Tokyo & The Presentation of Art in Unusual Places

Responding, in part, to the physical destruction throughout Japan after World War II, Saburo Murakami created Breaking Through Many Sheets of Paper (1956). As he walked and ripped through a series of subsequent body-length sheets, the papers flapped and wilted behind him like the ghosts of Western modernism. To further clarify the subversive lack of attention to these remaining materials, after the performance ended, the remnants were to be burned and destroyed – not sold. After all, and according to the Gutai Manifesto (a document of artistic intent, penned by Murakami’s peer, Jiro Yoshihara), the art was the action of “investigating the possibilities of calling the material to life,” not the material itself.

In many ways, Murakami and his circle of Japanese collaborators, the Gutai (“concrete”) Group, are owed much for their early contributions to the development of Japanese conceptual and performance art as embodiment in time. Because of the precedent set by groups such as Gutai, the contemporary Japanese art world has continued to spread into an ever-broadening collection of thriving institutions and groups, scattered throughout Japan, many of them in unlikely places. Recently, I had the chance to speak with international curator, Junko Wong, about the arts in Tokyo.

“I began curating in 1984. I started to organize an exchange exhibition between Japan and Hawaii. Hawaii is the number-one destination for Japanese people, and they have a history of immigration and culture spanning 100 years. 1985 was the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Hawaii. But with that being said, I wanted to curate contemporary art and create an exchange between two cultures and artists from those cultures.” Wong was born in Bangor, Maine, and spent a brief period of her early adolescence in Japan before moving to Hawaii, where she stayed until graduating from the University of Hawaii with a BFA in Photography and Design. Upon finishing school, she returned to Japan and began producing international exhibitions and art projects. Though she modestly explains her curatorial beginnings, the Crossings ’86 exhibition was no small undertaking. The event, which featured more than 100 artists, was an organizational monster, including more than 20 galleries in both Japan and Hawaii.

“Themes do reappear over the years because my interests, though they change, still have a familiarity to them. There definitely is a strong interest in design in my heart, and though the themes are different, an exhibition for Neville Brody’s Graphic Language and the group exhibition, Peace Poster are both about placement of color and shape into a perfect space.”

In the summer of 2005, I had the chance to see Wong’s Peace Poster exhibit. To my surprise, it was showing in a gallery on the top floor of a popular Japanese department store called Parco. “The spaces that are used to showcase the exhibitions are many times commercial venues like department stores.” As you would suspect, my thoroughly Western mind formed immediate suspicions about the idea of a gallery in a department store. As I rode the Yamanote line to Shibuya, I cringed at the thought of a corporate-liquidation-art-exhibition extravaganza. I pictured purchasing a three-gallon plastic jug of mustard from Wal-Mart, then strolling through a gallery to check out the provocative installation on the way out. No, probably not.

As we walked toward the Parco, over-stimulated by swarms of people, neon, and noise, I saw a sign for the Peace Poster exhibition. “Peace of Shit,” read black letters down the bottom-left margin of a woodblock print depicting doves crapping on a tank. An arrow directed us toward the gallery. However unlikely or confusing a department store with a gallery may have seemed, this was a good indication of cultural misperception.

In the elevator, I started to wonder if Japan was onto something. Could there be a fluid and truly liberal (possibly even vital) relationship between art and commerce in outrageous-cost-of-living cities like Tokyo? Did this massive retailer, Parco, really intend to create a space for the free exploration of ideas?

Inside, the gallery walls displayed an overwhelming installation of both immediate and subtle handcrafted prints responding to a shroud of complex issues involving the war in Iraq. Pro-peace. Anti-war. Anti-occupation. Anti-consumerism. Even more surprising was the diversity of visitors in attendance.

“You get a huge audience that will trickle in from the retailer, so the idea has to appeal to a mass audience. However, advertisement for the exhibition is also done in a massive way. More people are informed about fine art exhibitions that take place,” shared Junko. “Art exhibitions are not only for the culturally savvy or art educated in Japan. They’re for everyone.”

As for my confused and hopeful visions of a similar exhibit in Wal-Mart, Junko responded, “Parco is not a hyper-mart, it is a sophisticated fashion store that features interesting fashion, and is cutting edge about design and concepts for marketing. So, a statement such as Peace of Shit was not about the statement only, but about design. Original, hand-made, very limited posters by the advanced and rich artists that made them were what Parco was mostly interested in.” Even still – there seems to be a fundamental difference between a culture that entrusts its people with the ability to appreciate aesthetics apart from statement, and one that seems accustom to being guided by the hand through the “what does it mean” of modernism, using aesthetics less as a possible end, and more as a means to propagate a particular brand or notion. Perhaps we have grown so close to our aesthetic guides that we no longer feel comfortable perceiving apart from them. We like aesthetics to direct us toward conclusions instead of allowing them to be conclusions. Instances lacking clearly defined signifiers are confusing to us (lawsuits over coffee that is hot). Though Junko credits Parco’s interest in hosting her presentation of the Peace Poster exhibition to their interest in design, the allowance for the exhibition also speaks to a unique cultural trust that each gallery visitor possesses the ability to differentiate aesthetic qualities and advocation for the value of expression from ideological endorsement by the curator or exhibition space.

Further Reading:

The Gutai Manifesto
Online: http://www.ashiya-web.or.jp/museum/10us/103education/nyumon_us/manifest_us.htm

Art Space Tokyo: An Intimate Guide to the Tokyo Art World
Online map resource: http://artspacetokyo.com

Great places to see art in Tokyo:

Project Space KANDADA/Command N
Seikosha 1F, 3-9 Kanda
Nishikicho, Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo Japan

AOYAMA  MEGURO
2-30-6 kamimeguro meguro
Tokyo Japan

Mori Art Museum
ROPPONGI HILLS MORI TOWER (53F),
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-Ku,
Tokyo, Japan

Gallery LELE
4-3, 1F, Sarugaku-cho, Shibuya-ku,
Tokyo 150-0033 Japan

Scai The Bathhouse
Kashiwayu-Ato, 6-1-23 Yanaka, Taito-ku,
Tokyo 110-0001 Japan

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku,
Tokyo 140-0001 Japan

EPIGRAPH: Art exhibitions are not only for the culturally savvy or art educated in Japan. They’re for everyone. —Junko Wong

by Matthew Joynt