Category: Note

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Bright Shade

The time where you feel as if you’re returning to your true self within the course of the every day, becoming used to being honest. It’s a feeling similar to what you’ve almost forgotten from childhood. Precious but easy to lose, this is why I wanted to draw this in my work.    (Takumi Saito) 

　Without the right amount of water, light conditions, and nutrients, plants are unable to flourish. Light is a particularly important necessity, yet it’s difficult to produce artificially. Consequently, while it’s essential to find a spot which gets the proper amount of sunlight for each plant, for some, “bright shade” is more appropriate. If taken literally, this has to be a place of both light and shadow at the same time, and one wonders what this contradictory brightness is exactly. I tried to imagine such environments as a room with light shining through lace curtains, a place where the sun shines through trees, or a place where the sun shines for a short period of time, but none of them seems to be correct, as the actual illumination would vary considerably if measured. Opening and synthesizing several gardening books, we find that it is apparently a shade that is faintly brightened by indirect sunlight. Even knowing this, it is still difficult to grasp a clear vision of brightness from the phrase “bright shade.” This ambiguity is interesting, as if to say that because plants are bound to die from this vagueness, and we have no choice but to rely on the experience gained from our mistakes. However, situations in which we confront this reality, without being assured of our control over the plant’s life and death, is somehow uncomfortable, as if it allows for a place of distorted feelings.

　When I first saw Takumi Saito’s paintings, I was grasped by similar feelings. Frankly speaking, it was a bit awkward. I felt hesitant to look at other peoples’ quiet, daily lives, but at the same time, I also felt a perverse happiness in submitting to their irresistible whims. The work is faintly imbued with a complex emotion that is a mixture of the desire to look, longing, nostalgia, and adoration. There is a dangerous innocence, like that of a child who wavers unknowingly between the ambiguous boundary between loving and teasing. The colors are low in contrast, arranged in gentle tones, and the outlines are rounded and simple. The girls’ archaic expression, as if they are thinking of nothing at all, may be due to the simple expression of their eyes, which are merely a combination of solitary and elliptical shapes. The stylized drawing expression functions like lace to soften the awkwardness of Saito’s stealthy gaze. In Roland Barthes’ textual theory, “The Death of the Author,”[1] The death of the author,” the painter’s presence is left out of consideration, allowing the viewer to perceive the work without interference and making it easier to analyze the work itself. Saito’s work, however, does not allow for this. The author is never allowed to die, the ego and line of sight is revealed. Although we can say with certainty that her eyes do not contain any vulgar emotion, we do not deny that there is a small amount of violence inherent in her voyeuristic attitude. The more one tries to forget Saito, the artist, and to look purely at what is depicted in the work, the more one feels awkward, as if one is about to be assimilated into the slight sense of danger that pervades the work. This is a gentle, yet awe-inspiring painting that entangles the viewer. So, let’s untangle it little by little, and first of all, let’s tame this awkwardness.

　Saito paints not only girls, but also empty parks, landscapes of trees, and small toys. Let us start by thinking about those works. It seems that places and things that everyone else overlooks, or never pays attention to, are very attractive to Saito. For a moment, I had the fleeting vision that she might be depicting the scenery beyond the girls’ vague gazes, but I dismissed this idea because these sceneries seem a little too sharp to be superimposed on the girls’ empty gazes and appear to possess the spirit of searching for the “spirit of the place” [2], so to speak. The concept of “Terrain Vague” (vacant land) [3], as described by architect Ignasi Solà de Morales, refers to the vacant land that appears in urban voids, so-called abandoned or unused sites. No matter how functionally and efficiently a city is built, distortions are bound to occur somewhere.  No matter how functional and efficient a city is, distortions are bound to occur. Urban planning is the process of eliminating these distortions, or vacant lots. Solà de Morales describes it as “colonial construction,” and that is exactly what it is. By targeting the “Terrain Vague,” a dormant place abandoned by the usurper called the city, or a place where people are forced to flee, artistic expression brings out the unknown inherent in the city. Saito’s eyes do the same. The playground equipment standing in a deserted and unpopular park without a child interact with it on the playground only reminds us of the absence of the bustle that should have once existed there. Saito does not ask why the place has gone out of use, but rather depicts the absence and the empty unknown that arises in the “Terrain Vague,” a place that cannot be filled. What Christian Norberg-Schulz calls the “spirit of the place (Genius Loci),” is an attitude that contextualizes the history and spirit of a place’s past. The unknown aspect of the “Terrain Vague” is a situation in which the worn “spirit of the place” retains only a few remaining traces. Here, Saito gently captures the image she senses from the “spirit of the place,” which is so faint that only she can perceive it.

　Unknown and ambiguous. Let us return to the painting of the girls. Saito does not depict the girls as portraits. They are depicted as “ambiguous” beings who are “not yet” anything. The girls, with nowhere to be, are looking vaguely familiar. But their eyes. There is no light in the eyes of these girls, who are vulnerably exposing their unposed true faces. They are not aware that they are being watched, and even if their eyes were looking at us, they would never “see” us. For the girls in the painting, the absence is Saito and us.  It is impossible for our gazes to meet with something that is not there. If they do not meet, do they bounce off each other instead? The story of Through the Looking- Glass, and What Alice Found There [4] begins with the contrasting portrayal of Kitty, a black cat, and Snowdrop, a white cat. The presence of the two cats imprints on the reader’s consciousness from the beginning the role of a mirror that creates something similar but not identical. Kitty and Snowdrop are a mischievous black cat and a good little white cat, but in the mirror world they are transformed into an pedantic red queen and a somewhat lackluster white queen, inverting the balance between them. The world of the mirror reflects a semblance of reality, but it is still different. The moment Alice enters the world of mirrors, she spins around to show Kitty the world of reflections, reflecting everything in the room in her hand mirror. The moment she enters the mirror world, she realizes that it is different from reality, and instead of being anxious, she is delighted and excited. The world of the mirror image seems to be an exact replica of reality, but it is clearly something else. In his “A Short History of the Shadow,” Victor Stoichitsa discusses how his predecessors after Pliny’s “Natural History” tried to find the origin of painting through shadows and mirrors. He also introduces a passed from Alberti’s “Theory of Painting,” which states … Always, on the other side of what you see, there are shadows…”[5]. If a shadow is cast by the blocking of light striking an object, there is always light reflected on the opposite side of the shadow. Stoichitsa quotes Alberti as being somewhat critical of shadows as being under the control of the mirror paradigm, but even if this is not his intention, this mirroring relationship between light and shadow is suggestive.  Since the line of sight is an exchange of light between the two, the line of sight can only be reciprocated if the two sides facing each other are equally bright.  If one light is too strong, it will only cut out and deprive the object, and in that sense, the act of looking becomes violent. This is why Saito’s paintings are always especially white toned. She keeps her gaze in light and clouds; to point out the bright shade. Stoikitsa draws on Hegel in his preface to “The History of Shadows” [6]. Light and shadow are identical in that neither perfect light nor perfect darkness can be perceived, and it is only when they are in a reciprocal relationship of clouded light and illuminated darkness, respectively, that it is possible to discuss a distinction between the two. Too much light drowns out everything, and the deeper the darkness, the more it swallows everything. The world as seen by the human eye is established quietly in between the two. Saito’s world of paintings exists within the narrow range of brightness allowed to human beings. If dazzling light eventually shines on it, this scene may appear even more dazzling. But then, Saito’s gaze on the girls must be strong as well, or their figures will be drowned out by the light. This intimate place does not need strong light. Even if you can’t bear the awkwardness, don’t look too hard at this fragile and ambiguous place. This is a safe, ambiguous space, a gaping hole in the middle of society, wealth, politics, and all the other troublesome events created by glitzy adults. It is a place where it is permissible to be no one. In the twilight, it is also permissible to pretend to see nothing. Saito’s paintings are about things that are allowed to exist in the bright shade, but are quietly locked away in the painting, unnoticed.

 

[1] Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Introduction to the Structural Analysis of the Narrative, Translated by Hikaru Hanawa, Misuzu Shobo, (1979).
[2] Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, Translated by Kunio Kato and Yuzei Tazaki, Sumai Library Publishing Company, (1994).
[3] Ignasi Solà de Morales, “Terrain Vague,” Translated by Jun Tanaka, in “Anyplace,” NTT Publishing Co., Ltd., (1996): 128-134
[4] Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, Illustrated by  and Translated by , Esquire Magazine Japan(画:ヤン・シュヴァンクマイエル / 訳:久美里美)、エスクァイアマガジンジャパン、(2006).
[5] Victor Stoichitsa, A Short History of the Shadow,Translated by Atsushi Okada and Kaneshi Nishida, Heibonsha, (2008): 80
[6] Victor Stoichitsa, A Short History of the Shadow, Translated by Atsushi Okada and Kaneshi Nishida, Heibonsha, (2008): 7

Text by Ken Kobayashi
Translation by Elizabeth L. Jesse

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Amane Ishii solo exhibition「warp」／Eri Fukami solo exhibition「fictional reality.」

Exhibition information:
https://biscuitgallery.com/warp-fictionalreality/

 

Foreword

In 2019, I began putting together a research project titled “MIMIC.” In this project, I, together with Yohei Kumano, the main member, am exploring methodologies for description of artists while leaving their individual complexity intact as far as possible, through research of artists in our midst and archives.

Partly because I took up Amane Ishii in the first installment, for this installment, I decided to contribute a text for the solo exhibitions of Ishii and Eri Fukami that are going to be held simultaneously.

While I am well aware that this foreword may be superfluous, I would nevertheless like to set forth my basic perspective. I believe this approach will facilitate understanding of my later comments.

I like the individual skills and techniques of artists. I am keenly interested in thinking about the yardstick distinct to the particular artist and the peculiar “obscurity” they can have precisely because of who they are.

For example, in painted works, the ability to make sharp, clear-cut lines is proof of a high technical capability. However, not all artists aspire to make such lines. Depending on the case, a weak, wavering line may be absolutely necessary for the artist in question.

It may not be just any kind of weakness; it may be with this weak line that the artist moves toward individuality. This is a matter of technical “quality” arising on a level different from that of newness or public appraisal. In addition, first and foremost, this peculiar “obscurity” is definitely not self-complacency, even if it appears to be stereotyped or immature on the surface.

But it is also true that such individual techniques and outlooks on value may not be amenable to translation into the language of others. Alternatively, there may be some sort of need to intentionally avoid any desire to be understood by others.

The wish to examine methodologies for describing the individuality of artists premised on such “obscurity,” as opposed to any emphasized individuality or a constructivist context, is at the foundation of my awareness on the issue.

It is from the perspective of the aforementioned interest that I view the works of Ishii and Fukami in this text.

At the same time, because both of these artists are active on an ongoing basis, I want to avoid drawing any definitive lines in regard to them. In my remarks, I will therefore refrain from any judgments to a certain extent.

biscuit gallery is holding not a two-person show but two simultaneous solo exhibitions. I will consequently write about each separately instead of straining to make connections between their works. Ishii’s works are shown on the first and second floors, and Fukami’s, on the third floor. I will therefore consider Ishii’s works first.

Warp, a solo exhibition of works by Amane Ishii

For this exhibition, Ishii said she was going to show portraits. When I went to her studio to take a look, there was a huge canvas of about size 100 containing several portraits in her usual style and girls gazing at them. On the periphery of this work were small portraits that looked as if they had been cut out of larger ones.

So the portraits within the painting were apparently going to be shown in the actual display space, I supposed. I figured this was a natural development for Ishii, because she had repeatedly put motifs appearing in her paintings in paintings within paintings and in other works.

It is difficult to draw an overall picture of Ishii’s works, because their elements are tangled up with each other in the manner of a diffused reflection. But if I were to take one element of her art to ponder in connection with this exhibition, signs and symbols*1 might be a good choice.

Peter Doig, for example, puts boats and grids in different works while changing the style of rendering, size, and motifs applied. By so doing, the images of boats and grids are turned into signs by his own hands. Boats become symbols of Doig.

Similarly, in Ishii’s works as well, the images of girls’ eyes, pointing fingers, goblins, centaurs, and tulips are repeated in various paintings. There is nothing odd about extensive use of favorite icons, but her case is one of deliberate signing through the medium of motifs with a highly referential dimension, such as pictures within pictures and mirrors.

Signs are also deeply intertwined with the change in Ishii’s production attitude in recent years. In Kagami 2 (2019), for example, the tulip takes the form of a child’s scribbling. Just as most people understand that a drawing of a circle with radiant lines around it depicts the sun, the sign in this case has an implication close to those of signposts or ideograms. In Bani kakutasu no nikko fusoku (2021) shown at her solo exhibition in October 2021, however, the plant (albeit not a tulip) is executed in a manner that is even more true to nature than before. In connection with this change, I recalled her comments in an interview in June 2021.

“In the process of using signs and making things flat, you are liable to end up skipping something that you should absolutely do. Things like that could be done later on; only a few years have passed since I started painting. (…) Signs have the aspect of running away, and I think I should be cautious about them.

– From the MIMIC interview with Amane Ishii (omission by the author)

The topic here was whether or not to depict the shadow falling on the painting frame. For Ishii at present, to disregard the appearance of the actual plant and paint on the strength of its atmosphere would probably be a kind of “loafing.” Her comments above suggest that she would not be averse to such abbreviation once she becomes more technically proficient, but she has just begun painting and wants to be better able to paint all sorts of things now.

I really understand this position of hers, and believe that it is having a good influence on her paintings. Furthermore, I think it shows a close linkage with the technical yardstick in her works and the disparity of signs/symbols. Here, I would like to draw an additional line.

Alex Katz came to the fore in the 1950s and is often categorized as a Pop Art artist because of his portraits in the style of illustrations. In an interview with Robert Storr, however, Katz spoke of his interest in producing excellent paintings and reminisced about heading in a direction completely different from Pop Art. He explained this difference from Pop Art from two orientations.

First, Katz cited the difference between signs and symbols.
A sign is like a stop sign, for example, that means “stop!” It has no meaning beyond that.
The sign for the sky is blue. That for grass is green. In Katz’s view, the use of such images clear to anyone, i.e., signs, was characteristic of Pop Art. He said that he, in contrast, was interested in something a little more complex.
That something was symbols. Symbols are not confined to a single meaning, and hover in the background of the portraits drawn by Katz. His first thesis was that he handled symbols, which were much more variable than signs.

Next, Katz cited technical standards. In this connection, he uses the playful expression “big technique,” which is a coinage of his own. The following is a direct quote from the interview.

“The painting performance is something I got interested in. Pollock was pretty good, but when I really got how well Picasso could paint once he got to Girl Before a Mirror (1932). Actually you don’t get a big technique until you’re around 35 or 40, usually, if you’re any good. Picasso’s early paintings were technically, for me, pretty wobbly. Even his great Cubist paintings don’t have a big technique. When he gets into his fifties—when he does Girl Before a Mirror—that’s a big technique. For me, it was just awesome, and that’s what I wanted to do.

“Matisse has a big technique. It took me three or four years to learn how to appreciate paintings. I was in art school, and the teacher said, ‘Take a look at Matisse.’ Well, I fainted; I couldn’t believe anyone could paint that well! That was a big technique.

“So, that’s what my mind was set on—that and the small technique things. They function in terms of invention and they function in terms of fashion and style. There are some terrific Pop paintings, but I had my eye set on something else.”
– From Carter Ratcliffe, Robert Storr, Iwona Blazwick, Alex Katz; Phaidon Press, 2007, pp. 14 – 15.

In a prior interview, Ishii said that she wanted to “throw” her paintings far. This way of expressing her desire to see her paintings remain far into the future strikes me as in keeping with her sensibility.

In it, one catches a subjective nuance of projecting works toward a tense other than the present. The paintings are being cast like dice into places differing from the here and now.

The works ordinarily seen at museums or other sites have been thrown out into numerous times while still remaining in the present. To be sure, people’s views of paintings change, and paintings themselves age. In principle, nevertheless, paintings live for a longer time than people. Transcending time and place, we encounter subjects from the distant past in them.

Besides passage back and forth through the dimension of painting space, the title of Ishii’s solo exhibition conveys her private yearning and wishes for paintings that have withstood the temporal and spatial deformation accompanying such passage.

The word “symbol” derives from a Greek word meaning “to throw together.”*2

Use of signs in the sense that Katz ascribed to Pop Art is suited to a contemporary (time shared together) age in respect of having a provisional universality and coexisting with the consumption of the times. It may be that symbols ring out the possibilities held by signs and cast them into a different phase.

I am certain that in paintings which will be “thrown far” in Ishii’s words dwell the power of such symbols and the skill called “big technique” by Katz. Moreover, her own paintings may be moving in that direction.

Lastly, I must mention that Ishii’s works always contain a sign that is not visible to the eye: a look. Just as Doig turns boats into his own signs, Ishii makes signs out of the motifs of closed eyes and empty eyes. These eyes are also identified by the evanescence and warmth distinctive to her paintings.

The looks transformed into signs by Ishii’s hands wander around inside her paintings, in mirrors, paintings in paintings, windows, and sometimes body movements, gestures, and the lines of pastry bags. The girlish eyes (signs) are symbols throwing the existence of such gazing back at the viewer.

Fictional reality.,  a solo exhibition of works by Eri Fukami

Contrary to the impression one may initially receive from her paintings, I doubt I know of any other artist who expresses real experiences as frankly as Eri Fukami.

For example, when people say they were so surprised that they jumped into the air, they didn’t actually jump into the air. When painting such a scene, however, to depict a person jumping into the air may very well match the reality of the actual feeling that gripped the person.

Fukami attempts to make stories out of such intuitive realities, with almost no embellishment.

In her paintings, there may be several Fukamis, and her own figure may be projected on reminiscences of her grandmother. This is because such depictions match her inner feelings as “reality.”

But real problems are not the whole story of Fukami’s works; many of the images appearing in them call to mind landscapes that are distant memories, dreams, and formative experiences preserved in the subconscious.

The nude figures tie mental images of Adam and Eve and other subjects related to the emergence of human beings together with intimate space represented by family and “you and I” (see Tsuioku (2022), Tsumugu seimei (2021), and Watashi hitori dake  (2021)).

Gazing at the fictitious world created by Fukami in this way, we are virtually assailed by the sensation that natural images (sources of self) and primeval images (sources of the world)  are connected at one place. Fukami states that to die is to return. To view life and death, and the self and others, within a cyclic process merging them into one is to participate in the outlook on the world expressed in Fukami’s paintings.

Were you and I originally one? Did we come from some single place?

Fukami’s works are a topos where this sort of awareness of the world (reality) and actual experience (reality) are encountered as a unit.

Precisely because plural times, plural places, and plural world lines dwell in a single painting as things that have been lived, Fukami’s paintings look chaotic.

To put the scene born in the brain down on the canvas in a form that is as alive as possible requires the completion of works at a speed that is as close as possible to that of synapse transmission. Fukami finished painting Tsuki ga totemo kirei na hi  (2002) in about two hours.

Inevitably, the canvas manifests vivid coloration and raw brush strokes that emphasize subjectivity. The depiction of human motifs in a semiotic manner may derive less from a formalistic interest and more from a degree of resolution that facilitates the capture of bodily forms.

In respect of these expressionistic attributes, Fukami bears a certain resemblance to Shinya Azuma and Mie Iida, who belong to the same generation of artists. Azuma, however, uses representations that are more ironic and have a sham villainy, and Iida adopts a self-referential attitude toward self-referencing. They give the impression of turning back to the technique of painting after viewing the cultural framework from a meta-perspective.

In the case of Fukami’s works, the particularity about cultural regularity is not that strong. Although this is an odd way to put it, I would say she skips systemic issues and handles mythic ones.

Nevertheless, with a technique this close to sketching, Fukami’s paintings would seem to differ little from drawings. When I asked her about this, she said that there was practically no difference and that, on the contrary, drawings would have a higher degree of completion and “facilitate understanding of the linkage between her own memories and reality.” If that’s the case, why make oil paintings? Her response to this question could be summarized as follows.

“If I did drawings with crayons, which I have used since childhood and feel perfectly at home with, I could produce works with stable quality every time. With oil paintings, in contrast, the results change along with physicality. In the real world, one-time events happen every day. We have no choice but to deal with them, then and there. The same kind of thing can best be done in oil painting. Pigments are fluid, and color development and oil spread vary every time. I also change what I use in correspondence with the situation at the time. For example, I may select inorganic pigments for living beings and organic ones for dead ones. The resulting image changes accordingly.”
(From notes from an advance interview)

In this case, hard-to-handle oil pigments are likened to contact with the outer world and others. Through the medium of this otherness, a transformation is required of the self and works, like it or not.

Otherness could be regarded as a precondition for Fukami’s subjective “reality.” This is an important point. The features described so far lend the impression that Fukami is depicting “her own” inner world. But Fukami is also summoning her self from the outside.

Insofar as she is showing works in the public space of an exhibition, it goes without saying that Fukami is aware of a self incorporating the eyes of others. The narrative “reality” she spins lies in the gap of rapture open to negotiation with others.*3

In spite of this, such a subjectivistic style of painting may be expected to come in for criticism, too.

Hal Foster questions the idea of the unconscious that people who attach importance to expression of inner worlds treat as if it were their prerogative. In his view, the expressionists showcased their faults and vices, perhaps being obliviousness to how the self is culturally constructed right from the stages of inspiration and motivation. According to him, the intuitive expressions produced by these artists constitute but one of the patterns completely codified by existing art history.*4

This outlook is a criticism leveled at all artists who stress expression (or existence) alike.

As a matter of fact, Fukami’s works are at risk of making viewers think they have seen them somewhere before.

For example, to give a direct form to personal existence and emotion is something that has been done by artists of the preceding generation, e.g., Masato Kobayashi, Hiroshi Sugito, O JUN, and Reiko Ikemura. While this observation is no more than a mental association related to the ideological element, it also applies partially to the specific expression. The way trees are painted in Fukami’s A gray town that I can’t remember (2022), for example, recalls O JUN’s A dove flying away, I am surprised, and the touches of pencil, Sugito’s three roofs (2012).

Whether such similarities appear to be on the order of love or influence, or end up being inferior versions as world views, depends on the intensity of Fukami’s own works. In addition, the immediacy of painting images in their raw state unavoidably holds the danger that the works will not rise above a semiotic crudity. As I noted in the preceding text on Ishii’s art, use of signs is also linked to a flatness. As such, it would presumably be difficult to specify a technical middle ground for settlement of this issue. This boils down to simple matters, such as the cat that appears in Omoidashitara  (2022) not looking like a cat at first glance, and a less than perfect conveyance of the lively swaying of flowers in the same painting. It is unclear whether the object is full expression of Fukami’s reality or a depiction that is comprehensible to the general public. But I have the feeling that Edvard Munch, Marc Chagall, and Miriam Cahn all deftly navigated these straits in their paintings.

That said, it may be that Fukami has already determined her course herself. There has been a change in the way she renders people. Her initial direction of deliberately semiotic depiction (Suki (2022)) has been followed by works that show the addition of facial expressions and accessories, a little at a time, that have enriched the portrayals.

Fukami may very well easily overcome not only my wonderings but also Foster’s line of criticism.

In this text, I have transliterated “reality” in terms of the sense of reality and perception of the world in various ways. When I asked Fukami how she would translate “reality,” she replied “chaos.” Because she was torn between that and “truth,” her reply might be completely different if I asked her again today. But “chaos” really makes a lot of sense to me.

The reality experienced by Fukami is a memory-mixed mélange of inner gut feelings and perceptions of the world. It creates a narrative world through the contact with the external world in the form of pigments and canvas.

A plural number of raw “realities” are alive on a single flat world.

It is indeed a chaos “reality.”

 

Symbol (…)

1.A mark or sign indicating something else. 2) An effect connecting two things that have no inherent connection (a concrete thing and an abstract thing), based on some similarity. For example, The use of a white color to express cleanliness and a black color to express sadness. (Translation of an entry from Kojien, sixth edition, edited by Izuru Shinmura, Iwanami Shoten, 2008; omission by the author)

2.Dictionary of English Etymologies*, edited by Yoshio Terazawa (Kenkyusha, first edition, 1997, p. 1393) and Greek Lexicon*, edited by Harukaze Kogawa (Daigaku Shorin, first edition, 1989, p. 198)
* Tentative translations for titles of books available only in Japanese.

3.From “Aura and Agora: On Negotiating Rapture and Speaking Between,” an essay by Homi K. Bhabha, as contained in a collection of Homi’s works in Japanese translation by Junichi   Isomae and Daniel Gallimore, published by Misuzu Shobo in 2009.

4.Hal Foster, “The Expressive Fallacy,” Art in America, February 1983.

 

Text translated by James Koetting

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I am the sort of person who believes that, just as artists are expressers, so are galleries. While I will go into the implications of this belief later on, I think that a retrospective look at the achievements of biscuit gallery with the approach of the first anniversary of its opening will afford a view of another kind of expression, creation, or output of conviction.

Artists show their own identity mainly through their works. This raises the questions of where the individuality of galleries lies, what distinguishes, differentiates, and characterizes them relative to others, and how this is expressed. Although the answers naturally vary with the person, I would suggest, for example, that the key elements are the esthetic sense of the gallery owner or director, the presence or absence of regulation at work in the selection of artists, and the creation of a venue for exhibitions.

This brings up another question: just what is the ID that sets biscuit gallery apart from the many other young galleries? To put it in a slightly indirect way, I would say it is a lust for the times. Japan’s art scene is in an ongoing process of formation and development, and lust is at the very roots of efforts to grasp, analyze, and map it, and moreover all on a large scale and at a high speed. As I see it, the source of biscuit gallery’s appeal and power is precisely this lust. Proceeding from the pure and innocent question about the kinds of artists out there today in this age, biscuit gallery engages in style-making while staying attuned to the times. This is exactly why, at first glance, the scope of its coverage seems too vast to be handled by a single gallery. However, this is not the result of random action, and I believe that things will look different if viewed from a perspective on a little higher plane.

Consider, for example, the case of Vitamin Creative Space, an art scene player born in China in the early 2000s. This space studied the relationship of traditional Chinese philosophy, thought, and culture with contemporary art, and developed activities that mashed these elements up together. At present, both the space itself and artists whose careers started there are appearing on the international stage. The aforementioned “perspective on a little higher plane” is nothing less than the kind of vision this player has. In other words, it is a vantage for an overview of the relationship between a globalized world and our own local position.

In our view, the contemporary world is, on the surface at least, becoming exceedingly seamless and borderless. It is being redefined as a single mass society on a global level. Beginning in the 1980s, the ideas of Edward Said and others stimulated discussion of diversity. The network culture and metaverse concept hint at a shift from a world of physical separation to a new integrated topos. Meanwhile, the emergence of issues on a global scale and other factors engendered linkages with worlds “over there” which (we thought) had had no connection with us. As I see it, due to the aggregate effect of these and other developments, we have acquired a new sort of grammatical person, i.e., the “we who live in a globalized world.”

For this very reason, global standards and rules are now liable to be required in anything we do. The need for awareness of this “larger world” definitely applies to art as well. Contemporary art is undoubtedly a genre whose birth, spread, and maintenance are based in Western Europe, but the door is, of course, also open to other regions. Today, the distance between “global” (= Western Europe) and “local” (= non-Western-European regions) has greatly narrowed as compared to the past. What attitude must we adopt when we stand on this bigger stage and become involved in art from the standpoint of Japanese nationals? In my opinion, an excessive focus on learning from Western European players may not necessarily yield only benefits. If we take a step or two into the world, we find countless players already there. They have their feet firmly planted on the foundation laid by the dense history of their (i.e., Western European) art, which has been edited over such a long period of time. In addition, we presumably also notice that all of their discussion unfolds along the lines of this history. In short, I am afraid that, the more we learn from these Western European players or put this learning into practice, the higher the risk of being perceived as merely imitating the artists “over there,” regardless of our intentions.

I have digressed quite a bit from my main subjects here, which are the expressiveness of biscuit gallery and the wide range of its selection of artists. Based on the foregoing remarks, it is clear that one of the requirements for an art player is recognition of the “larger world view.” This must be accompanied by confirmation of one’s own positioning. In our case, I would define this as the awareness of being in the locale of Japan, and that this locale is but one part of the larger world. Next, we must ask ourselves which of our many assets we can put to effective use in competition in the larger world. Instead of further beating around the bush, let me simply state that I think, in its activities over this last year, biscuit gallery has been a kind of explorer.

To compete in the larger world and to make preparations for doing so demand knowledge of the world around us, as related above. Much of the work of a “gallerist” is performed together with artists. Over the last year, I believe biscuit gallery has practiced PoC-type action on the proposition that knowledge of the art and artists in your own country in the current age is a prerequisite for venturing out into the international art scene. The lust for the times I mentioned above is nothing less than the energy and drive needed for in-depth examination of the times we live in and the artists active in them. To return to the topic presented at the start of this text, what biscuit gallery is portraying is, needless to say, the contemporary art of this country and these times – something based on an eminently standard theme. That’s how it looks to me, anyway.

Shinzo Okuoka

Translate by James Koetting