at the opening ceremony
The "Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial" is at a turning point. About 200 artists/units are participating in this third installment of the festival, and a total of 337 pieces — including the permanent installations that remain from the previous two events — are scattered across an area that measures 760 square kilometres, which is more than the 23 wards of Tokyo all together. I heard people joke that even general director Kitagawa Fram hasn't seen all of them, and this large number of works is one of the hurdles of the "turning point". Although going under the name of "art triennale", the number of items that would have to be classified as "non-art" has increased, while hardcore contemporary art is reentering from a new, unexpected direction.
Fukutake House opening reception
"Newly entered" has Fukutake Soichiro from the education-related Benesse Corporation. A well-known art collector in his field, Fukutake has built the hotel "Benesse House", which has been showing numerous works of contemporary art, on the Seto Inland Sea island Naoshima (in 1992), and conceived the "Chichu Art Museum" that specializes exclusively in Claude Monet, Walter De Maria and James Turrell (2004). Both complexes were built by Ando Tadao, and in addition, on a different plot of Naoshima there is the reconstructed "Go'oh Shrine" that artist Sugimoto Hiroshi designed in 2002.
According to his own explanation, Fukutake with his extensive network of personal connections was "in charge of fund-raising", but at the same time he managed to involve seven representative Japanese contemporary art galleries (+ The University Museum, The University of Tokyo) in the conversion of a disused elementary school into an exhibition space he dubbed "Fukutake House". Director of the House is independent curator Iida Takayo, and the 11 exhibiting artists range from veteran Suga Kishio (Tomio Koyama Gallery) via middle-ranking artists including Someya Arika (Kenji Taki Gallery), Janaina Tschape (nca) and Koganezawa Takehito (Hiromi Yoshii), to such young talents as Kito Kengo (Gallery Koyanagi), Enomoto Koichi (Hiromi Yoshii), and others. Artworks are only exhibited but not sold, and since this means for the participating galleries little prospect of profit, Fukutake is financing everything out of his own pocket. "Naoshima in the west and Tsumari in the east are going hand in hand. The plan for the future is to invite also galleries from abroad to take part, and establish something like an art market", claims Fukutake self-confidently. The work that was best received this time is an installation by Christian Boltanski and Jean Kalman in another disused school building, and Fukutake is reportedly playing with the idea of buying the naming rights for that too. In that case, he would call it "Naoshima Chichu Art Museum, Echigo Pavillion".
This is of course a development Kitagawa must have approved, but in my view this is blurring the already obscure image of the Triennale even more. Previous criticism — especially from the fine art front — included such comments as, "The quality gap between the different exhibits is too big" and "There are too many displays that don't deserve being labeled 'art'", and Fukutake Soichiro seems to be participating out of the same kind of motivation. On the other hand, Kitagawa chose "earth" as this year’s theme, and, assisted by Inax Gallery chief director Irisawa Yuka, he invited a number of artists that are using earth as a motif or working material. Those include ceramic artists, whose efforts resulted in the attempt to establish "Tsumari ware" in an area without any tradition of pottery. Further, the presence of Dominique Perrault, Mikan, and other architects/units emphasized the impression of a "diffusion of genres".
In the case of Tsumari, however, where "defeat of depopulation" and "local revitalization" are major topics, there probably exists the opinion that "anything is good as long as it attracts visitors from other parts of the country". But when actually visiting the area, what remains is a rather unpleasant sense of discomfort. One of the problems is certainly the naming, "art triennale". "Art" can mean fine art, or art in a broader sense. This triennale is in fact categorized as a "geijutsusai" in Japanese, which would refer to the latter of the above notions of "art", while the name "art triennale" conjures up images of a conventional festival of fine art. As it is surely impossible to transform the event instantaneously into a festival dedicated exclusively to fine art, one realistic way to eliminate that sense of discomfort would be to erase the three letters "a-r-t" from the festival’s name.
Changing the topic, the "Nextage" final examination performances and announcements of winners of the "Toyota Choreography Award" were held on 7/29-30. The "audience award" was given to Yasumoto Masako on the first day, and to Enda Makoto on day two. " The title of "next generation choreographer" went to Shirai Tsuyoshi. There you are, it happened again… (see also Out of Tokyo vol. 90 and vol. 91)
Shirai’s piece was indeed great, but the choreographer/dancer, who launched the dance company "Study of Live works Baneto" after leaving Kim Itoh + the Glorious Future is already looking back on a long career — a pillar in "contemporary" dance for years and far from being "next generation" whatsoever. (Accepted for this competition are "entries from choreographers from all over Japan regardless of their careers or genres", and jokes like, "So what if Teshigawara Saburo chose to enter?" are already circulating in the scene.) Above this, although this is supposed to be an award for "choreography", too many of the candidates are performing their own solo pieces. Isn't choreography something universal that should be applicable to any performer?
So, here again we have the naming problem. Why don't they eliminate the "choreography" from the name and call it "Toyota Dance Award" instead? That would sum it up much better, and there would be less complaints from outsiders (like me). Also, the award would actually begin to make sense, and people who aren't good at English wouldn't have problems with the jawbreaking name.
As the Analects of Confucius say, "What is necessary is to rectify names," or in other words, words have to correspond with the actual circumstances. In this sense, I hope the names of both art festivals and awards will get rectified soon.
Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO