The symposium held on Saturday December 4th at BankArt Yokohama ended up being a very public display of the deepening crisis within the Yokohama Triennale 2005. Although I could not attend due to a speaking engagement at alternative space Rice + in Eastern Tokyo, AIT colleagues who went reported a tense and dramatic turn of events. 2005 Director Arata Isozaki announced after his presentation at BankArt, that with the current financial and time situation he could not organise the Triennale as envisaged by him, and announced his resignation. A heated debate followed, largely centred around Mr Isozaki's comments that curators today have too much power and are serving their ego's (I don't know what architects are up to!). His plan for the 2005 Triennale was based around delegating all curatorial repsonsibility to participating foundations from around the world. The meaning of such an international exhibition in Yokohama was discussed, with many comments from the audience, many critical of the organisers (Yokohama city and The Japan Foundation) who have already delayed the event for one year. Will the 2005 Triennale now happen at all? Who will be responsible? Reports from Yokohama city indicate their intention to hold the exhibition as planned in autumn 2005 - but how and with who? Mr. Isozaki seems to have little knowledge of current situations and debates regarding international exhibitions or the changing nature of curatorial practices, rather colllapsing a complex situation into simplistic 'old' and 'new'/ 'curator'/ 'no curator' dichotomies.
However this drama plays out over the next few weeks, it amazes me how such a large scale exhibition can be seriously organised in nine months - perhaps the only way to face such a situation is to radically think of the Triennale space as a studio, a place of un-finished works, processes and research, rather than as a place where 'finished' works are displayed. Spend the money on inviting artists and curators/ researchers to live in Yokohama and Tokyo for 3 months up to the 'opening' of the exhibition - make the exhibition a huge residency/ studio/ pleasure houses (a la Oyvind Fahlstrom). Use the city as a place of research and collaboration - involve local citizens in multiple ways. Scatter the money to different organisers and levels rather than centralising everything. Make many different publications in different languages. Collapse the linear time-scale of 'openings' and 'closings'. Invite alternative spaces, artist run places, temporary architectures, non governmental groups to set up projects. Show another way to use funds of this scale, show another way to show art.
Yes, it was really dramatic and drastic moment which was supposed to be organised by Tamabi students which I hardly believed. The symposium appeared, at least to me, as a stage play by those biggest art personalities in Japan. I could not know, however, which part was originally planed and which part was not by the organiser.
Anyway, thank you for your linking to Tokyoartbeat.com.
Posted by: kosuke fujitaka | December 08, 2004 at 11:53 AM