The Nishi-Ogikubo Biennale 2005

Artist Makoto Aida has taught at independent art school 'Bigakko' for several years, and for the final exhibition of his current batch of students, he surrendered his house to them as exhibition space/ studio/ party/ farewell place. Located in an ordinary residential neighbourhood 15 minutes train from Shinjuku, Aida's home was transformed into the venue for the Biennale. As one entered the entrance a mannequin in a suit greeted visitors. Inside, works clung to every available surface and nook - hundreds of anime drawings, discarded consumer magazines as carpet, a giant poo escaping from the toilet, a Chinese dumpling quietly protruding from the kitchen wall, the bathtub a desk for viewing drawings, parody bonsai trees in the bedroom, the lab-disco of the Ordinary Things Research Group, home-distilled sake and a veranda turned into a small jungle....Aida himself wandered upstairs and downstairs beer in hand, the ever polite host.

This was a great Biennale. Firstly, the idea of a teacher (and a well known artist such as Aida) giving his home to his students for three days of rampant display seems unprecedented. Secondly, unlike many domestic setting exhibitions which tend to merely show space, this Biennale was constantly buzzing with visitors and artists, a kind of never-ending party. Third, simply to name such a situation a Biennale is inspired - over three days and nights an energy and sense of direction emerged. There were surprises in every space and always unexpected tensions between things placed temporaily in the home and the Aida family's usual things.
Going around the house I started thinking about the other famous artist-led student exhibition/ platform - Takashi Murakami's Geisai Festival (which just happened in a huge trade-show hall in Tokyo and has been successfully attracting artists for 4 years or so now)). Geisai's model is the art fair and actually highly conservative - rented plots for display (roughly 20,000 yen for 2m square), vast rented hall spaces, judging juries who select winners, time condensed into a day, little sense of pleasure (exhausted artist-participants slouched along the walls)....In contrast to Geisai's actually highly ordered and restrictive setting, the Nishi-Ogikubo Biennale proposes something oozing with a sense of abjection and fun - a no-cost micro space where you are just as likely to encounter art as be offered a free cold potato fry by Aida's artist wife Hiroko Okada, or be asked how to operate i-movie by a student still editing his video.
Nishi-Ogikubo Biennale was from April 1 - 3 2005, Aida residence, Tokyo.