I attended a sneak preview of the Yokohama Triennale on 9/27. Director Kawamata Tadashi himself guided a press tour, but of course a one-hour walk across the Triennale grounds isn't enough to have a sufficient look at the displays. After that I watched for one hour the "Buren Cirque cie Etokan", announced at this time’s highlight, and then, as there were still 30 minutes until the start of the reception party, went back to exhibition hall 4B. After having some quick snacks and beer at a separately thrown BBQ party for invited guests, I spent another hour checking out the displays in halls 4A-C. Please note that the below are my impressions gathered during only three and a half hour in the hectic atmosphere one day before the opening.

Director Kawamata Tadashi

First of all I want to express my respect to Kwamata and his team for their efforts to open the Triennale according to schedule. We shouldn't forget that after Isozaki Arata’s resignation Kawamata was appointed director in December 2004, which gave him only nine months to put together a exhibition of international scale. During these nine months Kawamata had to choose and negotiate with participating artists, work out a plan for the composition of the venue, engage in promotion and management, and communicate on all kinds of things with all individuals involved in the making… Considering this huge amount of work, the result that we can now inspect in Yokohama is unbelievable.

As I pointed out in this column before, the strategy Kawamata chose in order to get the Triennale going after an extremely short preparatory phase is to present an "art festival as work-in-progress". Considering Kawamata’s own orientation as an artist, this concept fits him perfectly, and I think he chose the best way to take advantage of the tough circumstances. As if to prove this, even the greatest flatterer couldn't call the two warehouses that function as the Triennale’s main venues "beautiful". The plywood enclosing each artist’s booth is bare and unpainted, which conjures up images of something "under construction". In literature that would be Mori Ogai’s novel "Fushinchu (Under Reconstruction)". Anyway, both Mori’s novel and Kawamata’s Triennale are just perfect in their quality as "works in progress", with a rough and bawdy kind of power that perfectly finished works could never achieve.

On the other hand this means of course that the works on display are rather incomplete. I can even imagine people calling this Triennale a "school festival made by adults", but I guess this simply has to be overlooked. At the press conference after Kawamata’s appointment he stated half-jokingly, "I'm willing to do this job even under such bad temporal conditions, so whatever the result I guess nobody will complain." And this "insurance" covers not only the organizer, but also us. (It goes without saying that, regardless of such circumstances, the question whether the fun people visiting the Triennale at their own expenses have measures up to the ticket price is subject to everyone’s own examination, assertion and critique. But it’s not Kawamata or anybody working on the Triennale ground today who is to blame. If anybody, it’s the "chief host" who is responsible to being late a full year with the festival, and caused such confusion in the first place.)

Chen Zhen "Purification Room"

In regard of the results, the short preparation period generated a few problems. One has to do with the desire of art to mix with adjoining disciplines, as I discussed before in this column and "ART iT" magazine. In order to make the festival more attractive and spectacular, the aforementioned circus was included in the lineup, as were a number of performing artists and companies. The point is, before discussing the rights and wrongs of including performing arts in an art festival, one has to make a perfectly balanced selection. Another problem - and this I have written about in previous articles too - is the PR system. There is not much to say about this, but I just want to mention that the job of promoters isn't over with the opening of the festival, but it’s supposed to be a "work in progress" too.

Ingo Gunther: In his work one can see Mt. Fuji.

So, for those of you who don't feel like visiting a "school festival", I'd like to introduce some of the works on display from my own perspective. The rather "complete" (or, as a staff worker called them, "grown-up") works are gathering in the "storage shed No. 4", in the exhibition halls 4B and 4C. Artists here include Chen Zhen, Ingo Gunther, Matsui Chie, Robin Rhode, Takamine Tadasu, Yoneda Tomoko + Ashiya City Museum of Art & History + Volunteer Group Tomato, and others. Takamine’s contribution wasn't finished at the time of the preview, but I heard that it will be (something like) a significantly revised version of the installation he presented at the "Living Together is Easy" exhibitin in 2004 at Art Tower Mito.

A variety of events will be hold during the Triennale, the most promising of which we will introduce here on REALTOKYO. With a little bit of exaggeration, I imagine that the evaluation of this Triennale-in-progress will turn out differently each day until the event closes on December 18.