Tactical Museum

'Public Art Breakz' forum in Publicly Speaking.

A roundtable discussion and forum called 'Public Art Breakz' will be held on Saturday 10 Sept, from 14:00 - 17:00 within the Publicly Speaking exhibition at Tokyo Wondersite. The forum will look into so called 'socially engaged art practices' today with short presentations by artists Masato Nakamura (founder of Command N, Tokyo) and Hiroharu Mori (artist in Publicly Speaking), Yusaku Imamura (Director of Tokyo Wondersite) and Publicly Speaking curator from AIT Roger McDonald. The forum will try to address issues of artists working in the social realm, in communities and urban interventions, as well as look into the contexts of contemporary socially engaged practice since the mid 1990s through a number of key exhibitions including 'Democracy' (RCA London) and 'The Interventionists' (Mass MOCA). The event will be held in Japanese only.

'Publicly Speaking' and video trolleys.

'Publicly Speaking' is now open at Shibuya Tokyo Wondersite. An exchange and residency between SSamzie Space Seoul and AIT, this project involves three Japanese and three Korean artists working around ideas of what the 'public' can mean today within cities and the realm of art. I was 'curator in charge' within AIT, so spent much time with the artists and conceptualising aspects of the exhibition, including creating a photocopied index archive of texts, flilers and images related to the public which is included within the exhibition as an extended kind of wall label and resource. A couple of images from the show::
A shot of the main gallery, with index archive reading area in the foreground, small monitor video works on push carts in middle and T-shirt works by Hiro Mori at rear.
  Detail of 'Rideshare' double monitor video work by Kazz Sasaguchi and Hiro Mori. Placing the monitors on small push carts makes them mobile and echoes the video itself which includes scenes from a driving instruction around Seoul.
There will be a public forum on Sept. 10th at the exhibition, with artist Masato Nakamura, Director of Wondersite Yusaku Imamura, artist Hiroharu Mori and myself, moderated by Yuko Ozawa (AIT), looking into new public art practices of the late 1990s and socially engaged art. The session will be held in Japanese.
'Publicly Speaking' closes September 11.

A hotel room show in Tokyo

MAD curating student Ms. Ichikawa organised a one day exhibition in a hotel room at the famous Hotel New Otani, Akasaka Tokyo May 8th. The original Hotel New Otani features in the 1962 007 movie 'You Only Live Twice' with Sean Connery escaping from its front entrance pursued by angry Japanese guards. Ichikawa's exhibition happened in the new wing of the hotel, in a room on the 32nd floor.
   
The exhibition showed works from Ichikawa's own collection of drawings, paintings and small objects, including works by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tatsuo Miyajima and a multiple by Yoko Ono. Without any planned installation, the works were placed on beds and tables and leant against walls. Ichikawa mailed friends and art professionals for publicising the exhibition. With obvious curatorial precedents (e.g. Jan Hoet's 'Chambres d"Amis') this small and highly personal exhibition showed another way to utilise existing spaces in Tokyo for the purposes of engaging with art. Many smaller art fairs now also use hotels as venues, cutting costs. What was nice about Ichikawa's initiative was that it directed you into a grand exclusive hotel that one rarely enters, and there, meet other guests of this rather 'secretive' show.

'Curating Degree Zero Archive' - AIT in Luneburg

 
AIT are currently participating in the 'Curating Degree Zero Archive' (CDZA) in Luneburg, Germany. A roving archive of contemporary curatorial practices, CDZA sometimes invites artists and others to curate an archive. German artist group Reinigungsgeselschaft have curated this display and they asked AIT to answer questions about operating as an independent collective in Tokyo. This, alongside a range of other materials from other spaces and initiatives, is being made available for reading. The exhibiting of documents and archives has recently become visible, and for a good analysis of this tendency read Boris Groys' text 'Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From artwork to art documentation', in the Documenta 11 catalogue, 2002.

Moving Bar at Zokei University - Naoki Kawamoto

Naoki Kawamoto has just graduated from Zokei Art University, Tokyo - I went to see his degree exhibition this afternoon. Naoki has helped us out at AIT from the very beginning, so it was great to visit him on his final actions as an undergraduate student. I felt a little like a parent even.

Naoki has been making the Moving Bar for some time. This is a mobile bar made from wood which can be set up in any location to provide a counter and simple bar facilities. For his final degree exhibition, a cosy but cold coffee lounge was set up in a semi outdoor space. I lent him the air walls which I designed and made in 2000, simple vinyl inflatable walls that define a space (see above and below). The Moving Bar was placed in the space and visitors were offered free hot coffee. Much of Naoki's work emerges out of his interest in furniture design, so he also made bench seating, projector stands and a light-box table. The Moving Bar has been actively used at many AIT events since 2003, and we plan to continue using it at our various mobile manifestations.
        

'Woman Suit' - Aurora Reinhard

Aurora Reinhard (Finland) is currently artist in resident at AIT and showed a new work in our office, during our end of year party. The work is a full tight-fitting body suit made from specially fabricated stocking material. The suit transforms the wearer into a woman. Two sets of hands are included in the suit, one with white nails and one with red nails. A long brown wig and glitter accessories to cover strategic body parts are also included. Aurora will make a screening of her previous video works and show this work again in our office, during January/February 2005.
The AIT office is beginning to evolve into an interesting space - at once a working office, lounge and party venue and tactical exhibition zone. We will no doubt be exploring the possibilities of this further in 2005.
            

AIT invaded by giant Sea Urchin House - Rikke Luther

In the third installment of the AIT-ARCUS  residency talk series ("At Home/ Not At Home"), Danish artist Rikke Luther, who has been staying at ARCUS, gave a talk in the AIT room on Saturday 18th December 2004. As seen above, Rikke also installed her 'Sea Urchin House' in the AIT space, which she made during her residency in Japan. Made from cardboard collected in Moriya city using a garbage collection system devised by Rikke, the dome shaped house is approximately four metres in diameter and two metres high. Rikke is a former member of N55 , an artists collective which worked for many years since the mid 1990s in various socio-political and economic fields. Rikke introduced various projects from N55, including 'Land' which investigated the meanings of land ownership and their 'Space-Frame' house in which the members lived. During the discussion that followed, issues relating to the autonomous nature of such artistic practices was raised. Low-economy, collective practices and the motivation to initiate activities outside of art markets were three important points. It is perhaps fitting that two major exhibitions covering periods of experimental architecture will open in and around Tokyo in the next month - 'Archilab' at Mori Museum  and 'Archigram' at Mito Museum . Both exhibitions bring together important figures in the history of temporary, utopian and experimental architecture and living systems - while these shows will invariably frame such activities within the history of art and architecture, the work of N55 and Rikke seem somehow to activate and realise many of the ideas investigated by earlier thinkers.
The 'Sea Urchin House' will be temporarily hosted by AIT, and be used as a space for discussion and meetings. Information will be posted on this blog. In the meantime, in true tactical fashion, our normally expansive office environment offers another kind of vision for how art can reside within the everyday space.

'Even the Moon is not Autonomous' - socially engaged art practices in Japan

'Autonom ist noch nicht einmal der mond' (Even the moon is not autonomous) was the title of a rare kind of exhibition about Japanese contemporary art. While most representations of contemporary art from Japan focus almost exclusively on art works - very often of the manga-anime type or else of a techno-sublime type - this exhibition, held at the Autonomous Cultural Center ACC  in Weimar (a former squat) Germany this summer (July - September 2004), presented an overview of art works, collectives, non profit sector initiatives and publishing which all in various ways maintain a social/ political awareness. AIT was invited to take part, alongside artists groups such as Command N and Clean Brothers, artists such as Kenji Yanobe and Tsubaki Noboru and video collective Video Act!.
The curators were Frank Motz of ACC and the German artist duo Reinigungsgesellschaft (RG), who just made a project in Kassel where they met and spoke with Hans Eichel, German Minister of Finance (pictured). RG work in a variety of project based ways, and for the ACC exhibition they showed a video they made in Japan, comprising interviews with people working in the non-profit, alternative art sectors. They have recently been working on a project based around ideas of work, labour and its contemporary manifestations.   
A catalogue of the ACC exhibition is currently being prepared and will hopefully be available in Japan early in the new year. In the last few years contemporary art has become a buzzword in Japan, appropriated as a lifestyle element in magazines such as 'Luca' and becoming widely known in its manga-anime manifestations through the mass media exposure of artist Takashi Murakami. At a time when Japan is totally implicated in global events through its close alliance with the United States and world markets, it is all the more necessary to identify and discuss the works of artists and groups in Japan which take a critical position against Japan's late-capitalist situation. The moon, traditionally a potent symbol for purity and mystery in Japanese art, is today fully implicated in relations of consumption and media power. The artists and groups included in the ACC exhibition investigate and at times, show different possibilities for living in this situation. There was little sense of utopian, anime-like escapism - rather socially aware, sustainable, pragmatic initiatives and outputs.
            far left - ACC, centre - AIT documentation wall, right - recycled rubbish materials by artist Hiroshi Fuji.

Board & Blog - SKART

AIT hosted the artists group Skart (Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro) for a talk in its ongoing artists talk series on Dec 8, 2004. Skart were formed in 1990 by Dragan Protic and Djordje Balmazovic. Originally studying architecture, the two artists have been operating in various interventionist and tactical ways. For example, during the civil unrest and demonstrations against then President Milosovic, Skart hand made 'Walking Passes' and distributed them for free at rallies, symbolically staking the demonstrators rights to free passage through the city which was guarded heavily by police. This was their first visit to Japan. They wrote 'This is Our Traditional Robot' on the board - this was a comment made by their Japanese friend on entering a toy shop and seeing a retro style robot. Skart seem interested to make some work around this idea of robots being 'traditional' in Japan.

       

Board & Blog - Camilla Carlsson

Camilla Carlsson (from Sweden) has been in Tokyo for three months as our artist in resident supported by IASPIS. She came into the AIT space this afternoon and 'added' to Federico's earlier drawing. The 'addition' includes photographs of the Mukoujima neighbourhood in eastern Tokyo, a small shrub made of plastic green 'leaves' used to decorate food and drawing. Camilla and her partner John spent much time photographing and researching this 'downtown' area which teems with small alleys and potted plants on the streets.