ART CITIES:Los Angeles -Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s & 1990s
In the aftermath of the conceptual reconsideration of the object and relationality spearheaded by Mono-ha in the 1970s, this era opened up new critical engagements with language and medium where artists explored expansions in installation, performance, and experimental multi-genre practices. In Tokyo the Gallery Parergon (1981-1987) introduced many artists associated with the New Wave phenomenon, its name attributed to Jacques Derrida’s essay from 1978 which questioned the “framework” of art, influential to artists and critics during the period.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Blum & Poe Gallery Archive
Focusing on the themes of retro-futurism, noir, satire, and simulation, as well as those that probe national boundaries, the exhibition “Part II Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s” at Blum & Poe Gallery in Los Angeles brings together some of the most enigmatic works that were first generated during a rich two-decade period that are pivotal to the way we perceive and understand contemporary Japanese art today. When the U.S.A. and Europe were witnessing a return to Expressionism alongside a postmodern aesthetic of deconstruction characterized by the Pictures generation, this spirit of the age of cultural capitalism was instead manifest under Japan’s unique social and geo-political conditions resulting from the rise and burst of the bubble economy. Artists began to explore subversive artistic languages and integrate underground subcultures into their practice using a variety of media, ranging from experimentations in electro-acoustic music, geopolitical and conceptual photography, and appropriations of advertisement culture. Others addressed the internalization of historical avant-garde and modernist aesthetics that were filtered through a new poetics of form, space, and language. In the post-1989 Hirohito era, politics of gender, nuclear crisis, and critique of nationalism are especially poignant among artists from the Kansai region. This period also witnesses the rise of art collectives in the mid-90s and their darkly humorous performances and conceptual practices that reevaluated the history of Japan’s postwar avant-garde. These events reflect on a subculture generated out of a profoundly unique “infantile capitalism,” anticipating the explosive rise of the Neo-Pop generation. The Part II of Parergon, expands on the thematic territories explored in Part I (14/2-23/3/19), with seminal installations and sculptures from the era and performances by renowned figures of noise, sound, and electro-acoustic music genres. Kenji Yanobe has been incorporating the theme of survival in present-day society into his work, creating numerous large-scale mechanical sculptural works that may be attached to one’s body or ridden and controlled. His “Tanking Machine (Rebirth)” (2019) is a dystopian but humorous at the same time, interactive, sci-fi sculpture first presented in 1989 that addresses the ever-present reality of nuclear crisis through a retro-futurist narrative. Influential multimedia artist, Kodai Nakahara’s bizarre installations of figurine-like marble stones and brightly, suspended spheres reflect a humorous take on sculpture’s “post-medium” condition. As an intellectual and artist, Kenjiro Okazaki’s practice engages with theories of perception through interdisciplinary genres spanning architecture, literary theory, painting, reliefs, sculpture, robotics, and dance. Trained in both Japan and the U.S., Yukinori Yanagi’s large-scale and site-specific installations interrogate the politics of institutional borders and boundaries often drawing from semiotic systems of symbolic imagery. Psychedelic ’60s graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo revisits strategies of historical pastiche with his figurative noir paintings that hang alongside his cut-canvas portraits of Dada figures, as well as ceramic depictions of spiritual mediums. Finally, a dedicated Japanese noise archive of photography, journals, and vinyl records from Tokyo’s experimental underground will also be featured on the second floor giving historical context to the live performances.
On Presentation are works by: EYE, Keiji Haino, Yuki Kimura, Mariko Mori, Kodai Nakahara, Masato Nakamura , Kenjiro Okazaki, Otomo Yoshihide, Gin Satoh, Small Village Center, Katsumi Watanabe, Yukinori Yanagi, Kenji Yanobe, Tadanori Yokoo and YoshimiO / SAICOBAB
Info: Curator: Mika Yoshitake, Blum & Poe Gallery, 2727 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, Duration 6/4-19/5/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.blumandpoe.com
