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2007-11-11 04:18 |
Cristoph Mark / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Don't let its apparent simplicity fool you: "Space for Your Future," the name and concept of a massive exhibit that opened last weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, is as difficult to define as the varied works that line the floors, walls and ceilings of Japan's largest art space.
In a recent piece in ARTiT magazine, Chief Curator Yoko Hasegawa described the title of Space for Your Future: Recombining the DNA of Art and Design as referring to the room to explore and expand, particularly between artistic disciplines. "The concept behind Space for Your Future is in part a response to the frivolity of programs that tend toward mannerism within a single system and involves moving away from this and proposing a provocative, incendiary creativity arising out of the position of oneself 'in between' systems."
But many of the artists have completely different concepts of what the title means.
Carsten Nicolai, whose art exists in the increasingly gray area between fine art and science, describes the exhibit's title as one about space to explore and the need for it, reflecting his personal experience of growing up in East Germany and now spending a year in Rome, where living space is at a premium.
"I would not physically connect this to a designed space, I would define this in terms of free space," Nicolai told The Daily Yomiuri as he worked to set up his exhibit. "You're realizing space means untaken space, but it also means thinking space. It is a space where you can develop as a young person."
It will come as little surprise that the space Nicolai creates in fades (2006), his work on show at Space, creates just that: an almost meditative space. Consisting of gray walls, fog, a light projector and speakers, museum-goers find themselves actually inside a beam of light. The simple piece manages to capture the reflective nature of the LIFE--fluid, invisible, inaudible... exhibit by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani (on show at the NTT InterCommunication Center, at Opera City in Shinjuku, Tokyo, until Nov. 4), but on a much more minimalistic, purely scientific basis, a reality that pervades not only Nicolai's work but also much of that at Space.
"I'm creating a space out of almost nothing. I like that you cannot touch it, and you cannot really define what it is, which is similar to 'the future.' We cannot define, we cannot imagine what it would look like. And this piece has a similar level of that. It has a bluriness, what we are projecting inside about what the future will look like. But this piece doesn't deliver you, really, it just opens up something, maybe your perception."
Working with both science and space (and the future, for that matter) is architecture, though much of what's on display at Space will leave many people confused yet curious about the increasingly conceptual side of the very public artform.
Architect Junya Ishigami, whose 2005 work table, a 10-meter-long, seemingly paper-thin table, was roundly hailed and criticized, has created what will likely become the centerpiece of the exhibition--both literally, with its placement in the center of the building, taking up all four floors, and as the most impressive new work. Square Balloon (2007) is a 14-meter high "balloon" made of reflective aluminum and an internal frame weighing about one ton. Filled with helium, Ishigami's work floats, slowly moving within its confines over the museum-goers below.
No less confusing in architectural terms is I've heard about (2005-07), the latest project from trendy French architecture research studio R&Sie(n). The work, a 3-D printout model of inhabitable, coral-like structures built purely through algorithms accompanied by a CG film, is the final step in the two-year project that began with the opening of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa under Hasegawa, a phase that member Francois Rouche--the "R" in the group's name--describes as "The final 'smelling' of this research."
Again, this artist's work reflects his philosophy regarding his vision of "Space for Your Future." It is incredibly organic, though it appears as if from a future shock sci-fi film, despite being a concept for urban planning that is supposed to aid humanity by using robots to replan and rebuild cities as needed.
"I think 'the future' is something which is nostalgia. To use the word 'future' is very strange, because it was designed in the '60s, like Tomorrow Now [:Envisioning the Next Fifty Years by Bruce Sterling.] So when we are talking about futures...it brings back a notion of vintage, a notion of nostalgia that was produced in the '60s and '70s. But our futures of now cannot be compared to the dream of the future of the '60s.
"The notion of Yoko Hasegawa and MOT, I think it [was the idea to] promote 'tomorrow.' But I'm very suspicious about the promotion of tomorrow. Because we could [instead] take care of today, the here and now," Rouche says.
Though his take on the exhibit's name is one of philosophy, R&Sie(n)'s research does occasionally find its way into future forms of architecture, structure and construction. Currently, the school at which Rouche teaches--Columbia University in New York--is putting robots conceived by the architectural studio to practical use, with a small, one-room building being built by machine. The trio also has experience with another form of space: Working with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration on designing habitats for astronauts living and working on Mars.
Not all the works at Space, however, are so contemporary. Some border on the traditional.
Italian Elisabetta Di Maggio has created a surprisingly beautiful lace, though traditional might not be the best description: The designs contained within were inspired by microscopic aquatic organisms and city maps.
Michael Lin's colorful flowers that have become a hit the art world over are a pleasant, refreshing change amid all the concepts and technology. Lin's exclusive work for Space, unfortunately, has no future. The pencil drawings lining the white room he was given will be painted over when the exhibition comes to a close early next year.
With such a variety of art, as well as films, furniture, chain-link fence artwork and stools that light up in colors that change each time you sit down, it took homegrown multi-disciplined artist Noriyuki Tanaka to strike a balance.
"After several of the participants were decided during the planning, I looked at them and the concept and reality of the exhibition, and figured out what was lacking, but absolutely necessary, and something only I could do. So that's what I did," said Tanaka, whose work includes everything from typography (including that for Space) to a series of Uniqlo advertisements.
Tanaka's close analysis resulted in a series of portraits of the recently controversial actress Erika Sawajiri in a number styles, forms and incarnations. Tanaka and his team of artists, photographers and, of course, Sawajiri, created a wall of portraits of the singer/actress, titling the work 100 Erikas.
Based on the sociological idea that people have different selves depending on whom they're with and where they are, Sawajiri is given a variety of personalities, leaving it up to the viewer to figure out which one--if any--is the "real" Erika. And since Sawajiri's recent bad attitude at a film opening, Tanaka believes the perception of the actress is almost certain to change among many of the Japanese viewers. (Perhaps a picture of Sawajiri with horns on her head like the Devil?)
"All she said [to reporters when they asked her if she had been in a bad mood] was 'not really,' and suddenly everybody's mad at her," Tanaka explains. "But just by that one facial expression, they will choose a different 'real' Erika. But the question is: What's 'real'? That's the theme of this work: Is there a real me?"
The concept behind 100 Erikas fits in with the artist's take on the meaning of "Space for Your Future." "For me, it's the space within ourselves to move between personality and outer appearances, to rewrite who we are, our identity, the major and minor. Your self is the 'space.'"
So, what is your "Space for Your Future?"
Space for Your Future: Recombining the DNA of Art and Design
Until Jan. 20, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed on Mondays (Tuesdays if Monday is a holiday) and Dec. 28-Jan. 4.
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, a 10-minute walk from Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station on the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line in Koto Ward, Tokyo.
Admission: 1,300 yen; 1,100 yen for university students; 600 yen for middle and high school students, as well as seniors; free for primary school aged children and younger.
Information: www.sfyf.jp
(Nov. 2, 2007)
Sources: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20071102TDY12001.htm |
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