installation art – Minoru MORIKAWA, & comparative religion – Yo HAMADA

Minoru Morikawa
Minoru MORIKAWA 'tashika' 2010

After graduating from Kyoto Seika University, installation artist Minoru Morikawa completed his Post-graduate Diploma in Art at Chelsea College in the UK. On returning to Japan, he founded the artist-run-space 'studio90'  in Kyoto.




Yo Hamada
Minoru MORIKAWA (text by Yo HAMADA) 
"Ame-Tsuchi (The Limited and The Unlimited)"
wood・wallpaper・pencil
Yo Hamada holds a Ph.D in Human and Environmental Studies from Kyoto University. He has been a research associate in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University (Montreal, Canada), and lecturer and co-researcher at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. He is currently associate professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Teikyo University, Tokyo.



Observations ~ 
              by Minoru Morikawa & Etsutomu Kashihara (fine artist)






Morikawa:
When I first heard the phrase 'Inverse Perspective of Landscape', I intuitively suspected that the main theme of this project could be the search for 'the position of subject'.


Kashihara:
'Subject' is indeed an awkward concept. I believe that it will be easier to handle such a concept by posing the question, 'In what situation do you need it?' rather than, 'What does it mean?'

Morikawa:
I have been creating works without trying to express myself. The point is that I somehow came to realize that I have nothing to 'express'.

Kashihara:
'Self' and 'personality' are both just mirages. The further you pursue them, the bigger the distance grows between you and the conviction of creating something. This is the very reality.





A Perspective on Minoru Morikawa

                                                   by Etsutomu Kashihara (fine artist)

I have been impressed by the work of Minoru Morikawa, which always makes me discover new possibilities, new paths or new doorways. I have high expectations of his next step but no worries about where this will take him in the future.

Rather, I am concerned more by the way his contemporaries regard his work. In recent years, Morikawa's work, which has exhibited steady improvement, has attracted quite a few people in the art field, infusing them with some new sense and stimulating their curiosity. I feel an desire to know specifically what aspect of Morikawa's work interests them.

Minoru MORIKAWA 
"Ame-Tsuchi (The Limited and The Unlimited)"
wood・wallpaper・pencil

Morikawa was daring enough to detach himself from a deep-rooted, die-hard illusion that has survived through the ages – an illusion surrounding the concepts of 'art', 'expression' and 'self'. Now, in his search for a truer shape of the world, how and where can he reconcile himself with the minds of his contemporaries? This is what I feel a compelling curiosity about.

In a letter to me, Morikawa wrote, 'When I was at university, I was trying to "express" myself through my artworks. But the further I pursued this thing called "expression", the more I felt I was wearing myself out. I remember I was already totally exhausted by the time I graduated. Then at some point, I started making my  works without caring at all about this 'expression'. It turned out to be so easy for me to create artworks that way. Ever since, I have kept making and showing my works without trying to express anything. The point is I somehow came to realize that I have nothing to "express"'.

Alas – I thought – Nothing has changed at all after all these years! For the dilemma Morikawa stated in his letter was almost identical to the dilemma I had when I myself attended art college. Since then, a sense of discomfort with the unfounded belief in 'self-expression' and blind acceptance of it as a dogma for the creation of works of art has been the driving force behind my activities as an artist. Even today I still have this same sense of discomfort within me and keep pondering over it.

I was born in 1941. Morikawa was born in 1983. I am even older than his parents' generation, so the should be a huge gap between us two: we should have different backgrounds, childhood experiences and attitudes toward everyday life. The whole situation surrounding art has changed a lot, too.

And there must also have been some significant change that I have failed to capture. As I believe that nothing but this change itself is the soil that nurtures Morikawa's creation, I am anxious to know more about it.


Translation of Yo Hamada's text:

Minoru MORIKAWA (text by Yo HAMADA) 
"Ame-Tsuchi (The Limited and The Unlimited)"
wood・wallpaper・pencil

In our modern civilization, we need to take a better look on the side of the unlimited as well as the limited. Buddha and Confucius showed an infinite enthusiasm in educating people all through their lives. Jesus gave the bread and fish to the crowd of people on the mountain and there still remained more bread and fish after everyone had their share. Now the wisdom and new ideas are needed more than ever before that enable us to share good things among us without exhausting the resources, just as this Biblical metaphor demonstrates. Let us change our way of thinking to find the balanced relationship between the limited and the unlimited. And then, let us seek the ways to bring under control the desires of the humans that tend to monopolize things that are limited.


For example, water can be recycled through circulation despite the fact that, of all water on earth, the percentage of fresh water that we can use is no more than 0.1%. In addition, the reverse osmosis membrane has been invented that can produce fresh water out of seawater by filtering and removing the impurities. However, the production cost of this special membrane is too expensive and only a limited number can be manufactured at the moment. I hope that the cost will be lowered and we can use it widely so that fresh water can be produced out of seawater without limit, practically saying.

The following five items constitute the list of the method of sharing:

1. Sharing something that is limited while acknowledging its limit
2. Sharing something that is limited by circulating it endlessly
3. Sharing something that is limited by converting it into something that is unlimited
4. Sharing something that is unlimited by converting it into something that is limited
5. Sharing something that is unlimited infinitely

The relationship between the limited and the unlimited has always been and will forever be the central issue for the human beings. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Shintoism, a human soul is believed to reincarnate or transmigrate, or circulate, after death. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim that salvation is done through transition from this limited world into the boundless heaven. The worshippers of Amitabha as well as the Christians claim that the savior or messiah with an infinite life will appear before us the humans with only limited length of life to save all living things on earth. Human beings have sought hope by interconnecting the finite with the infinite, and such a way of thinking still has a potential of taking us to a broader expansion of possibilities.



Minoru Morikawa: resumé
studio90 website: http://www.studio90.info/

"Ame-Tsuchi"  2011
1983  Born in Osaka, JAPAN
2006  Kyoto Seika University B.A. Fine Art Oil Painting
2007  Chelsea College of Art and Design Postgraduate Diploma Fine Art
2008  Solo show 'kanochi' (studio90 / Kyoto, JAPAN)
2010  Solo show 'Wait For The Rain Falls' (studio90 / Kyoto, JAPAN)
2010  Solo show 'tashika' (Kyoto Art Center / Kyoto, JAPAN)
2010  Group show 'BIWAKO BIENNALE 2010' (Fujita House / Shiga, JAPAN)
2011  Etsutomu KASHIHARA | Minoru MORIKAWA 'Silencer | Ame-Tsuchi' (studio90 / Kyoto, JAPAN)
2011  24th UBE Biennale (Tokiwa Park / Yamaguchi, JAPAN)



Yo Hamada: abridged resumé

– PhD (Human and Environmental Studies), Kyoto University 

– Research Associate, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University (Montreal, Canada)

– Lecturer (PT) Kyoto Seika University

– Lecturer and co-researcher, International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Kyoto), 

– Currently associate professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts Department of Japanese Cultures, Teikyo University, Tokyo, and guest researcher, Kagawa Archives & Resource Center, Tokyo

– Publications include: 
  • 'Inter-Religious Experience: Method and Application ARC', Journal Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University