ever could. Maybe I too was guilty of believing in the same the same ethnocentric, rigidly bound concept of what ‘art’ is that infects all those pushy Western journalists.
Konoike herself has commented on this phenomena before, noting that European and American art is still bound by its Christian origins, while Japanese artists grow up with an idea of art as ‘play’ and merely an exercise in aesthetics, rather than morals. Indeed, one look at the differences in Christian and Buddhist calligraphy reveals volumes. The former is imbued with consciously selected religious symbolism and a conscious selection, while the latter is the product of intuition and a blank mind, or muishiki. There is no conscious analysis, soul-searching or dissection of meaning to take place. It is more about the ineffable atmosphere or feeling that a work evokes, independent of its author, than the hands involved in its production.
Indeed, we do expect a lot of artists in the West. We want them to be walking caption factories, ready to spout off quick soundbites about the political, psychological, social and personal dimensions of their work. We think of them as impressive multi-taskers; diverse activists, entertainers, philosophers, aesthetes, jokers. If any Western artist dares to proffer silence as self-explanation, we might scoff and put it down to a clever obtuseness.
But when a Japanese artist does it, they aren’t trying to be provocative. They have simply never been pushed onto the proverbial therapist’s couch, to plunge the depths of their mind for the subconscious drives behind their work. They have never been involved in an education system or media machine that demands they package themselves in a certain way, as in the West. Moreover, for them, form precedes ideology. Rather than concepts bearing an image, the image itself emits an atmosphere or feeling, from which the viewer can construct their own idea.
Yet even if I grudgingly accept this reasoning, at heart I remain that grumbly Western journalist, hungry for some dialectical debate or edifying insight. For all the trouble the organisers had gone to in order to put together the ‘symposium’, I couldn’t help feeling it was a waste. I wonder if any of the audience left feeling inspired or as if they had learnt something. I’m still struggling to decide whether my ‘realisation’ of cultural differences counts or not.
C.B.Liddell
2009-10-19
Nice piece. These artists are still too young (and therefore too down the pecking order) to flap their gums much about their art. When they get to 55 or 60, however, they’ll be telling everybody more than they want to know, and by the time they get to the Yayoi Kusama’s age they’ll be claiming they invented the wheel.
angus white
2009-10-19
This is another clear case of no one referring to the “five-hundred pound gorilla in the living-room”……….
Come on,folks,it isn’t so much a matter of these “artists” having nothing to say about their “art”. There IS no art! There ARE no artists?
And if the manufactureres of the rubbish in question were more loquacious or erudite,there could only manifest a vocal reflection of the creative vacuum on display.
Bad enough anyone talking about art at the best of times.But gabbling about an absence of art?………….Please!!
sophie
2009-10-19
That would mean there’s also no art reviews, and no art review websites. So what on earth are you doing on here, Angus?
angus white
2009-10-20
Sophie,
you are getting off the track (possibly intentionally).
The point being (remaining) that of course these people you interviewed would be hard-pressed to say anything about their “creations” (or whatever term you feel fits).Because there isn’t much there! That’s all.It’s simple—the thing in question is without meaning or merit;so how could anyone responsible for it be likely to say much of any import with regard to it?
Actually,you got halfway there;you at least understood that the (whatever–”works”/products/artefacts/) themselves are pretty meaningless.
It just seems a short and logical connection to be made to the fact that it figures that not much could be said about them.
But as to what I am doing here.Well,sorry if I seem to be invading your private domain,but I always look for anything interesting going on in the arts generally–even if it means suffering the odd review etc. Yours seemed pretty good,actually.Perhaps you take my meaning too personally–wasn’t actually meant so.
..A.W.
sophie
2009-10-20
I apologise, Angus, I evidently didn’t understand what you were getting at. I thought you were saying that all art is meaningless and no artist had anything to say (hence why I questioned your being on an art review site!). I read “bad enough anyone talking about art at the best of times” as a simple hatred of reviews and all art criticism… but I assume you didn’t mean that?
If you only intended your comments towards the artists involved….Konoike and Nawa…. that’s okay! And sorry if I was offensive; if you didn’t see them, there are quite a few spammers on this site as it is…
angus white
2009-10-23
No,no offence whatever,–and I don’t see you as under any obligation not to disagree with my views,anyway…
but there is simply–regardless of personalities etc–the fundamental matter of the problem with talking about art (visual art,say).In that vis art is one medium of expression and talking (or writing) is another.
I wouldn’t be unique or original in wondering whether talking about painting makes more sense than painting about talking………..it isn’t just a word trick.;it really never makes (in my view,of course!)much sense,…(but of course we still just can’t help doing so).
I suppose the defence would be that talk is more explicit,more descriptive?…..or something like that.
But if talking about art is not perhaps quite universally hopeless,it certainly lends itself to propping up the whole ungainly edifice of lousy art.The critics,the reviewers,the “experts”,the (euch!) academics, etc are all somehow inevitably drawn into implicitly–even if not intentionally–supporting the whole house of cards! Perhaps it can’t be any other way?
But it would be a refreshing change to hear rubbish called rubbish more often.
We have to stick our necks out and risk being told by the self-appointed “elite” that we are phillistine or out- of- the- loop or closed-minded or whatever,whatever other cards they hold in their lexical sleeves!………to hell with them;the truth is more important.
There will never be a renewal of artistic integrity until the tide changes against the phoneys.Otherwise everyone else out here will invite more taunting by the spoiled brats of our age of “correctness” (read dishonesty) to react against their b-s and dare to call the garbage what it is.
I realise that this is a bit general.So–to stay on track,–I do think you went at least some of the way along the path to honesty by saying that they had little to say!
If that contradicts my general view that reviews (usually) have little value–well done!…(I would much rather stick to technical merits rather than personal attacks, in any case) so…..in sum total………..good job,Sophie. You have ventured to say more of substance than most!
And I would hope not to resent (your or other’s) disagreement with my views,anyway.
Giles Mitchell
2009-10-23
Great piece of writing Sophie, I saw Kohei Nawa work at the Hermes building.
It was stunning so I can totally understand the frustration you describe.
Fascinating take on Japanese and Western attidudes to art.
I think western creatives are terrified of not being taken seriously if they focus on aesthetics, but there is certainly something charming about just making something beautiful or with a certain atmosphere, western artists and designers often invent or manipulate the “backstory” around a completed idea anyway.
Joseph Bolstad
2009-11-02
Nice piece, Sophie.
While I can’t agree with Angus that any of the work mentioned is “rubbish,” I, too have often been disappointed by Japanese artists talk about their works. I don’t think it’s a question of age, since I have seen many relatively young, non-Japanese artists give great artist talks. I wonder if it has anything to do with Japanese art schools, and the educational system in general. Is significant dialog and critique encouraged between peers, or are things based on a more hierarchical learning from the top down?