"ART iT" vol. 23 is titled "Art of memory / art of disappearance". On the cover is a work by Miyanaga Aiko, who has made remarkable progress in recent years. After showing her work at the Busan Biennale (Sea Art Festival) in 2008, she was discovered by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and invited to participate in a group exhibition at Tokyo Wonder Site Hongo, and selected for the third "shiseido art egg" event early this year, where she was eventually awarded the "shiseido art egg prize". This spring, Miyanaga’s works were introduced at "Artist File 2009: The NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art" at the National Art Center, Tokyo, the poster and other promotional visual items for which prominently featured the works she exhibited at the event. Showing at present at Mizuma Art Gallery, which the artist belongs to since last year, is "Dwelling in a boat", Miyanaga’s first ever solo exhibition at a commercial gallery (through 5/23).
What is particularly noteworthy is the consistency of medium and concept, along with the fact that the works she makes are always brand new and novel attempts. As I mentioned before (in "Out of Tokyo" vol. 167 among others), Miyanaga specializes in site-specific installations. While she chooses materials and media according to the occasion, her most typical and original material of choice is naphthalene. She uses the material to form life-sized shoes, hats or cell phones, which she then places in glass cases on top of light boxes or other devices that radiate heat, as a result of which the objects slowly evaporate. These works are made of the same material as mothballs, which gradually loses shape and ultimately disappears. Art of disappearance quite literally!
Photo by Miyanaga Aiko (taken at National Art Center, Tokyo)
provided by Mizuma Art Gallery
Miyanaga lets her works evaporate, however this doesn't mean that she just puts them somewhere and leaves the rest to fate. As she controls the time it takes for a work to disappear depending on the duration of the respective exhibition, there are naturally works that exist for just a few days, and others that stay in shape up to the last day of the event. It also happens that things that have been hidden inside the white objects become visible toward the end of an exhibition. In all cases, seeing how the glass cases are gradually covered with pure white crystals is a truly beautiful sight. "All is vanity" - such oriental kind of perception is what I associate with these works.
Photo by Miyanaga Aiko (taken at National Art Center, Tokyo)
provided by Mizuma Art Gallery
The show at the National Art Center closed on May 6th, and I went to see it four times. On the first day, all displayed objects were of course perfectly new, and looked as awkwardly stiff as a bunch of new students in the class. That feeling gradually volatilized, and around the middle of the exhibition period the "students" had taken on a somewhat "experienced" look. On the final day, some of the objects had become all skin and bone, while others had transformed so significantly that it was impossible to guess their original shape. The clock that graces the "ART iT" cover melted from the feet and turned over to lie flat on its back in the end.
Photo by Miyanaga Aiko (taken at National Art Center, Tokyo)
provided by Mizuma Art Gallery
The white objects were placed inside water tanks the artist had reportedly collected from fish shops in Pusan, while at Tokyo Wonder Site the work was exhibited along with the mold it was made from. The show at the Shiseido Gallery ("art egg") resembled a futuristic display of specimen in about 30 transparent tubes reaching from the floor up to the ceiling. For the National Art Center exhibition, the artist brought a dozen drawers from her family’s home in Kyoto, inside which she placed her works for a slow decay. There is a separate set of time next to accumulated time, that coaxes a little smile out of the viewer, who at the same time with a growing sense of melancholy. With the exception of Pusan, all of the above-mentioned exhibitions of Miyanaga’s works were of almost frighteningly high quality, and my special applause goes to both perfectionist Miyanaga and her thoroughly cooperating staff.
The current show at Mizuma marks a groundbreaking event in Miyanaga’s career, as she sold her first ever works at this occasion.
Many people from the art business were amazed by Mizuma Art Gallery owner Mizuma Sueo’s "brute courage" when he opted to include Miyanaga in his gallery’s roster of artists last year. Who is going buy objects made of naphthalene that will sooner or later disappear anyway? Miyanaga herself explains how she was once sent into a depression by a gallerist who asked her, "So why do you think people would buy your works?"
Most recently, Miyanaga unveiled a number of small, white naphthalene chairs and keys in transparent resin, which however doesn't mean that she is not holding to her principles as a master of the "art of disappearance". There are little holes (slits) in the resin, through which the naphthalene gradually vaporizes, so that even these chairs and keys ultimately disappear. Nonetheless, what is different this time is the point that the shapes of the chairs and keys remain in the form of imprints in the resin. What the artist creates here is a paradoxical (or complementary) relationship in which the "having certainly been there" is evidenced through the "not being there anymore", or in other words, factual "presence" is evidenced through "absence". Miyanaga managed to visualize disappearance and absence, and in addition, she managed to make that something one can own.
I'm not buying many works of art, but here I found two reasonably priced small items that I eventually purchased. In terms of a visualization and ownership of absence, this art form is reminiscent of photography, whereas photography is by definition unable to depict absence, and contrary to the imprints the naphthalene leaves in the resin, it emphasizes "absence" through the "presence" of things or persons shown. The imprints in the resin suggest intensely the fact that "the object may not be there anymore now, but it certainly was there before", as opposed to the notion of a "man/thing/place that isn't there anymore" expressed in photography. If photography is a "reproduction of reality", and if reality is transient, then Miyanaga Aiko’s art surely deserves being classified as "photography". That’s the kind of daydream I wound up in when viewing her works.
Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO