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Julia V. Bainbridge
Making a Home Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York was on view in January at Japan Society in New York.
Momoyo Torimitsu, Miyata Jir? Performance in NY, 1996. Polyester resin, motor, business suits, nurse costume; 2 x 5.6 x 2.3 feet. Dikeou Collection, Peter Norton Family Foundation. Photo: Michael Dames.In a world that is at once wonderfully diverse and increasingly homogenous, you have to wonder how loudly (or softly) your country speaks for you anymore. Are our nations losing their voices? In the case of art, do we still have a national aesthetic? Did we ever have one?
The Japan Society say they don’t know the answer, but that it is nonetheless an interesting question. The nonprofit’s recent exhibition, Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York, was on view October 5, 2007 through January 13, 2008, showcasing the work of 33 Japanese artists who call New York City home. Some of them are leaders of the contemporary art world—Yoko Ono, Yasunao Tone, and Ushio Shinohara—and some are emerging artists, like Misaki Kawai, Hiroyuki Nakamura, and Hiroki Otsuka. Some are sculptors or sound artists, while others paint the gallery walls themselves. A number of new pieces were also commissioned specifically for the exhibition.
“I wanted to be as diverse as possible in selecting the group,” said curator Eric C. Shiner. “[The show] is a cross-section of the Japanese aesthetic diaspora.” This is about how that Japanese diaspora has formed in New York City, and everyone’s got something different to say.
“I see myself now as a part of the diversity of the world and that cultivates the essential part of my political stance and my belief in the equality of people,” said Emiko Kasahara, who was born in Tokyo and lives in her studio in Brooklyn. “I will always see myself as a Japanese artist, but certainly an international Japanese one.”
When he was three months old, Yoichiro Yoda’s artist parents brought him here. Unlike Yoda, for whom the idea of being “international” isn’t strange at all, Kyoko Sera moved to New York a few years ago, when she was 44 years old. According to Shiner, in those few years, her outlook on life has changed and she now feels freer be creative, “so it is only a matter of time before her work starts to take on a different feel.”
And so the boundaries continue to blur. Western art and its images have been widespread in Japan since the 50s, and they have been fully part of the vocabulary of contemporary art there. Shiner saw this firsthand when studying art history at Osaka University. Nonetheless, he says the traditional arts are just as—if not more—important. Art schools there are divided into Western-style painting and Japanese-style painting.
“There are, of course, national or cultural traits in any artist’s work,” said Shiner, “but I think in this day and age, it has to be broadened to include influences from all around the world. Their own culture is now just one piece of the pie.”
There are six parts to Making a Home—six sections that speak to being in a place, and what it means to make that place yours. “Building Environments,” “Intimacy and Death,” “Coping with Loss,” “Meditative Space,” “The Process of Making,” and “Referencing Landscapes,” These areas enable the exhibition to tell the story of foreignness and adaptation, and everything in between. The walk through them concludes with a series of Toru Hayashi’s spare line drawings of various environments, which serve as the exhibition’s epilogue.
These artists have done more than work successfully in a new environment; they have become part of the fabric of New York. They influence it, and are influenced by it. “I become happy, sad, and emotional when I read or watch what happened in the world in the papers and on TV. I think about how my artistic expression can help this chaotic world,” said Shinohara in response to 9/11. “I consider myself a Japanese, especially in the multiethnic city, New York.”
So what is the final answer? Has the nature versus nurture question become obsolete as far as the artist and his/her art goes?
Noriko Shinohara put it best. “My friend Mr. Makoto Saeki wrote in a Japanese magazine that I’m an alien from outer space,” she said. “I think it is true.”
Perhaps it’s true for all of us. New York is a multiethnic place—a city of immigrants—and in one way or another, we are all aliens here. All of these artists are creating work in an adopted place. And all of them have met with the uncertainty that comes with starting afresh.
