Document generated on 09/26/2021 9:15 a.m. Espace Sculpture 1-800-Anxiety John K. Grande Number 35, Spring 1996 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/9932ac See table of contents Publisher(s) Le Centre de diffusion 3D ISSN 0821-9222 (print) 1923-2551 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Grande, J. K. (1996). 1-800-Anxiety. Espace Sculpture, (35), 36–38. Tous droits réservés © Le Centre de diffusion 3D, 1996 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Taro Chiezo, The Edge of Chaos. 1994. Acrylic on SRP and metal. Courtesy of the artist. Shiraishi Contempo­ rary Art, Japan, and Sandra Gering Gallery, New York. The power Plant, Harbour­ front Centre, Toronto. John K. Grande 1-800-Japanese artists seem increasingly con AMY IETY l.m.mese artists seem in< re.ixinvlv i • • » ~ ^^* ^^^^ scious of their role as international players In most cases, these artists are shinjinrui small hybrid breasts fused to it, a metallic (new-generation man) who decry the forc­ blue calf with a fuselage welded onto its on the arts scene. While in such shows as es that are fragmenting Japan's once ho­ rear end: these part synthetic, part organic mogeneous society through simple beasts of the techno-future inhabit a uni­ in A Primal Spirit, the last great show of escapism or a playful sense of theatrical­ verse with no sense of its origins or future ity. But just as Japan's titular place as one direction. According to Chiezo, dualistic CcontemporarI y Japanese art held at the Na- of the world's business and political lead­ criteria no longer apply. He states: "Matter ^1ona l Gallery of Canada in the summer of ers mars these artists' vision, the social he­ and phenomena, living things and ma­ donism, avoidance and delight their chines, mind and body, nature and arti­ 1991, this was commendable, The Age of works describe also inevitably play into fice, desires and morals, existence and Anxiety reflects a self-conscious, vacuum the hands of global political and econom­ nothingness—all of these have to be rec­ ic control. Those same political and busi­ onciled."' These brightly coloured crea­ sealed approach to art that carefully plans ness (read arts) interests (The Japan tures are nevertheless irreverent curiosity Foundation, A, T & T, Canadian Airlines pieces or confabulated techno-candies out its message and then presents it as an International, etc.) actually sponsored that willfully inhabit this non-space. Chie­ their show, gesturing with big sponsorship zo's work decries any sense of respon­ effect rather than a truth. These bright bucks to ensure contemporary Japanese sibility or respect for the ecological young Japanese artists, originally from art a prominent place on the world's systems and forces of natural forces we stage. Do these works truly reflect new will always depend upon. Issues such as Kyoto and Tokyo, are fatalistic and cyni­ polarities between Japan's past and pre­ medical technology's genetic engineering sent, the scars, or anxiety Japanese author of living species become a one-liner, but cal, not only about the present but also Kenzaburo Oe referred to when he re­ one enacted in a void-like endgame uni­ ceived the Nobel Prize for literature in verse. the future. Like bit players in a one act 1994? One wonders if somewhere back in In Noboru Tsubaki's own words, his pièce de théâtre (certainly not Beckett), Japan, out of the spotlight and unspon- goal in life is "to live somewhere between sored, there are artists working towards a bureaucratic systems and kitsch." As an their works address social issues of a pre­ more integral vision. exploration of the shallowness of an in­ Taro Chiezo's hybrid half-machine, creasingly global kitsch culture of distrac­ sent and future prescribed by technology, half-animal The Edge of Chaos creatures, tion and the bureaucratization of many as much as by business and bureaucracy. installed on walls {Calf-Engine-1994) and aspects of modern life, Tsubaki's hysteri­ on the floor {Lamb-Banana NV/-1994) of cally huge plastic parakeets, collectively Japan's relation to its feudal past, from The Power Plant, are a kind of die-cast de­ titled Polly Zeus (1994), tended to debase signer nightmare, a benign futurist's rec­ art to the level of superficial attraction. what we see in this show, appears as am­ ognition of technology's indelible imprint Perched in the air on the ground floor of on the natural and human world. A head­ The Power Plant, these gigantesque cou­ biguous as its future. less deer with a vacuum cleaner and nine sins to something you might buy at a it, ESPACE 35 PRINTEMPS / SPRING potential it had to encourage the public to question these issues. In effect Ideal Copy became an Ideal Copy of what it cri­ tiqued. Yuji Kitagawa's The Rule of Actions (1992-94) adopted the cliché that clothes make a man in an attempt to address the breakdown of social order and collective Yoshiko Shimada, identity in today's Japan. One piece com­ Look At Me. Look At prised an incongruous, torso-shaped bod­ You, 1995. Murti media installation. ice or tailor's dummy made up of Scotch Dimensions vanable. tartan and black plastic/leather with an Courtesy of the upside down hat on top. A video nearby artist and Ota Fine presented a slapstick Chaplinesque sce­ Arts. Tokyo. The power Plant, nario of two identical looking men wear­ Harbourfront ing identical hats, shirts and ties, in the act Centre, Toronto. of putting on and taking off the same grey and black pant and blazer sets, all irrevo­ cably sewn together and designed by the famed Japanese designer Comme des Garçons, in a never ending purposeless action. As one was in the process of put­ ting the clothing on, the other was taking Dollar Store for your children one day, out a receipt with the day's date, rate of it off, and vice versa. A performance and throw into the recycling box for future exchange and total weight in grams about the loss of, and confusion about, in­ meltdown the next, are aggrandized repli­ whereupon one finally received the arbi­ dividual identity in a society increasingly cas of the plastic companion birds one trary equivalent in Ideal copy art money. fixated on outward appearance, echoed puts in birdcages to amuse the live birds. As visitors went to look at the pile of ac­ Japan's ritualistic religious traditions, One could see them in bright jelly bean cumulated foreign money sitting in a dis­ which also involve repeated actions. type colours lit up in the unreal glow of play case, they could also see others Yukinori Yanagi's Wandering Position sodium vapour lamps at night. doing the same thing on a video display (1995) installation included a video of the Ideal Copy, Channel : Ideal Copy's Channel: Exchange (1995) nearby. While Ideal Copy questioned the artist crawling about on his knees (he did Exchange, 1995. booth, with surveillance camera and at­ superficiality of a society driven by mon­ Mixed media this for a week) following an ant with a installation. tendant security guard, invited visitors to ey, the real medium of exchange was not red magic marker recording its sporadic Dimensions variable. step up and exchange their foreign curren­ art but Ideal Copy's vacuous social com­ industry as it moved to and fro within a Courtesy of the cy (anything but local Canadian currency) mentary on the global political economy. steel frame. Adjacent to the video moni­ Collective, with for Ideal Copy's art money coins. An as­ So explicit were these issues, and enacted tor, one could see the actual site of the ac­ assistance from Shiseido Co. Ltd, sistant seated behind a desk wearing with such a sublime sense of realistic de­ tion. The markings covered the floor of Tokyo. The Power white gloves weighed the coins in an tail, the intended theatricality of this the gallery like a crazy abstract. The steel Plant, Harbourfront electronic balance, which then printed quasi-performance piece sidelined any frame had been opened up just slightly. Centre, Toronto. Asia Pacific Ant Farm (1995) consisted of an immense assemblage of transparent boxes on a wall depicting the flags of many of the world's nations composed of layers of coloured sand. Each of these "flags" was connected to those above, beside and below it by an ingenious net­ work of plastic tubing. Inside, one could see harvester ants industriously moving the material back and forth along the tube/tunnels from one box to the next. Over the duration of the exhibition, as the ants continued to build their nests and passageways, the flags gradually disinte­ grated and became virtually unidentifi­ able. Fed on a diet of honey and water located in a tray in the back of the piece, these ants eventually died as no Queen ant was present. Another load of harvester ants were subsequently brought up from Utah. As a comment on the old New World Order and the decline of national­ ism, Yanagi's piece was succinct and to the point, but as to whether it was art, one could never really be sure.