Here’s a visual statement for you: a battered stainless steel cube, smashed in at the top by a sledgehammer. Reading curator Li Edelkoort’s accompanying manifesto, one can imagine her as the one who wielded the weapon: “Time has come for extreme change. Society is now ready to break away from the last century for good. To break from creative conventions, theoretic rules and stigmas that are now questioned.” 
The chair is to design what the silhouette is to fashion; constrained only by the simplest of definitions, it reflects the Zeitgeist in its countless innovations and permutations. It is therefore the most effective way to illustrate this conceptual break. This cube may be dented, but it still has the brazen cheek to break the very definition of a chair; you cannot sit on it. It is merely posing as a chair, much like a chihuahua poses as a dog. Is this what the future of design looks like?
Edelkoort, a trend-spotter by trade, thinks so. Prescient to the subtle shifts taking place within the design world, she has compiled this exhibition as evidence of the quiet revolution that unfurled in the wake of the financial crisis. The works on display are meant to sever from the pre-crisis trend for “glamorous and streamlined design for design’s sake”, and embrace a “more modest, content and contained lifestyle” instead. Can the goods stands up to the hyperbole?
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/post-fossil-1.jpg" alt="Laura Lynn Jansen, 'Wastesthetics' (2008)" title="Photo: Masaya Yoshimura. Courtesy of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
The first room leaves me undecided. Not helping is the intensely annoying video installation, ‘Schlampfen’, playing what sounds like a frantically screamed train announcement on repeat (credits for the gallery staff’s headaches go to Hessel Stuut). It provides a rather twisted soundtrack to the entirely black and somewhat sinister works on display. There is a melting chair (‘Liquid Pillows’) in the Dali tradition; a huge wardrobe with shoes ominously straining at its surface to escape, and the ‘Fat Knit Hammock’, an enormous sausage of woven ropes whose latex coverings wouldn’t be out of place in a sex shop. The “Mixed Animals” series of teddy bears reminds me of those other stuffed love-children of counter-culture and brands; the Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami toys, or the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the B*llocks” bear.
Downstairs, the tone shifts from the foreboding to the animalistic. Skin features heavily, from the bulging beautified trash bags of Laura Lynn Jansen’s ‘Wastesthetics’, to Willem Deridder’s stretched hide stools with protruding spines and ribs cages. malousebastiaan’s (sic) ‘Floating Garments’, bring to mind surrealist Hans Bellmer’s grotesque dolls, with their bulbous breast-like growths and globular structure. There is a heavy “African” flavour to the room, thanks to the lazy cliché that the continent is somehow more connected to primal nature than elsewhere. Like students with bongos, designers think they can merely use superglue a bit of dried animal hide to something brown and call it “African”. A case in point are the two ugly creature sculptures in the centre of the room, emitting tribal drum beat music from their mouths. Invented and historyless, they strike me as cheesy and inauthentic as fiberglass statues in a Lion King-themed Disney restaurant.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/post-fossil-4.jpg" alt="Eric Kalenbeek, 'The Floating Light Project, 1st Generation' (2004) (left)
Anthon Beeke, 'Eiaculatum' (2008) (right)" title="Photo: Masaya Yoshimura. Courtesy of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
More successful are the various leather objects that implore the observer to consider their origin; a cow-shaped poof, a cow chair, and even the comically named ‘Rocky’, a leather punch bag in the shape of a beheaded bovine carcass. The latter, while too self-consciously slick to be a convincing ethical argument, does provoke a giggle. Design might have got its sense of humour around the nineties, when it caught the giggles from modern art, but it was not until the noughties that more and more designers put their tongue in their cheeks before they started drawing.
Two other works that coax a smile are Els Woldhek’s ‘Bastard’, a beaten lump of cushion-on-legs styled as a “cross-bred chair,” and ‘Eiaculatum’ by Anthon Beeke, a “semen alphabet executed in glass” that is as interesting as it sounds. Nearby, Eric Klarenbeek’s ‘Floating Light Project’, an enormous balloon, cleverly inflates and deflates as the light bulb inside is turned on and off, like an electric fugu.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/post-fossil-2.jpg" alt="Kwangho Lee, 'Knot-Beyond the Inevitable' (2010) (top)
Els Woldhek, 'Bastard' (2008) (bottom)" title="Photo: Masaya Yoshimura.
Courtesy of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT" width="257" height="386" class="imgcaption floatr" />The latter and some other works would be some of the most beautiful and thought-provoking art I have seen for a while, if they weren’t classified as “design”. But it seems that the line between the two disciplines is becoming more nominal than ever. Both designers and artists often aspire for their works to end up in the same money-making graveyards of hotel or office lobbies. Moreover, the boom in eco-friendly products means design is no longer merely concerned with its traditional pillars of aesthetics and function; it has become political, too. To me, “eco-friendly design” has always seemed something of an oxymoron, since the production of anything — recycled goods included — consumes more energy and resources than it can possibly save. Edelkoort, however, has no truck for such churlish anti-consumerism; she claims that design needs to strive for a more “mature philosophy” than the “naïve and aspiring ecological language” that has characterized previous efforts. While I find her statements vague, I presume that she means that products must be judged on from a design perspective rather than just their “eco” credentials.
A more common theme in this exhibition is the lack of respect for convention, as the crushed chair at the beginning signified. The old principles do not have to be abided by.
Aesthetics, function and carbon footprints therefore jostle for priority. Nacho Carbonell’s chairs are completely impractical; moulded out of a thin sheet of recycled paper pulp, they wouldn’t support a gnat. Taken merely as a sculptural work, however, their Giacometti-esque fragility redeems them. Johannes Hemann, on the contrary, makes the same mistake as a lot of the eager eco brigade by making something that is purely ugly; a recycled cork coffee table that looks suspiciously like the waste product of a cow.
I was cheered by Vincent Geraedts’ cutely named ‘PS; I’m a Chair’, which I thought had finally successfully achieved the holy triumvirate of good looks, utility and eco-friendliness. Then I realized that it owed its lightweight durability to oil-derived polystyrene (tut tut). Ronel Joordaan and Bas van der Veer sneaked the prize instead, with their renewable bioplastic and felt planters that are so simple and logical that every other alternative seems ridiculous.
While the large-scale objects might steal the show, the beautifully crafted cornucopia of ceramics, glassware and utensils scattered along the side table deserve a mention too. Boasting a craftsmanship and durability that this new kind of design seems to take for granted, they are all gorgeous, covetable objects. If the show does achieve avoid streamlined glamour, it does so by reclaiming old-fashioned sculptural elegance instead. The matching of sturdy wooden handles with delicate kettles and liquid containers in Dick van Hoff’s ‘Glasswork’ is stunning. Joris Laarman’s spindly ‘Bone Chair’ likewise resembles a delicate, ethereal animal while being ergonomically balanced.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/post-fossil-3.jpg" alt="Nacho Carbonell, 'Bench' from 'Evolution Collection' (2008)" title="Photo: Masaya Yoshimura. Courtesy of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
As one would expect for a design exhibition set in such an overtly avant garde setting as 21_21 Design Sight, this exhibition is neither a trade show, a design expo or the vehicle for an impassioned environmental project. The common thread running through all the pieces, however, is a somewhat deeper relationship with nature. Yet rather than implying a desire to protect it or leave it alone, a la PETA, this involves an omnivorous celebration of the historical and intimate relationship between humans, animals and plants. If the works aren’t literally made of the latter, then they mimic or reference their forms. Table legs are spindly like deers; shelves are wonky, ornaments are bone-shaped. Although the title of the exhibition confused me before I saw it — how do you excavate the future? — these pieces made sense of it. They embody the values of simplicity, tradition and frugality, all of which were revived in the recent recession. If “Post Fossil” doesn’t look much like a revolution, it’s because its vision of the future is not tinfoil space suits and automated furniture, but rather a fusion of past and present.

article_7564

If you cut into the present, the future leaks out

As has been mentioned on this blog before, Tokyo’s art galleries are <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2010/02/beginners-guide-tokyo-gallery-geography.html">somewhat scattered</a>. Of late, more and more of the smaller galleries have been joining forces and concentrating themselves in certain areas, such as <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2009/07/bakurocho-new-art-town.html">Bakurocho</a> and Kiyosumi-Shirakawa.
Now it’s Roppongi’s turn, where a large chunk of the art scene’s big guns are already situated: the Mori Art Museum, 21 21 Design Sight, the National Art Center, and the Suntory Museum. In contrast to the rather ugly nocturnal face of the ‘Pong (a pejorative moniker for the area), these impressive buildings draw large crowds, who are no doubt as grateful for their vicinity to each other as they are for their individual contents.
It was therefore refreshing to hear that Ota Fine Arts (previously in Kachidoki), Zen Foto (Shibuya), Wako Works of Art (Nishi-Shinjuku) and a third branch of the Taka Ishii Gallery were all moving into the Piramide building, close to Roppongi Hills. Opening nights are pleasant enough in themselves, what with the free flowing wine and animated conversations, but this one was a particular pleasure, thanks to the channel of people that trickled around each white room, forgetting which gallery they had accidentally stolen their wine glass from. The building itself emanates a cosy feeling of community, with Zen Foto and Taka Ishii on the second floor looking across the courtyard (complete with illuminated pyramid) to the other two on the third floor. The rest of the building is filled with shops, which will hopefully prompt viewers to remember that art is a commercial enterprise and cannot be sustained by praise alone.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/roppongi-galleries-piramide-complex.jpg" alt="The Piramide building in Roppongi, now home to Ota Fine Arts, Wako Works of Art, Zen Foto Gallery and Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film." title="Photo: William Andrews" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
Zen Foto, whose new space is not too dissimilar from their old one, was as bustling and welcoming as ever, with patrons juggling quesadillas, drinks and books from previous exhibitions. It’s run by the ebullient Mark Pearson, an English Sinophile who is doing his best to bridge the gap between Chinese and Japanese artists, via his other gallery in Beijing. It’s a valiant and commendable task, considering that the vibrant art scene in China often gets short shrift in Japan, and it’s likely that the four Chinese photographers whose work is welcoming the gallery to its new location are as-yet unknown over here.
While diverse, the quartet shy away from depicting the shiny, urban veneer of China that is currently garnering so much attention. Instead, they point their wistful lenses towards Tibet, other rural areas, or local people. The most striking are Liu Zheng’s “The Chinese,” which includes a portrait of a wonderfully wizened old man with shockingly bright eyes and big teeth.
Taka Ishii’s new gallery plays it safe, meanwhile, with a collection of vintage Nobuyoshi Araki photographs, some so old they bear watermarks and sepia tones. I never tire of Araki. Other artists get rather boring in their old age — take Hockney, or even musicians like Sting — as they tend to repetitively retread their steps or else desperately try to reinvent themselves to keep up with the kids. But Araki, perhaps because his subject matter has always been so diverse, seems untrammelled by the passage of time. 
It occurs to me that if a Western photographer took such bluntly sexual and often violent photographs as Araki does, the rest of their work, no matter how varied, would most likely be tainted by association. In today’s hysterical moral environment, it is unlikely many people can take photographs of women in bondage on one day, and school boys in shorts on another without raising suspicions about their intentions for the latter, but Araki is fortunate enough to have evaded such narrow-minded categorisation. He runs the full gamut of genres, from soft porn, portraiture, landscapes, documentary and abstraction. Mirroring the lack of absolutes in Japanese morality, he sees no boundary between sex and the rest of life, nor his own private relationships and the streets and urban scenery that he photographs. The title of the exhibition, “Theater of Love”, is appropriate: the world is his stage, and he seems to adore everything in it.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Liu-Zheng-2.jpg" alt="Liu-Zheng, 'A Boy' (2008)
Inkjet print" title="Courtesy of Zen Foto Gallery" width="257" height="313" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Liu-Zheng-3.jpg" alt="Liu-Zheng, 'A Fat Woman' (2008)
Inkjet print" title="Courtesy of Zen Foto Gallery" width="257" height="313" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
Across in Ota Fine Arts there is also a group showcase of several different artists from different parts of Asia. The gallery is perhaps the largest of the four, with an exclusive room at the back concealed behind a green Perspex door. In the centre of the main room lies the attention grabbing ‘Translated Vase’ by Yee Sookyung, a large bulbous object made of broken pottery shards glued together with gold adhesive. It looks like a failed attempt by a maid to desperately stick back together the family heirloom she’s tripped over, but the way in which she subverts the traditional connotations of ceramics — as delicate and impeccable symbols of wealth — into something wonkily modern, is curiously attractive. 
Manami Koike’s ‘Sanmai Kishou’, a painting of a geisha and three men with traditional hairstyles, is equally eye-catching. Its overall effect is unnerving, as it flirts with contradictions: it looks like a photograph, but it’s a painting; all the men have the same feminine face, creating a “tripleganger” effect; and like a biblical painting, it seems to allude to a larger and more complex story that it cannot fully explain. The men’s expressions are comical, a touch at odds with the seriousness of the painting style. A look at Koike’s other works shows that this is a common theme, as well as hilarious titles: ‘“This rice cake looks delicious. Can I have this?” “Don’t you dare. It could be horse dung.”’ The conflation of traditional scenes and modern humour is cleverly handled with a painting technique that is realistic, but slightly blurred, like a soft-focus photograph. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/wolfgang-tillmans-lighter-wako-works-tokyo.jpg" alt="Wolfgang Tillmans, 'Lighter' (20100
Installation view" title="Courtesy Wako Works of Art" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
The master of this precise-but-blurry technique is perhaps Gerhard Richter, who is featured over at Wako Works of Art, along with a stellar cast of other high profile artists, including Luc Tuymans and Wolfgang Tillmans. The latter has recently excelled in the kind of abstraction to leave modern arts sceptics either cold or incensed at the disconnect between effort expended and the price demanded. In a move away from his frank and sharp snapshot style, Tillmans has more recently experimented with using photographic paper to produce intensely coloured squares, which he then bends, folds or crumples. Four of these are on display, along with a massive photograph of the corner of a photocopier. If you are aware of Tillmans’s background, this seems a little less obtuse: he began his career by tearing out pieces of newspaper and blowing them up by 400%, often documenting the rave scene that he was involved in at the time. I suppose photocopiers could be for Tillmans what fat and felt were to Joseph Beuys — a personal talisman to which he owes his career — but I’m afraid I don’t feel the former is as interesting as the latter. 
Gerhard Richter’s “ALADIN” series is more successful. Looking very similar to the oil and water drawings many children try in primary school (swirl coloured oil in a bucket of water, drop paper on the surface, repeat) but much more intensely coloured and the pattern more consciously composed than arbitrary. Viewed in February, the canary yellows and vermilions are a happy reminder of warmer, perhaps Californian climes. 
So bright are they, in fact, that they rather overshadow Luc Tuyman’s characteristically faint painting, ‘S. Croce II,’ a Greek bust painted in bluish grey. Fiona Tan’s ‘Cloudy Study 1’ is also monochrome, with the aerial shot of thick and puffy clouds bringing to mind both traditional Chinese wall hangings, and the atomic bomb aftermath.
In the room behind is a bizarre trilogy of photographs entitled ‘Mehlorgie’, (“Flour orgy” in German) by Gregor Schneider. In them the artist contorts himself, covered in what looks like porridge or some kind of industrial sealant — probably not a look I’ll be recreating at home any time soon.
Wako’s star cast hits a few weak notes for me, perhaps because I’m not really in the mood for such abstractions and/or wheat-based orgies. Yet as a peacock-esque display of their cache and might in the art world, the names alone are impressive, and the crowd was both numerous and seemingly appreciative. I’m excited to think about not only the next exhibitions that these galleries come up with, but the fact that I can now kill four birds in one fell swoop.

article_9032

Power in Numbers

I entertain myself on trains in Tokyo by watching one of Japan’s most enduring stereotypes; salarymen. Usually found in their natural habitat of a colourless office, members of this penguin-coloured species commonly subsists on a slurry of canned coffee, menthol cigarettes, large tankards of beer and hurriedly slurped noodles. Aesthetically uniform and ubiquitous, they become part of the familiar and predictable wallpaper of the city; white shirt, black suit, tired eyes, pointy shoes. Staring down the train carriage at the rows of slumped, identikit drones, it is easy to imagine that their lives are equally colourless and repetitive. But wait; hold that thought. Fix your eyes on one; imagine him stripped to the waist and being flagellated by two girls half his age wearing cartoon character masks. It’ll make the train ride go a lot quicker, I promise you.
This is the arresting image that greets me at Zen Foto: executives literally caught with their trousers down, their shirts snagged in bondage ropes tied to hooks on the wall. The cluster of photographs around it look like the fragmented memories of an orgy; a mélange of mouths, hands, bodily fluids interspersed with whips and tightly knotted shibari rope. A line of raised scarification marks run down a neck; expanses of skin shimmer, dimly lit and beaded with sweat. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/pawel-jaszczuk-kinky-city-3.jpg" alt="Pawel Jaszczuk, 'Kinky City'" title="Courtesy of Zen Foto Gallery" width="257" height="386" class="imgcaption floatr" />The shock value of the images, however, is belied by their smoky black and white rendering, which imbues them with a kind of timeless elegance. From a distance, these could be ballet dancers, athletes – masters of the flesh in a very different sense. Yet up close, the luminous bodies are charged with sensual energy. The lead image for the show, for all its sass and scent of sex, is the most demure here; a woman’s shapely bottom, tightly sheathed in polka-dotted lycra and caught with the hips mid-swing. 
This in itself is a rare sight in Tokyo, where many — if not most — women assume a knock-kneed, pigeon-toed shuffle, that seems decidedly unsexy. Before I lived here, I imagined it to be a lascivious and erotically charged city, peppered with underground joints where all manner of kinkiness occurs nightly. This illusion is perpetrated not only by Japan’s own exports — such as photographer Araki and his ilk, as well as the renowned pornography industry — but also the foreign media, who prefer to reinforce images of a “bizarre” and fruity Japan. Tourists, still drunk on the perception that the city is pickled in freely available sleaze, head to Roppongi for inauthentic and overpriced kicks. For long term inhabitants, however — both native and foreign — it is easy to sink into a quotidian existence of offices, work, supermarket, bars — with nary a reminder of the more liminal experiences out there.
Despite this, Japan, with its rigidly defined social roles and prescribed, ritualized behaviour, is a fertile ground for clandestine transgression. Context defines action far more than it does in the west — meaning that different roles, masks and personalities can be assumed according to the circumstances. The bondaged breasts, the nymph mask, and the swinging ass all belong to people who live and work in this metropolis: perhaps the man who granted you the bank loan last week, or the girl who served you in the conbini this morning. But at night, under wraps, they escape to let their fantasies run riot and the rules dissolve. The fascinating part of fetishes is that they belong to ordinary people — like salarymen on the train.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/pawel-jaszczuk-kinky-city-2.jpg" alt="Pawel Jaszczuk, 'Kinky City'" title="Courtesy of Zen Foto Gallery" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
Salarymen were in fact the subject of one of Pawel Jaszczuk’s books, in which he chronicled their spectacular talent for passing out in a drunken stupor on train platforms, stairways and other public spaces. A humorous and somewhat surreal peek into the darker side of Japanese daily life, it seems the natural precursor to his attempt to peel back the daytime masks in “Kinky City.” Motivated by curiosity and a hunger for some of the more extreme experiences on offer in his adopted home, Jaszczuk notes that he merely acts as a background observer, aiming to document rather than interfere in the scene.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/pawel-jaszczuk-kinky-city-1.jpg" alt="Pawel Jaszczuk, 'Kinky City'" title="Courtesy of Zen Foto Gallery" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
The intimacy and extremity caught on camera, however, is impressive. Away from the chaotic clusters of photographs (where a new image leaps out every time you look), there is a single, large image of a woman’s face, pale and glistening with tears. Haunting and provocative, one ponders the cause of her pain — or is it pleasure? While it might be easy to see her as another poster girl for the “submissive Japanese woman” trope, she exudes a quiet but steely strength. With such titillating and sensual subject matter, the line between art and pornography can be a thin on. But Jaszczuk is firmly on the side of the former, as he lacks the objectifying voyeurism of the latter. His photographs, like the best art, enlighten us to those layers of life and experience that we may have missed; and imbue beauty in scenes where we might not have imagined it.

article_7700

In the Kinky City

The body, in the wrong hands, can be ugly. I blame the twentieth century; before then, it seems the body was only something physical, a form to be perfected by the pen. The ancients biblicized it, the romantics idealized it and Rembrandt and his followers humanized it; but it remained, generally, an object. It was only around a hundred years ago that the psychological, emotional and biological dimensions of the body were not only discernible from the subject’s expression, but were also incorporated directly into the artwork. The body itself became a vehicle through which the artist could communicate mood, tension, atmosphere, social or political meanings, and more. More recently, the bionic capabilities of the body and the merging of it with machines has become a popular experiment for artists.
But for all the thought-provoking and intensely beautiful art this shift may have produced, it is also culpable for the slew of amateurs churning out overly emotive, crudely rendered pieces of cheesy tat. Remember the school art room? More blood, tears and screaming faces than an emergency room — and that was just the canvases. The kids seem to take one look at Francis Bacon, Munch, Richard Long — to name but a few — and think that body + visible anguish = profundity. This retarded equation perhaps explains why they were studying art and not algebra. 
To me, art that mixed emotion with the body always seemed to tiptoe a very thin line between affecting and awful — which is why I was slightly apprehensive when I read the bombastic blurb for Motohiko Odani’s new exhibition: “he strives to express the dynamism of the body by capturing…moments of pain or transformation… sculpting the human body of a different dimension.” Gosh. It also claims that the works will “disorientate the viewer’s sense of gravity.” (Quite perturbing, I should think, in a city vulnerable to earthquakes). Such exaggerated claims suggested an ambitious amateur (the worst sort) — but I put my school day demons to rest and put my faith in Maison Hermès, whose curatorial skills and architectural setting <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2009/08/queasy-trinity.html">impressed me so much with Kohei Nawa’s most recent exhibition</a>.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/odani-hollow-3.jpg" alt="Motohiko Odani, 'Hollow' exhibition view" title="Photo © Keizo Kioku
Work created with the support of Fondation d'entreprise Hermès" width="257" height="386" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/odani-hollow-2.jpg" alt="Motohiko Odani, 'Hollow: Hydra's Head'" title="Photo © Keizo Kioku
Work created with the support of Fondation d'entreprise Hermès" width="257" height="386" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
The gorgeous, glacial background of glass tiles works as well for Odani’s work as it did for Nawa’s, perhaps because they share the same stark white mono-palette. This signals a break for Odani from his previous work, which was a mixture of photography (“Phantom Limb”), and sculpture, neither of which avoided colour. Perhaps he was in some way influenced by Nawa, since they now have a theme in common; the fusion of organic, biological processes and artificial materials. Both take on the traditional challenge of sculpture; to inject life and dynamism into static materials. 
The first pieces I see embrace this traditionalism in their Latinate names: ‘Newborn (capybara B)’ and ‘Newborn (tuatara Z)’. They are rippling spirals of fused vertebrae, bringing to mind both primordial foetuses and terrifying tooth-spawning tumours. The next room revisits ancient myths, with a gigantic head and hand rising out of the ground, cut off at the neck and wrist. Spindly white strings emit from both, stretching out like solidified streams of breath or blood. The shawled female head, looking for all the world like the holy Mary drawing her last breath, is awesome in its scale, making the viewer feel somewhat Lilleputian. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/odani-hollow-4.jpg" alt="Motohiko Odani, 'Hollow: Duplex'" title="Photo © Keizo Kioku
Work created with the support of Fondation d'entreprise Hermès" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
The main room reveals the white spindly lines to be a motif; they twist around two suspended bodies in ‘Reversal Cradle’, wrap around hair in ‘Braid’, and form an almighty column, like a fizzling, crackling neuron, in ‘Floating Thinker’. With many of the blank, still bodies resembling Pompeian statues, Odani delves further into Grecian mythology with ‘Hollow; Hydra’s head’, a bust of the snake goddess whose face is ghoulishly constructed of overlapping fibres, bereft of flesh and mad-eyed. 
There is a curious mix of aesthetic underneath the uniform technique, however. Along with the romantic Roman and Greek elements of flowing hair and porcelain flesh, the skeletal sculptures remind me of sci-fi flicks, while the suspended bodies hint at some kind of futuristic bionic human forms. One of the most visually impressive pieces is ‘Hollow; Pianist/Rondo’, a vast wall of hands dripping the same white strands. While ethereal and elegant, it does somehow recall the zombies’ hands in Michael Jackson’s Thriller, clawing out from the ground. 
That all of these incongruous elements gel is down to their execution; both literally and metaphorically glossed over by smooth white paint. Noi Sawaragi, who supervised Odani’s previous exhibition, “Phantom Limb,” suggests that the artist partly achieves this synthesis of influences because of his age and nationality. He noted that as Odani was one of the first major Japanese artists to have worked entirely through the age of the ‘superflat’, a much-trumped idea conceptualised by Takashi Murakami. He saw modern Japanese art as ‘superflat,’ in that it playfully disregards historical context and preconceived meanings by collapsing genres into a singular, ‘flat’ aesthetic. It is true that Japanese artists, so distanced from the Western canon and forced to digest it in one go, often seem to rifle through it with the giddy disregard of children in a dressing up box. This is not a bad thing, however; in some ways they are freed from the restrictive tyranny of Western art, in which a certain reverence for chronology, context and nuance is expected. Odani manages to compress so much into his work because of his attention to execution and visual impact — largely sidestepping the amateurish touches I bemoaned above. A couple of the pieces, like ‘Hollow; Duplex’, are tinged with a slightly teenage obsession with angels and myths, but not enough to sully their beauty. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/odani-hollow-1.jpg" alt="Motohiko Odani, 'Hollow: Pianist/Rondo'" title="Photo © Keizo Kioku
Work created with the support of Fondation d'entreprise Hermès" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
Respect must also be paid to Maison Hermès, which is fast becoming one of my favourite galleries; mid-sized and blessed with a modern versions of stained glass windows, it complements the otherworldly aspect of Odani’s work. In his mission statement he claims that he tries to make real that which can only be imagined; and while he might not achieve the dizzy ambition of the gallery’s blurb, he certainly creates an imaginary world of considerable visual impact.

article_6732

Angels and Demons in Ginza

The recent <a href="http://willapolis.blogspot.com/">“WILLA”</a> event at magical, ARTROOM, saw people descend on the Ebisu gallery to take in Gallermic (aka Galle or The Fashion Ramone) Tanaka’s photos. The exhibition opening was followed a few days later by a party called “The Absentee Owner” organized by socialite Vivienne Sato.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-1.jpg" alt="The artist himself in a poncho — very like his native Peru." title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-2.jpg" alt="Rob Judges (artist and DJ) in front of the photo wall of Galle's last long stretch in Tokyo — a big wall of photos from various parties, some of which he organized himself (as Narziss, TFR)." title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="257" height="343" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-3.jpg" alt="A wall of three photos of Galle's muse." title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-4.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-5.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-6.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/absentee-owner-7.jpg" alt="A projector went through a slideshow of different photos." title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" />
More photos of the opening can be found on the <a href="http://info.magicroom-tokyo.com/">magical, ARTROOM blog</a>.

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Willa and Gallermic Tanaka Opening Reception

Entering the doors of Vacant in urahara (backstreet Harajuku for those in the know), you are met with a rather Scandinavian room of pine floors and walls, filled with painfully hip t-shirts designed by Sonic Youth, and a celebration of photocopiers in the form of dozens of ‘zines. Life-size doll pillows are hung on one wall, and a large pine table and bar separate you from the small photography exhibition at the back.
The immense door on the right slides sideways to reveal a wide staircase with an ominously flickering lamp. Suddenly, the mood changes from Swedish to smoky Parisian boudoir; in contrast to the usual startling brightness of modern art galleries, it is bathed in the soft glow of a Parisian boudoir. Fitting, considering the photographs hung on the wall were all from the magazine “Paris-Hollywood” that ran from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Peering out of the gloom were expanses of alabaster skin, crimson lips and bouffant hair; thighs draped seductively with silk suspenders and out-thrust hips. The figures are fabulous; shaped like generous Coca-cola bottles, with the kind of in-and-out curves you rarely see these days. Bar the burlesque pretenders, the models differ from their modern descendants; they have extra years, flesh, confidence, and waists that defy biological constraints (like ribs, for example).
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/burleque-lovelies-3.jpg" alt="Exhibition view, 'The Far Fog' at Vacant." title="Courtesy of Vacant" width="518" height="345" class="imgcaption" />
Upon first glance, I wondered what I could possibly write about the exhibition. Naked women are a subject that photographers never seem to tire of, and the more liberal — or perhaps licentious — modern age permits a near ubiquity of the nude female form. Everything — from car advertisements to everyday newspapers- is plastered with them. A certain Yasumasu Yonehara has achieved notoriety on the Tokyo scene with his penchant for semi-clad ladies jumping around on beds (seemingly, images American Apparel has been producing for years). Porn has become so normalized that it is faithfully echoed in mainstream fashion and trends. So what more is there to say about ladies-in-the-buff?
Quite a lot, actually. At first, my male companion offered little insight. He looked slightly bored, yet bemused, at the antiquated images on display. “I’m not aroused in the slightest,” he muttered, peering curiously at their body hair and wide hips. “She looks like she’s selling soap… ” Well, sex sells; we knew that. But in comparison to the contemporary high-end glamor of gold, diamonds, knives and raw oysters that advertising is pickled in, or the low-rent perversions of porn, these photographs exuded a kind of rude health. The women laugh uproariously, squeeze their own flesh, pose and preen like they’re having a grand old time. Missing are the open, wet mouthed and narrowed eyes of the women-on-the-verge nowadays; or the quivering, prepubescent waifs that saturate the fashion industry.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/burlesque-lovelies-1.jpg" alt="" title="Courtesy of Vacant" width="257" height="386" class="imgcaption floatr" />Suddenly, I realized what I found interesting about these photographs; it wasn’t the image itself, but rather what that image would be now. My friend’s evident lack of interest in the women as sexual objects showed how much our taste and boundaries of attraction and disgust shift over the decades, along with changing fashions and social influences. Seemingly, the only men Paris-Hollywood would get hot under the collar would be anthropologists and historians.
We tend to think of attraction as natural and intuitive. Occasionally some admit our predilections are based on cultural norms, but we rarely admit the extent to which the media — and now the porn industry-shape our perceptions and deeply ingrained emotions of lust and revulsion. Sexual norms actually change with the seasons; historians in the future won’t list our decades according to skirt length or coat shapes, but rather the length and shape of our body hair. Looking at media of the noughties, however, they’ll find a very strange consortium of styles; from airbrushed playboy bunnies to pre-pubescent Eastern European models drenched in fear, past the perfectly proportioned advert girls to the tubbier hardcore “actresses”. It’s hard to sum up where the mainstream ends and lies, with minority interests fanning out in a broad, virtual display over the internet, where anything is permitted and everything is made. The spreads of the Paris-Hollywood magazine, however, seem to only represent a world gone by, of cherub-faced women and fuller figures. Now, we’ve got Dita von Teese, of course- but her whole appeal seems to pivot on an exploitation of old-fashioned ideals and charm, demonstrating just how out of fashion it’s become.
What next? For the idealized female form, it seems like less hair, smaller waists, longer legs and bigger breasts is the future; the bionic beauties of Akihabara, basically. When we finally break with reality and men turn to robots for their erotic kicks, I wonder if the historians will be flicking through Hustler and Playboy with purely academic glee.

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Burlesque Lovelies of a Time Gone By

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. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/tokyo-graphic-passport-2.JPG" alt="Tomoko Konoike at the Tokyo Graphic Passport." title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
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 <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2009/08/art-tripping.html">recent Opera City exhibition</a>, 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. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/art_tripping2.jpg" alt="Tomoko Konoike, 'Book Burning – World of Wonder' (2007)
Acrylic, pencil, colour pencil on paper. 41.8 x 50.9cm
Exhibited as part of 'Inter-Traveller', at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, July 18 to September 27 2009." title="© Tomoko Konoike. Courtesy: Mizuma Art Gallery" width="518" height="417" class="imgcaption" /> 
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. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/nawa1.jpg" width="518" alt="Kohei Nawa, 'Beads: PixCell-Elk#2' (2009) Mixed media
Part of 'L_B_S' at Maison Hermès, June 19 to September 23 2009." title="© Nobutada Omote. Courtesy of the Hermès Foundation" class="imgcaption"> 
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. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/tokyo-graphic-passport-1.JPG" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
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.

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An Audience with…

Stay long enough in an urban environment in Japan and you will be infected with a nostalgic yearning for the more “traditional” side of the country. Despite being normalized to the daily bombardment of aural intrusions – the clatter and pant of the trains, the chattering public screens and screaming electioneers, the roar of pachinko – even the most enthusiastic city dweller admits a desire to escape. Residents often crave the greenery and uncluttered simplicity that rapid industrialization and its “pave-and-build” mentality robbed them of. While natives don’t quite perceive the same incongruities and clashes between tradition and modernity that foreign visitors are struck by, there is a palpable nostalgia for the rituals, flavours and comforts of “traditional” Japan. 
This exhibition captures that yearning, or akogare. The second of a three-part exhibition based around the theme of “Travel,” it spans the 1970s and ’80s. Yet despite being concurrent with the most rapid modernizations and economic booms that the world has seen, the slick cities – transforming into palimpsests of foreign influence – are conspicuously absent. Instead, bred on essentialized notions of Japanese identity as intimately connected to an appreciation of nature, seasonality and craftsmanship, “travel” to these photographers signifies a retreat to a more bucolic and provincial environment than the ones they were raised in. The photographs are alternately filled with longing, romanticism, wonder, surprise and even fear, reflecting a Japan that is fading in both reality and memories. Although travel is often synonymous with discovery, the artists here seem to be seeking something that they were already familiar with, albeit in only through collective memory. Their bright-eyed curiosity is evident, as they, the urban-born outsiders, tour the countryside, small villages and towns. 
Fortunately, they temper this alienness with a strong empathy and familiarity with their subject, reflecting and perpetrating the collective memory by tying it down to individual people and fleeting moments. But far from an idyllic, picture-postcard Japan, the viewer is confronted with an altogether wilder, darker version. Masatoshi Naito’s works on shamans and supernatural activities in Hokkaido open up the exhibition. While contemporary O-Bon celebrations have been reduced to neighbourhood knees-ups that centre around cans of Asahi and melting chocolate bananas, his grainy shot of an ring of eerily shadowed dancers in the half-light reminds one of the event’s original significance and power. Other shots depict elderly ladies pulling apart elastic mochi with their teeth in graveyards and votive tablets for casting out demons. Hiromi Tsuchida continues the supernatural theme, as part of his ‘Zokushin Gods of the Earth’ series – where shamans trip in geta across dark fields, and men in melting theatre make-up smile surreally. The black and white prints evoke a deliciously ghoulish atmosphere. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/sentimental-journeys1.JPG" alt="Araki Nobuyoshi, from 'Sentimental Journey' (1971)" title="Courtesy of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography" width="518" height="339" class="imgcaption" /> 
Other photographers meditate on relatively mundane scenes, enlivening them with pathos or humour. A man stretches in front of a sign announcing “Sexy girl service!”, a small boy leaps, suspended mid-air beside a fountain, two disconsolate women chatter on a bench, a man falls asleep on a train with an oversized cellophane bouquet sandwiched between his thighs. The photographs have a quirky and personable feel that avoid the staginess of other contemporaneous travel shots. One is of another photograph being taken; a group of children on a school trip pose stiffly, in neatly pressed uniforms, before the floating torii gate in Miyajima. The official photographer, bent over his curtained tripod, represents an altogether different kind of travel photography than that on show here. 
Yet while the line of artifice might be visible, none of the photographers try to dismantle the nostalgia that cloaks this side of Japan. A gentle romanticism floats around the images of the rice harvest, crowds of people stuffed into open-air boats, children scampering along dusty roads. There is a ragged wilderness to some of the pictures – littered roads, unkempt plants and the violent crashing of white horses of the Hokkaido sea breaking over concrete. And while most of the photographers are strangers to their subjects, the inclusion of photography giant Araki allows a peek into an intimate relationship – albeit one later laid open to the lens and scrutiny of audiences worldwide. Fittingly, his contribution was taken from his “Sentimental Journey” series, documenting his honeymoon. Fans will be well acquainted with the series by now, but the loveliness of his new wife curled up in a low boat, a book by her head, remains undimmed. 
The image of Japan presented here is beguiling, instantly charming, fascinating. While the cultural essentialists often wrongly assume that a warmth and longing for these scenes can only truly be felt by Japanese themselves, their appeal is universal. Collapsing the misconception of the country as uniformly homogenous, ordered and sanitized, the exhibition explores the wilder sides of the landscape and the more intimate, unpolished sides of people and their relationships. For those who tire of what they see as Tokyo’s grey monotony, bustle and chilliness, it’s a welcome reminder that there is a change of scene for those who seek it.
Part 3 of the exhibition, looking at visions of foreign countries by Japanese photographers, begins September 29.

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Sentimental Journeys

I love stationery. I love its blankness, its purity, the whispering promise of what might be. It coaxes me near, tempts my ink. But its perfection only invites disappointment and failure; one misjudged stab of the pen and the game’s over. The sheet is soiled.
So for an eternally dissatisfied paper fetishist such as me, Noritake’s work is awe-inspiring. His stark, clean lines capture anatomy, plants, and inanimate objects with an ease that viewers can only wistfully admire and envy. Their casual presentation- taped simply to the walls- belies their elegant precision. The most arresting piece is a large-scale vortex of hundreds of spidery black lines, depicting a bird’s eye view of a neatly combed bowl-cut. Bereft of human features or flesh, it treads the line between abstract and familiar.
Another smaller piece depicts pencils bent at ninety degree angles. Noritake commented that his inspiration came from staring at stationery and imagining the most unlikely shapes it might form. Other works, including the curiously twisted body of a girl that requires close scrutiny to make sense of its warped anatomy – also mix figurative and abstract sensibilities, injected with a little manga stylisation on the side.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/rising-star-2.jpg" alt="" title="© 2009 Noritake
All Rights Reserved" width="224" height="320" class="imgcaption floatr" />The lines are clean, precise, unswerving, with not a single one superfluous. Noritake says that he first takes photographs of his subjects and later draws them, which explains how he so successfully dissolves complex three dimensions into two. While the other large pieces – including a walrus, and a landscape of houses dotting a San Francisco valley – are powerful in their simplicity, it is the neat grid of small-scale drawings that are more subtly impressive, and demand more attention. Like a sudoku square, they are balanced in both their entirety and in their smaller groupings, rows or columns. A girl reads a book; a boy swallows what looks like a headphone; a rope coils around itself, the kanji for ‘time’ dissolves into dots, a man stares into the distance. Meticulously drawn, they each hum with a quiet, haiku-like simplicity. For someone with a tendency to overwork both their writing and drawing, the confidence Noritake exercises in letting the negative space speak for itself is inspiring.
Despite being nothing groundbreaking, it is easy to understand why Noritake’s star is rising in the art world. He produced several zines – some for the recent Zine’s Mate fair – and it is clear that his work is saleable. While the pieces suit their modest unframed arrangement in Rocket’s high-ceilinged space, one can easily imagine them in grander settings. Go and see them for yourself before they make it there.

Rising Star

The first time I saw Kohei Nawa’s work was in Barcelona, as part of an exhibition of five modern Japanese artists entitled “Kawaii!” Fittingly, his work there was rather cute; a collection of animals and toys distorted by glass balls that enveloped them like glitzy frog-spawn. Curiously eerie and surreal, they seemed a little like the product of an imaginative child let loose with a glue gun and a bowl of marbles in a toy shop. The stand-out piece, however, was a little more adult: a majestic deer, elegantly frozen in the middle of the room, as if startled by headlights and pelted with hailstones made of crystal. It was literally mesmerizing.
Stepping into Nawa’s current exhibition, I was greeted by another deer, looking like the love-child of Bambi and Swarovski. Yet this time, its larger scale and the surroundings helped it to transcend the merely cute to approach something epic. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate setting than Maison Hermès in Ginza, with its walls of square white tiles acting as a geometrical counterpart to the work. Each opaque block was stunningly refracted in the deer’s coat of glistening baubles. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/nawa3.jpg" width="518" alt="Kohei Nawa, 'Liquid: PixCell_Saturation#2 (2009)
Mixed media" title="© Nobutada Omote. Courtesy of the Hermès Foundation" class="imgcaption"> 
Nawa’s work is concerned with skin, surfaces, borders; here the “beads,” as he calls them, are not merely a decorative pelt or just a mirror for the surroundings, but a charged membrane between the external and internal. From certain angles, the slicked-down hair and fossilized hooves are magnified, as if through a fish-eye lens; but turn your head and convex images of the glass tiles begin to undulate inside the spheres. The juxtaposition of these dynamic reflections and the deer’s icy, static pose creates an unnerving sense of life within the animal’s body. Its artificial membrane allows it to respond and answer to its environment, albeit only through rays of light. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/nawa1.jpg" width="518" alt="Kohei Nawa, 'Beads: PixCell-Elk#2' (2009) Mixed media" title="© Nobutada Omote. Courtesy of the Hermès Foundation" class="imgcaption"> 
It is hard not to be reminded of Damien Hirst’s famous formaldehyde shark; he also tried to confront viewers with their own mortality by displaying carcasses in modern surroundings. But whereas he continued to flog that dead horse – or rather lethal sea creature – for years, with endless rows of dissected sheep, Nawa has progressed beyond his earlier works to produce something altogether more unsettling. The title of the exhibition, “L_B_S,” stands for “liquid, beads, scum,” which respectively form the theme of each of the three pieces on show. Just behind the beaded deer lies the “scum” sculpture, constructed out of a series of incongruous objects and statues. They are all covered in what looks like crumbling bread mold in a humid August (very seasonally appropriate). Their eerie, decaying surface invoked an inward sense of disgust that had me scuttle towards the back room after a few moments.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.ja/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/nawa2.jpg" width="257" alt="Kohei Nawa, 'Scum: Villus' (2009)
Mixed media" title="© Nobutada Omote. Courtesy of the Hermès Foundation" class="imgcaption floatr">Yet the “liquid” piece there did little to quell my squeamishness. At first glance, the two tanks of shimmering, luminescent white liquid was oddly hypnotising, with a grid of uniform bubbles silently erupting. But after a minute or two, it unnervingly began to resemble eyeballs slowly emerging out of a primeval swamp – albeit one made out of pearly nail varnish.
It completed a triad of works that capture the strange rhythm of nature; its slow throb of multiplication, decay, regeneration, symmetry, disorder. Despite being finished in slick materials and dressed almost entirely in white, his works recall slow-motion nature videos where malignant cells split and spread, flowers splay and snap shut their petals, bees groove with a strange rhythm and liquids begin their osmotic slide. He carries off this representation of nature so accurately that for once, reading the blurb accompanying the exhibition is unnecessary. One understands intuitively that he is concerned with membranes, cells, skin; organic processes expressed through artificial means. And although all three pieces have an appreciable aesthetic beauty that is often absent in modern art, they also induce a skin-crawling queasiness through their laboratory-like precision and expression of decay and rebirth.
The power of the pieces, however, make one appreciate why Nawa has become a presence on the international scene, and is often referred to as a representative of modern Japanese art. Fortunately, he isn’t shying away from the pressure that media coverage can bring. He is currently engaged in a project called “Sandwich,” a space made from an old sandwich factory in Mukajima ward in Kyoto that will host several resident artists and encourage collaborations between them. It’s a welcome project that will hopefully grow more native talent to match that of Nawa. Let’s just hope that they will not be greeted by a sculpture of scum at breakfast time…

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The Queasy Trinity

I’d been pondering making a zine for years. Every time the mediocre English summer rolled around, I plotted and planned and scribbled, but never got near to publishing. Then, in April this year, I met the <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2009/8E62.en">Zine’s Mate</a> collective, which finally spurred me on to get it together and produce something to meet the deadline.
My original motivation, however, was probably similar to a lot of zine-makers; part sentimentality, part nuttiness and part confidence issues. Sentimentality because I have a certain fetish for paper and the printed format, and wanted to make something tangible rather than a mess of bytes. Nuttiness because only a control freak can be focused enough to make the whole of a zine themselves, beginning to end. And confidence issues because while you lack faith that any publisher would accept your work, you somehow trust yourself to make something readable and popular. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/sophiek-zine1.jpg" alt="The 'lunatic moon' zine by Sophie Knight." title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
There’s been a lot of noise made recently about the print industry and its supposedly imminent end; sales of newspapers, magazines and books are definitely falling as more people chase convenience and ‘pure’ information on the internet or mobile phones. But there is a sense that we are over-saturated with dull, meaningless blogs and haphazard streams of temporary information, and a kind of longing for good old-fashioned paper formats. Self-publishing enthusiasts and zine makers are therefore quite like vinyl obsessives, scorning convenience and hanging onto something more awkward for the rather nostalgic sense of tactility it offers.
Oddly enough, the rapidly shrinking audiences for paper formats didn’t really worry me when I thought about making a zine. Most people warned me that I had to carefully consider my ‘target niche’. To be honest, I didn’t give a damn. The beauty of making a zine is not only that you can indulge your control-freakiness, but also that you can write exactly what you want, without having to answer anyone. Zine makers usually sing the joys of ‘punk publishing’, telling people how easy it is: write, print, staple, distribute. But this means that an awful lot of zines are just like blogs: spur-of-the-moment brainfarts that are aesthetically unappealing and ultimately disposable. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/sophiek-zine3.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="389" class="imgcaption" /> 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/sophiek-zine5.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="412" class="imgcaption" /> 
I have to admit that I was never really engaged in the ‘zine scene’ in England, finding too many of them shoddy print-outs on some kind of toilet paper with perilous staples poking out all over the place and a particularly insidious finger-staining ink. The fonts were always stupidly small or blurred or ugly, as if warning you that the content wasn’t worth reading. 
Fortunately, there seems to still be a kind of reverence for paper in Japan that made me want to raise the bar. Walk into any book shop here and you’ll be confronted with a plethora of beautifully printed and bound books in a variety of paper and textures. I’m all for the punk aesthetic, but I think if you want to beat the doom-mongers of the print industry, you have to make something that is worth making in 3D; something for the paper fetishists who covet real, tactile objects. Those who want convenience will always have the internet.
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/sophiek-zine4.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="257" height="223" class="imgcaption floatr" />So for me, it was always about format, format, format. I chose to make my zine in a concertina shape, with little booklets of essays between each fold, and every one hand-sewn and cut. This means, of course, that the content also has to be up to par, because you want to attract and hold readers enough to appreciate the whole thing as a piece of art. I spent weeks batting emails back and forth with an architect, and read books and academic essays on all the subjects to make them as well-rounded as I could, even though I had no idea who would end up reading them.
I’ll admit that it was a struggle to make, and I won’t easily forget the many hours spent painstakingly formatting, printing, guillotining and sewing them together. But it was worth it. Handing the final ten into the zine fair, I felt somewhat like a proud parent waving their child off on their first day of school. Strangely, I really didn’t care about selling them or recouping the cost of making them, as I really wanted to keep them myself, or give them to people I knew. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/sophiek-zine2.jpg" alt="" title="Photo: Sophie Knight" width="518" height="378" class="imgcaption" /> 
My worst nightmare is a future dominated by Kindles, iPhones and mobile phone novels, with print consigned to the rubbish heap of history. But something makes me think that people just won’t allow that to happen. There is something very satisfying about holding reading material in your hands that a screen will never capture. The turnout at Zines’ Mate would also seem to confirm this, with most of the zines on show beautifully put together and well worth cherishing. The beauty of making a zine to me is therefore not the simplicity or the ease of it, but rather the gratification you get from making something material. And if enough people are motivated enough to publish what they like and care about, we might just pull print back from the brink.

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Zines: The Saviour of Print

I don’t know what to make of Chim↑Pom. I tried to like them. I really did. I did my research, read the reviews. “New fresh subversive blood explodes onto the Japanese art scene! Politically aware tricksters turning the structure and rules inside out!” yelped excited sycophants. There seems to be no common theme across their exhibitions, such as the one where Ellie, their gyaru pin-up girl, threw up purple vomit, or where she rowed a dinghy across a rubbish-strewn floor, or where they filmed a Princess Diana-like video with Cambodian children…I couldn’t make up my mind what they were trying to achieve, nor what kind of group they were.
Were they artful tricksters, intelligent commentators, fame-hungry kids attempting to be art star celebrities while ironically trying to subvert it? Or just reveling in how much attention people will pay to a false rebellion in a country where even eating on the train is an act of social disobedience?
So I arrived at NADiff with mixed feelings of excitement and apprehension, hoping that the reality would justify the hype. The actual ‘exhibition’ is very small, consisting only of two pieces, none of them accompanied by a written explanation, as if the media flurry that preceded them was notorious enough. Actually, the group has published a book to coincide with the exhibition, but I object in principle to the idea that you have to spend 2500 yen and a week reading a book to understand an art work; it should speak for itself.
But for those who didn’t catch the media buzz last year, in brief: in October, the six members of Chim↑Pom staged a stunt in Hiroshima, spelling out ‘pika!’ (translated as bang! and the word used in manga for the atom bomb) in smoke in the sky. A minor scandal ensued, involving both the public and various institutions, and a taken aback Chim↑Pom were suddenly forced to hold a press conference to apologize. In atonement for their act, they made the traditional symbol of hope or wishing; a thousand origami cranes. A building to house them was also designed, along with a book comprising interviews with around 30 Hiroshima survivors, inhabitants and commentators, and explanations from the artists themselves. Although the original exhibition in Hiroshima was cancelled, they held a recent three-day exhibition in Harajuku, and now have a week at NADiff to explain themselves. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/guerillas1.jpg" alt="Chim↑Pom, 'Making Hiroshima's Sky Pika' (2009)" title="Photo: Cactus Nakao. © 2009 Chim↑Pom
Courtesy of Mujin-to Production, Tokyo" width="518" height="346" class="imgcaption" /> 
Downstairs in the basement, a looped tape records the ‘pika’ being slowly etched into the sky. As in the case of all performance art, watching the video after the event is a some-what flat and dull experience. You miss out on half the point: the audience. Through foreign eyes, the katakana ‘pika!’ seemed oddly innocuous, cute. I wanted to see the agape mouths of the Hiroshima public, pensioners hopping mad in the streets. Perhaps the collective want you to view it as if you were there, but in a basement in Ebisu the emotional context is hard to grasp.
Upstairs hangs the far more arresting ring of vividly coloured cranes, surrounding several life-size plastic birds. Below are eight wooden plaques with messages inscribed into them, including: ‘Hope’, ‘I want war to end, ‘Love and happiness for everyone, ‘and ‘Peace in the world’. Fortunately, they sound less cheesy in Japanese than English. Opposite this is the small architectural model of their proposed peace building, with the origami sculpture hanging in the middle. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/guerillas2.jpg" alt="Chim↑Pom, 'Real Thousand Paper Cranes' (2008) Mixed media" title="Photo: Kenji Morita.
© 2009 Chim↑Pom
Courtesy of Mujin-to Production, Tokyo" width="257" height="373" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
What struck me was the incongruity between the apparent flippancy with which they executed the initial act, and their subsequent painstaking efforts to atone for their sins. What did they mean to express or achieve by it in the first place? The group’s own explanations are not particularly clear; Ushiro, one of the members, was quoted around the time of the event as saying that they aimed to increase awareness of the bombing amongst the younger generation.
Yet at the artist’s talk I attended at NADiff – where Ushiro himself and Hayashi, another member, discussed the exhibition with art historian Yuji Yamashita and Kenichi Abe – he gave a slightly different explanation. “We didn’t really anticipate the scandal that followed. That’s not to say we didn’t think about it at all – we just didn’t think about it that much. Initially, we just thought about the image of ‘pika’ being written in the sky over Hiroshima.” 
If they really intended to break the last taboo in Japanese society, and the reverent hush that surrounds it, they might have crafted a more elaborate explanation of their motive. But they didn’t. Instead, they caved to social expectations – or, in their own words, “exercised self-restraint” – and hung their heads, muttering their “sorry”s in front of the flashbulbs in an eerie echo of shamed politicians.
In doing so, they implied they were ignorant of the significance of their actions, emptying them of political intent and debasing them as simply an irreverent joke or aesthetic experiment. Had they done it in Europe or America, a refusal to apologize would probably have earned them respect for artistic integrity. But this is Japan, and such insolence might have instead cost them their audience. So they back-tracked from their position as cutting-edge rule-breakers, into the position of the ignorant disciple (kohai), begging various elders (senpai) to educate them and show them the error of their ways.
Yet perhaps I am being too naive to take their statements at face value, and should put more faith in their admirers, who claim media savviness as one of their strengths. It is possible that they anticipated the furore all along, praying for the performance to mushroom – like the original bomb – into a social debate about propriety, respect and the modern relevance of the tragedy.
Since most of their art, political or otherwise, is based on an irreverent humor, perhaps they were simply replicating the common theme in Japanese comedy – playing the fool to invite criticism and reflection. And although they claim their idea originated as simply an aesthetic one, they may well have been aware that it was an opportunity to gain the column inches and notoriety they seemingly crave. By the hype they generated, and the overwhelming turn-out at the artist’s talk, it seems the book will sell – and then they will have the last laugh, all the way to the bank.
Chim↑Pom are also participating in the <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/event/2009/A50A.en">“Winter Garden”</a> exhibition at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art.
To read more about Chim↑Pom, <a href="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2007/07/harnessing-tokyos-libido-for-artistic-ends.html">TABlog reviewed</a> their “Oh My God” show in 2007.

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Guerrillas in the Midst

Fourteen photographs, three faces. Walking into Kitajima’s latest exhibition, one is greeted by what first appears to be an uncanny collection of doppelgangers; all super-imposed against the unblemished white background, all from the same angle, wearing the same white shirt, the same expression, the same gaze. In order to steady oneself, the viewer is invited to play a childish game of spot-the-difference, scrutinizing the tell-tale wrinkles, the white shirt, the miniscule variations in expression. One realises there is a time lapse of several years between each portrait, but as the spatial positioning of the models from the lens is maintained precisely, it feels as if one is encountering several versions of the same self. 
Kitajima took pains to select models that he did not know, and made no attempt to develop a personal relationship with them, despite meeting with them several times over a few years. While his biological subjects age, the quality of the print or style of presentation do not. They wear exactly the same expression in each shot, varying from person to person: slight discomfort, resignation, even a glower of contempt. Yet apart from this, nothing is revealed about the models themselves. Bereft of introduction or biography, their social position blanked out by the identikit white shirts, they are stripped down to a pure self that continues regardless of – or detached from – their social relations. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/thepureself2.jpg" alt="KEIZO KITAJIMA, 'PORTRAITS'
60x75cm, digital c-prints" title="Courtesy of RAT HOLE GALLERY" width="257" height="206" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/thepureself1.jpg" alt="KEIZO KITAJIMA, 'PORTRAITS'
60x75cm, digital c-prints" title="Courtesy of RAT HOLE GALLERY" width="257" height="206" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
The lack of acquaintance between the subjects and the photographer has been a common theme throughout Kitajima’s career. However, his reputation was built on a vastly different body of work that embodied the ‘snapshot’ aesthetic so beloved of Japan’s photographic giants; Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, and Takuma Nakahira. Employing their spontaneous, shot-from-the-hip style, he covered Japan (both Tokyo and Koza, an American mili-tary hub in Okinawa), New York, the USSR and Eastern Europe, chronicling the bizarre and licentious flavour of their underground scenes, complete with crime, nudity, glamour and booze.
Yet in 1991 he rejected the instantaneous recording of a chaotic and sleazy nightlife, and began to develop a more staged and technical style. Turning his back on a photography that imposed its judgmental gaze on subjects without their consent, Kitajima decided to begin experimenting with a more controlled method, removing the background context and allowing subjects to speak for themselves. Ironically, stripped of any meaningful context, those displayed in “Portraits” hardly seem to speak at all. The fact that their blank, moody, and even defiant expressions cannot be indicative of their personality in general suggests that Kitajima is rather commenting on the nature of portraiture, and confirming the notion that ‘the gaze’ is an imposition that subjectivises and does violence to its object. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/thepureself4.jpg" alt="KEIZO KITAJIMA, 'PORTRAITS'
60x75cm, digital c-prints" title="Courtesy of RAT HOLE GALLERY" width="257" height="206" class="imgcaption floatl" /><img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/thepureself3.jpg" alt="KEIZO KITAJIMA, 'PORTRAITS'
60x75cm, digital c-prints" title="Courtesy of RAT HOLE GALLERY" width="257" height="206" class="imgcaption floatl" /> 
His work here is not only interesting because of the way in which it captures the continuity of self through the biological aging process, but also because it marks a move away from the rapid-fire documentation of the photographer’s surroundings so characteristic of recent Japanese photography. In contrast to that trend, Kitajima’s photographs are surprising not because of their context and illicit flavour, but rather for their lack of it. With the context erased, we are confronted with nothing but the unsettling, pure self.

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The Pure Self

The title of this exhibition was certainly fitting when I visited; after a confused trawl through Ginza’s side streets, I arrived too early, and spent a good ten minutes sporadically jiggling the doorknob, not realising that the gallery behind it was one of those tiny, white, one-room galleries Tokyo does so well. The owner ushered me in finally, bemused at my eagerness. Embarrassed at my impatience, it was an ‘uneasy space’ indeed.
The startling brightness of the gallery is intensified by the sharp white backgrounds in Hiroe’s pieces, mostly punctuated with kawaii or toy figures. Some pieces were modeled on dolls and clothes from fashion magazines, and they resemble any typical Shinjuku girl; dead-eyed, lip-glossed, with shiny and floppy limbs. The blank white space where their neck should be, however, spoils their innocuous sheen and follows the tradition in Japanese art of clearly displaying the line of artifice. One is unsure whether Hiroe here is merely representing or criticising kawaii culture, yet there is the lurking suggestion that their real-life counterparts are as shallow and empty as the dolls themselves. All of the canvases are wrapped in clear plastic, giving them the flimsy sheen of gift-wrapped goods ready for consumption. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/line-of-artifice.jpg" alt="Tomokazu Hiroe, 'fire' (2009) 32x41cm
Oil, plastic on canvas mounted on panel" title="©Tomokazu Hiroe" width="518" height="405" class="imgcaption" /> 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/line-of-artifice2.jpg" alt="Tomokazu Hiroe, 'dress-up collection #2' (2009) 72.5x50cm
Oil, plastic on canvas mounted on panel" title="©Tomokazu Hiroe" width="257" height="364" class="imgcaption floatr" />There are also paintings of furry toys, rendered so meticulously they leap out from the canvas. Yet once again spoiling the illusion, they are stamped with a red inkan by means of signature, and are again covered in plastic. Hiroe states that, as a result of his training in France, he strives to juxtapose the two-dimensional and three-dimensional aspects traditionally found in Japanese and Western art respectively. He is concerned with depth, reality, and constructions.
Thus it is with the title piece of the exhibition, in which toy soldiers surround a burning house painted in a stylised and graphic way, like an icon. The juxtaposition of the serious topic and play figures creates a queasy disharmony, much like Yoshitomo Nara’s nefarious children with cheeky grins and blood on their hands. But while the two artists are similar in their use of a kawaii aesthetic to bring out the absurd, Hiroe’s images are far more distant and sterile than Nara’s. Although playful, they are somewhat emotionless and ambivalent, with the white background first dazzling the eyes before the interplay between three dimensional and two dimensional aspects can sink in.
My favourite piece was that of a small hollow toy whose head was replaced with a red stamp of a rabbit, comically disproportionate and flat compared to the body. In the background lies a one-line drawing of a house’s outline. The meaning is obscure, but the aesthetic effect is easily appreciable. In this respect, despite claiming to involve Western elements in his work, Hiroe is a thoroughly modern Japanese artist, prioritising surface over message, cuteness over gravity. Yet this is to its merit rather than its detriment, with his meticulous painting style and unique presentation making this exhibition well worth a look － just don’t arrive too early…

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The Line of Artifice

At first sight, Garbasz’s subdued landscape and interior studies are conspicuous for the absence of people and the sense of loneliness that permeates them. It is only when you read the accompanying texts describing concrete bunkbeds, beatings, hunger, lice and lack of bread that you realise why; the pictures illustrate the backdrop against which her mother experienced the Holocaust in three concentration camps, the loss of her parents and resettlement in a foreign land.
Yishay Garbasz took the images over a year on a journey that was both geographical and emotional. After finding out at eighteen that her mother was a Holocaust survivor, she realised she was still carrying unspoken trauma around with her, and had passed it on to her. Aware of the weight of the emotional ‘gap’ that she had inherited, Garbasz decided to retrace her footsteps to help begin the process of healing, using her own typewritten account of her experiences to guide her and to complement her photographs. 
Mention the Holocaust and the first images that come into your head are only grainy black-and-white shots taken after the event; the liberation, the survivors, the empty camps. There is precious little visual record of the Holocaust camps during the war; we are left with our imaginations and damaged film. In our modern culture that demands photographs as evidence that something happened, the urge to find a way to document it has resulted in a wealth of art seeking to explain or deal with it. For Garbasz, it was about piecing together her mother’s life so that she could accept it and move on from the hurt, closing the gaps in her memory by bringing the past back. She chose to use a cumbersome large-format camera, she says, because it forced her to slow down and to absorb and concentrate on the atmosphere of where she was. The images reverberate with memories as a result of this quiet reverence. 
<img src="http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/scars_history.jpg" alt="Yishay Garbasz, 'Footsteps (48)' (2004-2009) C-print" title="© Yishay Garbasz
Courtesy of Wako Works of Art" width="518" height="414" class="imgcaption" /> 
There are the typical images of dank cellars, rusty soap dishes, filthy latrines and desolate fields circled with barbed wire, all of which evoke the kind of cold terror one associates with the Holocaust. But there are also landscapes with lush green grass, staircases diffused with soft golden light, an empty hall with a Palestinian flag. The most mundane image is a nondescript modern redbrick building with a fluorescent ‘MULTI VIDEO’ sign outside. These cheerful facades belie the horror that took place years before. But where grass grows and walls are painted over, raw emotions still pulse. The interplay between the daughter’s images and the mother’s words reminds one how that mere space becomes “place” when it is provided with a context or explanation. Here, an innocuous-looking green field becomes the place of rest for the grandparents’ ashes, the glimpses of Palestine, the fear settling in an unknown land, a grey room where a guard struck her mother against the head.
Garbasz writes that she is not sure how much the photographs have helped the healing process, and regrets that her mother never lived to see the final book. But by distilling the mass horror down to a singular pain shared between a mother and child, and locating it in the contemporary landscape, Garbasz reminds us how deep history’s scars lie in our modern geography, and how every individual leaves their own unique emotional trajectory in all the places they have been.

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