April 16-- May 13, 2003
open 13:00-19:00
(first day from 15:00, closed on Sunday & Holiday, final day until 17:00)
at Gallery Para GLOBE
B1 3-54-5, Wada, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, JAPAN
Tel 81-3-3315 -6950
presented by Gallery Para glove, Yutaka Itami
Taisuke Morishita's solo exhibition,"Kuni GHQ Sumeragi", will be held soon at gallery Para Glove.
What is "contemporary art" in Japan? What is Japan today?
The artist claims that to consider this matter, it is necessary to think about the two previous eras. The artist's point of view is as follows:
In the Meiji era, the first seed of fine arts in Japan was planted byTenshin Okakura,
-the fine-arts bureaucrat in the Meiji government-in order to establish an art form of/for Sumeragi (the emperor) in Japan, according to the ideology of Sonnoh-ron(the ideology that the emperor must be the center of Japan and ruler of 'his' people).The fundamental principle of this ideology was based on Koukokushikan (the mystical Empiricism) that was invented in the middle of the Edo era. After the acceptance of Western fine art, the art of Koukoku (Great Japan Empire) finally evolved into "war paintings".
The second era began as a result of the defeat during World War 2.
Japan was occupied by the United States.The GHQ (Ｇｅｎｅｒａｌ Ｈｅａｄｑｕａｒｔｅｒｓ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ Ｓｕｐｒｅｍｅ Ｃｏｍｍａｎｄｅｒ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ａｌｌｉｅｄ Ｐｏｗｅｒｓ)'s influence not only affected the Constitution of Japan, but also had a strong impact on the Japanese people; it was at this time that the foundation of democratic education was built.For example, it could be seen in the new style of free drawing.
Nevertheless, throughout 1960's and 1970's and even up until now, we have still not reached the stage of fully realizing a truly Japanese form or practice of contemporary art.
We could say that our thinking has been frozen in the form of "Kuni GHQ Sumeragi"=GHQ and Empiricism .
And that it is merely the automatic movement called Bourgeois Capitalism, one that combines pre/post Meiji era and pre/post WW2. This phenomenon inherently oppresses Japanese art practices and it is this oppression that has made it so difficult for Japanese fine art to truly exist.
Taisuke Morishita is going to represent such situation of Japanese art through his installation.
Taisuke Morishita
His work was selected for the Video Art Exhibition "Infermental"(Berlin, Vienna, Tokyo) by Mike Heinz, German director of the exhibition in 1988. Also featured in this exhibition were Mona Hatoum,Tony Oursler who have since become important figures in the international art community. In 1989 his work was selected for the Second European Media Art Festival, In the beginning of the 1990's, he started to incorporate the 'bar-code' in his work as a symbol of the many negative effects stemming from late capitalism.
He has shown such work in Japan as well as in Paris and New York, many other cities. Through this artistic practice, he has focused on the relationship between art and consumption. One example of this theme occurs in his shredder performance, which explores the politics of consumption in late capitalist societies and has been presented in many countries world-wide including France, Poland, Italy and Canada. .
Taisuke Morishita's solo exhibition "Kuni GHQ Sumeragi"