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MITO ANNUAL '94 "Open System" Exhibition
GALLERY GUIDE
(Note: Be aware that the dates mentioned in this file reflect the perspective of 1994, when the exhibition was held, as the Web material incorporates literature distributed at the time of the exhibition.)
The term "open system" refers to systems that are open to the outside. Systems can mean various things -- organizational systems, physical systems, thought systems, etc. -- but in the current exhibition the artists are focusing on systems of art and art museums. Try to forget for a moment the traditional concept of art, and the generally accepted idea of exhibiting art in museums: you will surely encounter a dynamic form of expression.
Yukinori Yanagi
The giant carpet in Room #1 of the Gallery has been produced by Yanagi. Weighing a massive 350kg (770 lbs.), the carpet is almost impossible to move once it has been laid down. He has left it up to the individual viewer to decide whether to walk on top of the carpet or to swerve around it. He does request, however, that those walking on the carpet remove their shoes, as the cleaning expenses are quite prohibitive!
The carpet takes its design after that of a Japanese passport. All except for one, the petals originally at the center of the design have all fallen off and are scattered about. Just as in the case of a lover plucking off the petals of a flower individually to determine whether his or her feelings are being reciprocated, each petal has been given the title of "loves me" and "loves me not." Moreover, 13 different languages are represented, from Korea, Myanmar, Laos, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Okinawa, and by the Ainu in northern Japan (with some overlap). All of those countries (areas) were once comprised in the Greater East Asian Coprosperity Sphere that Japan had imposed upon the region during World War II.
According to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it is a common international practice to use national symbols on passports, but Japan does not have such a symbol. That is why the chrysanthemum, the Japanese imperial symbol, was chosen. However, the number of petals on the passport differs from that of the imperial crest (which has 16).
As a matter of fact, printed on the reverse side of the carpet is the entire copy of the 19th, 20th, and 21st Articles of the Japanese Constitution, which relate to the freedom of thought, religious belief, speech, and expression. They cannot be seen, however, unless the carpet is turned over.
On the walls of the gallery room are actual war paintings produced by Kiyoo Kawamura, Kanetaro Tojo, Ichiro Fukuzawa, and Saburo Miyamoto. Very little research has been devoted to the role of war pictures such as these in the history of Japanese contemporary art, leaving a lacuna in that respect. Yet Yanagi is not calling into question the responsibility of such artists for the war, for he says, "It is impossible for individual artists living today to continue ignoring this gap in modern art history. Those of us alive today -- let alone young people -- have almost no opportunity to view such paintings, which were produced in great quantity at the time." Yanagi believes that this exhibition is a good chance for us to view such works up close for ourselves, thereby reflecting on the state and the individual, as well as the state, art, and the artist.
In Room #2 of the ATM Contemporary Art Gallery is located the Asia-Pacific Ant Farm, with the flags of 36 countries represented by colored sand inside plastic cases. The 36 countries included are the members of the defunct Greater East Asian Coprosperity Sphere, along with their former colonial masters of the West. The cases are linked together by tubes, through which ants roam freely. The ants are allowed to traverse the tubes between the flags, along with the sand. Yanagi produced a similar work for the Venice Biennale of 1993, for which he was awarded a prize.
We suggest that you use this opportunity to deepen your knowledge of Asian and Pacific countries. Arranged in order from the top left to right are the flags of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Vanuatu, Tonga, Kiribati, Fiji, Nauru, Belau (Palau), Australia, Western Samoa, Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands, Myanmar, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan (Republic of China), New Zealand, Germany, Papua New Guinea, the Soviet Union, North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea), South Korea (Republic of Korea), the Philippines, Spain, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia (People's Council), Japan, the U.S., Singapore, the Netherlands, France, Laos, the U.K., Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Ritsuko Taho
The whole of Room #3 is taken up by Ritsuko Taho's work, "Citizen of the World." Taho now lives in the Boston area, where she teaches at MIT as an associate professor of visual arts. It has been a full decade since she last exhibited her works in Japan. The series of her works displayed in the current exhibition features the theme of Japanese houses (ie), about which she has conducted academic research. She has thus given expression to a highly poetic space.
In front of Room #3 is displayed "Sheep's Clothing," a piece of clothing that Taho discovered in an antique shop in her hometown of Tokushima (on the island of Shikoku). It was probably once actually used as a piece of clothing by a farm hand to protect against the cold. She attempts to superimpose sheep -- the most submissive and domesticated breed of livestock -- upon the lives of the Japanese people.
In his book, "The Family Structure of Japanese Society," Takenobu Kawashima identified the following characteristics in his analysis of the family system inherited by the Japanese people, and which lies at the foundation of their psyches: (1) an unconditional submission to authority and to control thereby, (2) the lack of individual action and feeling of responsibility, (3) a rejection of voluntary criticism and reflection, (4) a family-like atmosphere consisting of leader/follower relationships, and the corresponding feeling of enmity toward outsiders. Taho has pointed out that such an attitude is very much similar to the way that sheep carry out their lives.
At the entrance and along the walls of Room #3 is displayed Taho's serial work, "Universe of Statements," in which shows photographs depicting various sheep ecologies, along with their production and consumption, as well as photographs of outer space. The photographs are joined by messages sandblasted in glass. Take time to view each of them carefully. Do you live your life as a sheep does? Or perhaps your life is something completely different.
As we move along to Room #4, we see a similar series of photographs covering the front wall, along with glass containers holding real sheep brains. Taho says that sheep brains are historical in nature, insofar as they are inscribed with the memory of life that stretches back to the primordial beginnings of the earth. At the same time, she says that they contain an expanse as broad as the universe. Taho says she looks forward to the birth of a new luster, light and fire therein.
Situated on the floors of Rooms #3 and #4 are two artworks, "The Birth of Fire I" and "The Birth of Fire II." The first, in Room #3, contains about 100kg of ground pepper and red peppers, while the second, in Room #4, consists of a timer-controlled heater. Also displayed in Room #4 is a work, labeled "Citizen of the World," comprising a woodblock print (positive) and a woodblock (negative), on which Taho has carved a message in both English and Japanese. Other works to be found in Room #4 are a salt block entitled, "Salt for Licking," and some wool entitled "Net Profit." The salt block was actually used as a sheep lick, and the letters on the surface are barely visible, having been licked by some sheep.
Both "The Birth of Fire I" and "The Birth of Fire II" are modeled upon a South American myth, related by Gaston Bachelard in his seminal 1938 book, "Psycho-Analysis of Fire." According to that myth, a hero once entreated a woman to put her hand in a fire. After giving several evasive answers, she finally gave in. Laying on the ground with her legs spread apart wide, she pinched the upper part of her abdomen and rocked violently. As she did so, a ball of fire fell down to the earth out of a water channel, where it had always been before. It was not the kind of fire that we know today, as it was not burning, nor did it boil anything. It lost those properties when the woman let go of it. Still, the hero pledged to restore the fire to its original state, so he gathered any burnable bark and red peppers that he could find. Together with the woman's fire, he was thus able to make the kind of fire that we use today.
Taho says that anyone today -- man or woman -- can find fire, give birth to it, and restore its power, even if we are not heroes. By helping each other and gather many red peppers, we can recognize and appreciate our differences, and build open relationships. That is the possibility that Taho suggests to us.
Cai Guo Qiang
Room #5 and the workshop contain artworks produced by the Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang, who is based in Toride City in Ibaraki Prefecture and is active on the international scene. For the Mito Annual 94 Exhibition, Cai has developed a project based on research into the city and land of Mito using feng shui, a system of Chinese thought from ancient times. Feng shui involves the research and coordination of the flow of "qi" (spirit paths) in a certain building, piece of land or environment, and is supposed to bring prosperity to the people living there. In his work for Mito, Cai enlisted the cooperation of one of the greatest authorities of feng shui in China, Prof. Wang Qi-Heng of Tianjin University.
The installation in Room #5 is entitled "Long Life," conceived by Cai as a drawing of the whole Mito feng shui project. It can also be viewed as a feng shui model. Along the front wall has been hung an aerial photograph of Mito, in which Cai has drawn an Indian ink depiction of the powerful "dragon lines" -- giant flows of qi -- that run through the Mito area. In fact, it is a huge computer graphic combining the actual photograph with the invisible flows of qi drawn in Indian ink. On both sides, Cai has drawn up proposals using his own brush concerning ways to improve Mito's feng shui.
On the right corner of the wall has been placed a stone model of the stone lion figure that is regularly displayed outside the Conference Hall in the Art Tower Mito (ATM) complex. The lion weighs a hefty 16 tons, and was transported all the way over the ocean from Fujian Province in China. If you missed it on your way into the exhibition, definitely have a look on your way out. In the future, the lion figure will be installed* to the north of the valley that contains the water line that is supposed to be cutting off Mito's dragon line. Cai hopes and proposes to use the lion to heal that damaged dragon line.
*Note: A pamphlet describing the installation of the lion figure -- entitled "FORUM Feng Shui" -- is available at ATM's museum shop, Contrepoint, for \500 (incl. tax). You can also purchase the pamphlet through the mail, for \680 (incl. postage). Please send a registered cash letter to: ATM Contrepoint, 1-6-8 Gokencho, Mito-shi 310-0063, JAPAN. Don't forget to include a short memo indicating the name of the pamphlet.
By the way, according to feng shui, death is not the final end of human life. It uses the yin-yang principle to describe our actual cities, dwellings and architecture as our yang (sun) homes, and our tombs as our yin (shadow) homes. Both yang and yin, then, part of a continuous trip taken by human beings. We must make sure to lead our lives in a way that does not disrupt the natural flow of energy, in order to live comfortably. The tortoise-shell gravestone displayed in the exhibition is Cai's own tombstone, transported from China. As it weighs a total of 10 tons, not all of it could be brought into the exhibition room. Instead, the portion originally along the perimeter, known as the "taijiquan," has been separated from the rest and is displayed outdoors near the zelkova (keyaki) trees to the front of the ATM complex.
The Japanese grave displayed in the gallery is that of Seiichi Watanabe, coordinator of the entire exhibition. On the wall, also is the nameplate to the Catholic ossuary (crypt) of Yasushi Kurabayashi, who cooperated in the exhibition's planning.
The tombs in the gallery room force us to think of various things: about the grave of culture and art, about the grave of art museums and the system and art, and about life and death.
The pine tree has long been considered a symbol of long life. The pine hanging from the ceiling represents an image of a dragon flying to heaven, and expresses the nature linking our "yang" and "yin" homes. The roots of the tree have been carefully wrapped, protecting the tree during the course of the exhibition so that it will not wither and die.
In the ATM Workshop, also, Cai has placed an installation originally consisting of 250 red sparrows from Taiwan. That figure has since dropped considerably; however, there is a definite reason for the decline. Even now, the concept of "release" of Buddhism -- i.e., sending fish back to the pond or birds back to the sky -- is considered a good act, as it also enables us to release or free ourselves. Cai charges \500 for the release of each bird, and asks us to consider it as the cost of freedom; that explains the decline in the number of birds seen.
However, being released entails a new sort of test or trial, and that is another message that Cai wishes to tell us. The kind of bird selected are not domestic breeds, which are unable to fend for themselves outdoors, but wild breeds from overseas. Experts have advised us that the released red sparrows should be fully able to cope with an environment such as Mito's.
Hiroshi Kariya
Upon exiting the ATM Workshop, return to Room #6 of the Contemporary Art Gallery, where you must pass under the "Bandage Gate." This leads you to the works of Hiroshi Kariya, a production artist residing in New York since 1977. The current exhibition shows his "Installation 1993," intended as a record of world events in 1993. For the work, Kariya has used material from the reports of everyday news, including newspapers and magazines. He has labeled such a format as "reportage pictures" and "reportage sculpture." These works treat the lives of human beings as their main theme, as well as the record of the traces those leave.
Kariya calls his works "sutras." Indeed, ever since 1997, he has repeatedly attached the words "is the now" to materials he collects every day, just as if he were copying sutras in the fashion of Buddhist monks. These include a broad variety of items such as wood floating on the Hudson River, waste material from construction sites, and stones that Kariya has been picking up piece by piece each day.
In his "Wall of the World (Bosnia Ripped Apart)" installation, Kariya has hung a great many blackboards along the wall. The boards are made of masonite, a common construction material. Having written the words "is the now" a countless number of times on the boards, Kariya has termed this work his "blackboard sutra." The printed words pasted onto the boards are headlines from newspaper stories, and the articles themselves are pasted onto the back. Each board has been cut to match the size of each article, resulting in different sizes. The articles are arranged in chronological order from left to right along the wall, beginning in January 1993 and ending in December 1993. Here and there, several blackboards are missing, leaving cloth hanging in their place. These are the stories about Bosnia, and have been moved to the brown-colored "Wall of Bosnia" that lies further back.
The hanging of boards on a wall is reminiscent of the Japanese custom of hanging "ema" votive placards at shrines, and represent wishes or prayers.
Lying along the floor is Kariya's work, "That Which Wraps One Hundred Bodies." As the title indicates, there are one hundred bodies, alluding to corpses. A blackboard has been attached to each of the bodies, and an obituary has been pasted on each board. A requiem sutra has also been written upon each of the boards.
In Kariya's "Stretcher," a photograph has been attached of a nurse in Sarajevo carrying a bloodstained stretcher. In his "Girl and Vulture," Kariya has brought together a photograph of a vulture waiting for the death of a girl on the verge of starvation, along with a blackboard with stories about famine, etc.
Kariya's "Red Cross Wall" and "United Nations Wall" works are made from materials thrown away from the Hidetoshi NAGASAWA Exhibition held recently. Looking through the hole cut through the first work, one can read the words, "STOP THE BLOODY MURDER." The hole in the second work, then, appears to be a hole punched into a silhouette of the Pacific Ocean. His "Desert Wall" comprises blackboards with photographs of flabbergasted people staring at a flood of the Mississippi River, and a flood in India.
In his "Turkish Wall," Kariya has highlighted an article about five Turkish people burned to death. Inscribed on the wall is the word "Hass," which means "hate" in German.
The "Protest Wall" contains news photographs of a broad spectrum of protests: an anti-abortion march in Washington, D.C.; Bucharest residents opposed to the economic policies of their government, and demanding funds for AIDS research; citizens calling for an investigation into the Sagawa Express scandal in Japan; Buddhists in Cambodia praying for peace; Americans clamoring to save Bosnia; people anxious about their future.
Walking into Room #7 of the Gallery, we see another of Kariya's works, "Classroom with a Maze." Near the front of the room is a surveying instrument with a telescope. The desks and chairs have been arranged in a way to prevent easy passage as a maze, so to speak. On the blackboards have been pasted photograph files, clippings from such magazines as "Time," "Life," and "National Geographic," and from such newspapers as the New York Times and the Asahi Shimbun. In addition, Kariya has pasted material from books about society, science, and religion, as well as world maps. The desks and chairs used by Kariya for this work were borrowed from Mito City, and had originally come from a school that was closed down.
At the end, please take a look through the surveying telescope. You should be able to read something.
--- By Seiichi Watanabe
Translated by Paul T. Narum
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