An Introduction to Kimura Ryōko: Ikemen Paintings
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1 An Introduction to Kimura Ryōko: Ikemen Paintings MAKI KANEKO 2 1 俺はヒーロー I am a hero Ore wa hīrō 君だけの 君を守る I protect only you Kimi dake no kimi o mamoru 抱きしめる Holding [you] tight Dakishimeru 2 鍛えるよ 毎日 I train everyday Kitaeru yo mainichi 強くて そして かっこいい Strong and cool Tsuyokute soshite kakkoii Fig. 1 Kimura Ryōko, Heroes-Training 君の漢（おとこ）になるために To become your man’s man Boys 1 and 2, 2010, Spencer Museum of [or man among men] Art, The University of Kansas, Museum Kimi no otoko ni naru tame ni Purchase: Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund, 2013.0156.a.b 33 34 The pair of four-panel folding screens in the Fig. 3 Front cover in Kimura’s current practice, which focuses on a pseudo-scientific explanation for her choice, Spencer Museum’s collection titled Heroes- of Rose: How to images of ikemen. “the temperature of the male body is more stable Sex Visual Book Training Boys 1 and 2 (Heroes-Danshi tanreizu , Kimura’s first major works featuring the than women’s [because women have a period], and 2005, Courtesy of byōbu 男子鍛錬図屏風) features a group of the artist beautiful male figure was a series of five therefore men are more suitable to be a dish.”5 young Japanese men unabashedly displaying paintings titled Beauty of My Dish (Watashi no While the inclusion of assertive female their bodies (Fig. 1). This is a leitmotif of the nantaimori ryōri 私の男体盛り料理, Figs. 4–5). In figures in Beauty of My Dish is rather exceptional Japanese artist Kimura Ryōko 木村了子 (b. 1971), this series, naked young men are used as dishes among Kimura’s oeuvre, the artist’s signature who has increasingly gained publicity for her for various foods and elaborately presented to style and strategy are evident in her earliest paintings of ikemen イケメン in the past decade. female diners as a full-course meal. This motif ikemen paintings. The artist borrows settings, As explained further below, ikemen is a relatively is an inversion of nyotaimori 女体盛り (the female practices, and customs commonplace in male- new slang word coined around the late 1990s body plate), an “infamous” sexual service said to dominated aspects of Japanese society such and is generally translated as “good-looking have originated in eighteenth-century Japan in as the sex industry and the field of Nihonga guys” or “cool dudes.”1 As a Japanese female which sushi or sashimi was served on the body of as evidenced in the aforementioned “torture artist so unequivocally celebrating the image a naked woman. In making an inverted version of pictures” by Itō. She reverses the roles of men of sexually attractive men, Kimura’s artistic the female body plate, Kimura jokingly provides and women, a choice for which she often provides practice is highly unconventional and may even humorous or purposefully absurd pretexts. In be called revolutionary, especially considering painter Itō Seiu 伊藤晴雨 (1882–1961), who has a addition to the erotic display of the male body, that many of Kimura’s ikemen pictures are cult following for his sadomasochist seme-e 責め Kimura employs various “female-friendly” visual Fig. 4 Kimura Ryōko, Aperitifs 1—First done in the medium of Nihonga 日本画 (neo- 絵 pictures of torture and shibari-e 縛り絵 pictures Appetizer: Man’s Body Dish for Sashimi under languages and settings inspired by or quoted traditionalist Japanese-style painting), arguably of rope bondage. Kimura’s task was to create a the Cherry Blossom from the series Beauty of from girls’ comics (shōjo manga 少女マンガ), fairy My Dish the most conservative and male-dominant field four-panel sliding door painting based on Itō’s , 2005, Courtesy of the artist tales, and male idol magazines. For example, of Japanese modern art.2 Kimura’s art as well as legendary, but now lost, bondage pictures of Aperitifs 1—First Appetizer: Man’s Body Dish for the publicity she has received seems to indicate a pregnant woman. According to Kimura, this Sashimi under the Cherry Blossom (Ōka nantai not only her unique vision and talent, but also a work, subsequently titled The Four Roped-up sashimimori 桜花男体刺身盛り) is abundant with significant shift occurring in Japanese society Women: Sliding Door Panel Paintings (Oyō shibari visual motifs commonly used in girls’ comics: over the politics of gender, sexuality, and yonren fusumae a young, slim, good-looking man encircled by representation. およう縛り四連襖 絵), became the starting point of flowers and petals and floating in an abstract, Kimura studied at the Tokyo University of her current career, providing her with the first pinkish space (Fig. 4).6 The result is a strangely Arts, where she obtained a BFA in oil painting opportunity to examine closely the human form beautiful discord of softness and hardness, and an MFA in mural painting. After graduating and experiment with the medium of Nihonga (Fig. vulgarity and decency, and overt femininities and in 1997, the first turning point of her career 2).3 masculinities. Through these visual contrasts, came in 2001, when Kimura was commissioned The year 2005 was the second turning Kimura’s work seems not only to challenge to create a prop for the film Oyō directed by her point for Kimura’s career. As explained in the conventional gender roles, but also to visualize, father Sekimoto Ikuo (b. 1942). Released in 2002, following interview, up to this point Kimura’s celebrate, and possibly scrutinize current the film features three famous Japanese artists central motif had been the erotic female form. discourses of female heterosexuality manifest in active in the 1920s, one of which was the Nihonga While she was gaining popularity for her female Japanese media culture and art. figures, Kimura still felt at In the following interview and elsewhere, Fig. 2 Kimura Ryōko, The Four Roped-up odds with her own practice, Kimura claims that ikemen is the quintessential Women: Sliding Door Panel Paintings, 2001, especially the eroticization and motif of her art. Her adherence to this masculine Courtesy of the artist objectification of the female category seems to be a key in contextualizing body. After questioning what Kimura’s art within the ever-shifting gender roles she really wanted to paint when and politics of female sexuality in contemporary she illustrated Rose: How to Japan. The slang word ikemen is believed to Sex Visual Book (2005), a sex have originated in the teenage girls’ magazine manual for women, Kimura egg in the late 1990s. It stands for iketeru イケて came to a seemingly simple る, which means “cool, attractive, and superior,” and yet quite significant and men, a reference to both the Japanese word realization: she enjoyed meaning “face,” and the English loan word for illustrating the male figure “men.” Because of the subsequent overuse of the more than the female figure, term by the mainstream media, today ikemen and her heterosexual desire is loosely used to refer to all types of desirable was the drive of her art (Fig. 3).4 men. Yet two factors seem to separate ikemen This realization has culminated from pre-existing categories of desirable men: An Introduction to Kimura Ryōko 35 Maki Kaneko 36 their physical beauty and their Fig. 5 Kimura Ryōko, Dessert: A Man’s Body Dish for L’Opera Gateau women) can find pleasure in the Fig. 6 Kimura Ryōko, Let’s Ride a Crocodile: Born to be Wild! willingness to serve primarily, au Chocolat from the series Beauty of My Dish, 2005, Courtesy of attractive male figures. In terms Crocodile and Tiger, 2009, displayed at the Nijō Castle, Kyoto, but not exclusively, as an the artist of her seemingly apolitical pro- at the Kan-Hikari Art Expo, 2011, photo by Inoguchi Kōichi object of heterosexual female pleasure attitude, celebration desire. For example, Kimura of female heterosexuality, Takuya 木村拓哉, a male idol and unsettled feelings toward commonly known as Kimutaku so-called second-wave who enjoyed widespread feminism, Kimura’s stance popularity from the mid-1990s can be characterized as to the 2000s, is considered “post-feminist,” and seems to the earliest manifestation of embrace both revolutionary ikemen.7 What set Kimutaku and conservative elements apart from his predecessors that Hambleton articulates in was the unabashed display of the aforementioned study.13 his physical beauty, a strong For example, throughout the fashion and body-conscious following interview, Kimura attitude, and an emphasis on frequently used the term sexual appeal.8 Many scholars futuu 普通 (normal/natural) consider the unmatched to describe her heterosexual popularity of Kimutaku desire for beautiful men and the among both men and women motivation behind her ikemen to indicate a significant shift painting. Kimura’s claim on in the concept of ideal hetero- the one hand boldly challenges masculinity and the changing the still-dominant tendency to role of women in the mid to late of erotic products marketed toward heterosexual sensationalize women’s frank 1990s. After the corruption of “bubble economy” women, the shift toward objectifying the male expression of their sexual desire as deviant, but helps address, if not criticize, the tawdry and in the early 1990s and during the prolonged body and encouraging female spectatorship on the other hand, it also unwittingly reinforces sometimes ridiculous nature of the so-called economic recessions throughout the next decade, of the male body in the context of gender and heteronormativity and possibly depoliticizes girls’ dream or heterosexual women’s fantasies the grey-suited “salaryman” lost his position as sexual equality continues to be contested. The women’s desire by characterizing her sexual promoted and perpetuated by the mainstream 15 Japan’s representation of hegemonic masculinity, philosopher Chiba Masaya claims that the orientation as normal and natural.