Tenmyouya Hisashi – Contemporary Japanese Literature

Title: Three Directions: teamLab, Tenmyouya Hisashi, Ikeda Manabu
Editor: Kirstin Pires
Publisher: Chazen Museum of Art and Japan Society Gallery
Publication Year: 2014
Pages: 83

Three Directions was published on the occasion of an exhibition of the work of Tenmyouya Hisashi and Ikeda Manabu at the Chazen Museum in Madison and the Garden of Unearthly Delights exhibition at the Japan Society Gallery in New York, which lasts until January 11, 2015.

The “three directions” of the book’s title refer to the artists’ interpretations of early modern and modern Japanese art, specifically the Nihonga “Japanese-style painting” of the Meiji period (1868-1912). In her short essay on the works of the artists featured in Three Directions, curator Laura J. Mueller provides insight into the influences they have received from medieval and Edo-period (1600-1868) Japanese paintings, prints, sculpture, and garden design. Mueller also explains how the themes of the older art, such as the theme of anxiety surrounding the relationship between humankind and the natural world, have been translated into the work of the contemporary artists. In the main body of the book, which is comprised of extended interviews, the artists discuss their own perceptions of their influences, which are far more temporally immediate.

teamLab, whose work must be seen to be believed (check out the video above), is represented in Three Directions by its founder Inoko Toshiyuki, who talks about the power of participatory media in the twenty-first century. Although he references manga such as Dragon Ball and One Piece and the masume ga (mosaics) of the eighteenth-century painter Itō Jakuchū, his most interesting description of the philosophy behind teamLab’s video installation Life Survives by the Power of Life (Seimei wa seimei no chikara de ikite iru) is that Chinese characters function like summon spells from the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. Inoko’s emphasis on a range of interlocking influences is deliberate, as teamLab’s work is designed to illustrate the blurring of the boundaries that supposedly separate contemporary media as they collectively exist both as entertainment and as cognitive enhancements.

Tenmyouya Hisashi expresses a markedly different attitude concerning his relationship to contemporary and premodern artistic media. According to Tenmyouya, his “Neo Nihonga” reflect “the subculture of the ‘street samurai,'” which “represents a counter to the traditional values of wabi sabi, zen, and otaku,” aesthetics that are “far from the reality of contemporary Japan.” Instead, he sees himself as tapping into the energy that originally drove the artistic movements of the Sengoku period (1467-1600), an era of intermittent civil war. Tenmyouya envisions his work as being representative of an aesthetic he terms BASARA – the Sanskrit word for “diamond,” which seems to mean “rebellious” in the context of his art and ideology. As one of his primary influences, he cites the yakuza films of Kitano Takashi, especially the violence, chaos, and dynamism they portray.

Ikeda Manabu is less concerned with aesthetics than he is with process. Stating simply that the most dominant theme in his work is “the conflict and coexistence between man and nature,” Ikeda speaks of being influenced by news reports and the ephemera he encounters in his daily life. The rest is a matter of design, focus, and patience, with the result being that many of his ink paintings function almost like diaries.

Ikeda is currently in residence at the Chazen Museum – you can read his residency blog here – where he is putting together a large and richly detailed masterwork. Three Directions includes an eight-page section on Ikeda’s tools, methods, and progress, which are fascinating even from the perspective of a non-artist.

These interviews with the artists, combined with Laura Mueller’s short contextual essay and the many high-quality images on display, make Three Directions an incredible resource for anyone interested in contemporary Japanese art, aesthetics, and culture. A commonality between the artists is the 3.11 “triple disaster,” which each references and responds to either obliquely or quite directly, so the interviews in particular will be of interest to students and scholars curious about how recent events have impacted mainstream art in Japan. I can also imagine the catalog becoming a useful classroom text, as it’s full of discussion points and allusions to both Eastern and Western art history.

Unfortunately, the book is almost impossible to acquire without either physically visiting the Chazen Museum or Japan Society Gallery or writing to one of their curators, as it’s not available through the online shops of either institution or through other online retailers. If you’re on the East Coast and can make it out to the Japan Society, I highly recommend checking out both the Three Directions catalog and the exhibition itself, which is running until January 11, 2015.

Review copy provided the Japan Society Gallery.

Ikeda Manabu’s Meltdown, image courtesy of Spoon & Tamago.

Title: Warriors of Art
Author: Yamaguchi Yumi (山口裕美)
Translator: Arthur Tanaka
Publication Year: 2007 (America)
Pages: 175

Warriors of Art is, simply put, a beautiful, interesting, and exceptionally well-edited introduction to contemporary Japanese artists. The forty artists presented by the book represent a wide range of styles, media, and themes. A large percentage of the artists are internationally renowned and probably somewhat familiar to many Americans, who should be able to identify their styles if not necessarily their names. The book is illustrated with works instantly accessible to the casual reader, and the image quality could not be better. Every image has been reproduced in full color (where applicable) against a white background. At $35 (and deeply discounted on Amazon), Warriors of Art is also available at an affordable price.

The five page general introduction to the collection is promptly followed by a parade of artists appearing in alphabetical order. Each artist has been allotted four pages, the first of which contains a half-page, two column introduction. I have to say that, even though I generally don’t find much use for the text in art books, I genuinely enjoyed reading each of the artist introductions. These introductions put the work of the artist into perspective with biographical details and offer a few extremely apt interpretive comments, referring only to the pieces reproduced within the book. An average of five works follow each artist’s textual introduction, although the number tends of vary from artist to artist.

As for the actual content of the book, I found it extremely disturbing. Sometimes I was mesmerized by a piece, my reaction being something like “!!!!!!!!!.” Sometimes I found myself quickly turning the page because I found myself deeply upset by a particular work. As Yamaguchi says in her introduction to the book, “A glance at the work of the forty artists introduced in the book reveals recurring images of the cute, the grotesque, the erotic, the violent.” I think her description of “recurring images of” might more accurately read “a constant and overwhelming deluge of” images of cuteness and terror, eroticism and subtle (and not so subtle) aggression. In fact, one of the first plates in the book, an anime-style picture by Aida Makoto called The Giant Member Fuji versus King Gidora, depicts a female character from the anime Ultraman crying as she is both disemboweled and sexually violated by a golden hydra of Godzilla fame. Things carry on in much the same vein from there.

Even though Warriors of Art is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart (or the underage), the images are colorful, eye-popping, and deeply engaging. Questions of national identity, sexual identity, and personal identity are tackled again and again by these artists, whose experiments with style, composition, and color yield shocking results. Even a brief look at the works in this book calls the duality of high art and popular culture into question. Certainly, even though the entirety of Warriors of Art can be read less than two hours, I found myself captivated with it for days, returning to it for fresh surprises and new insights.