News Release Special Edition
April 22, 2014

The story of a voyage into the Sea of Oblivion,
told in two introductions and 11 chapters

MORIMURA Yasumasa
Artistic Director
Yokohama Triennale 2014

[In front of the Museum]

Introduction: Unmonumental Monuments
A truck in the style of a Gothic cathedral. Everybody’s favorite word, “LOVE,” twisted and renderedsomehow helpless.
Both Wim Delvoye and Gimhongsok have created massive monuments that are stripped of theirmonumentality. They mischievously undermine the intent of monumental works of art, to dominate
spaces and minds with their imposing power, and create unmonumental monuments that stand as
magnificent paradoxes.

[Grand Gallery]

Introduction: What Is in the Center of the World?
When someone creates something, a host of other things are forgotten: heaps of materials that went
unused, stacks of failed works of art that go unseen, piles of garbage hauled away. As soon as thefinished work is reverently displayed in a museum, it is as if these other things never existed. Out ofsight, out of mind, they are set adrift on the sea of oblivion.
The history of art exhibited by human beings is just the tip of an iceberg, and a far greater mass of dark
matter hulks unseen, the real but forgotten history of art. Let us step out into the oblivion. Let us explore
the rubbish bin.

[Yokohama Museum of Art]

Chapter 1: Listening to Silence and Whispers
Silent things go unnoticed and are forgotten. Whispers can only be heard right next to the ear. Yet
silence and whispers conceal weight and strength that surpasses those of speeches and blather.
That weight and strength becomes what we call art.

Chapter 2: Encountering a Drifting Classroom
The Kamagasaki district of Osaka is home to day laborers whose hands restored Japan during thepostwar economic miracle, but the area was forgotten when this growth ground to a halt.
Kamagasaki Art University (nicknamed “Kama Gei”) was founded in order to engage, through creative
expression, with a community facing myriad issues such as aging residents, healthcare, employment,housing, life and death.
This summer, Kama Gei drifts into Yokohama. What kind of “summer classroom” will grow out of theviewpoints, sensibilities, and stance of the Kamagasaki community? We shall soon find out.

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Chapter 3: ART Fahrenheit 451
Obliteration of words and ideas through thought control is a tragedy recurring throughout the history ofhumankind.
Our goal here is not to critique or protest this. Rather, we are posing questions: Could these tragedies
that occurred in the past, or are occurring somewhere today, be a mirror that reflects our own here andnow? “What about yourself?” Could they be a hint that we should examine ourselves, and see if we are
not guilty of the same crime?

Chapter 4: Laboring in Solitude, Wrestling with the WorldArtists start wrestling with the world, or the universe, suddenly and without apparent reason.
This heavy labor, carried out in solitude, is a pure manifestation of the urge to live, but it looks like ameaningless and fruitless effort. In embarking on this voyage into the sea of oblivion, however, the artist
is declaring independence, casting off the dogma that demands everything fulfill a purpose. Unbowedby any gales he or she may face, the artist glows with solitary radiance.
This is exactly like the faint glow emanating from a halo hovering above saints’ heads, showing us thatthey are saints, no matter how ragged their clothes may be.

Chapter 5: Impersonal Chronicles (tentative)(personal notes on Chapter 5)
From the tennis court to a court of law.
And thence to prison.
On a tennis court, two players face each other over the net in the center, watched by a referee. This
cast of characters metamorphoses into that of a defendant and plaintiff, facing one another under theeyes of a judge. From the courtroom leads a road that goes directly to jail.
It is a process of transformation that looks simple at first, but taking a step inside, I find myself
immediately off kilter and adrift. What I can see are chairs, a fence, and a net: nothing could be moreprosaic, and yet these things are invested with no meaning, and the entire structure is so porous as tolet anyone slip inside.
It is vast yet as light as air, it makes me feel like floating away while at the same time exerting a
bizarrely strong gravitational pull – a contradictory mixture of vertigo, nausea, fear, and undeniably,
attraction.
Can this be called a work of art? It is a mammoth plastic model of a concept. It is empty, and yet it canstrike you as more solid and more real than a genuine ship, tank, or plane.
The space for the name of the author of this construct is left blank. It is not that the name is unwritten, but thatthe creator is impersonal.
When we talk about the weather, the subject is not “I” or “you” but “it,” as in “It is raining.” In the sameway, what is occurring here is not occurring on the instructions of one specific person.
A work of art is work done by one specific “I,” but if I accept that this “I” does not belong to me as anindividual but is instead the product of chance, formed by countless others, the weight of history, thebabble of words, a profusion of mathematical formulas, probabilities, and information... then theindividuality I claim with my specific name becomes null and void.
This mammoth plastic model of a concept was created by nobody, or could have been created byanybody. Perhaps we are all accomplices.

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Chapter 6: Monologues by Enfants Terribles
The price for becoming an adult is giving up our childhood memories. Some people, however, treasurethese memories too strongly and remain stuck at the gateway, refusing to pay the fee to enter the adultworld. Artists are the classic example. They are children who did not grow up. They are on a journeyback to the source from which we all sprang, but forgotten about when we became adults. The enfants
terribles tempt us to take part in the thrilling ordeal of their solo performances.

Chapter 7: Vanishing into the LightIf we forget something completely, we can no longer talk about it, see it, or know it. That is why we feel
almost reverential toward oblivion, as it is that which is out of reach, forever beyond our grasp.
However, while we may not be able to grasp oblivion itself, we can see it in the shadows of what wasonce there, and in the enchanting rays of light cast by that which has vanished.

[Surrounding Area]

Chapter 8: A Drifting Journey / A Sea Reflecting Fleeting Images
The theater of Takayama Akira is theater that denies conventional theater. The essential elements oftheater, such as a hall and a stage, or a distinction between the roles of actors and an audience, arethoroughly restructured, becoming nameless flotsam to be gathered and rearranged at will.
What is it that drives Takayama to such lengths? It is a sense of crisis directed toward the usual
expectations placed on theater, assumptions that it will sweep the audience along together on an
inexorable wave of celebratory emotion.
When the entire enthusiastic audience is rejoicing as one, intoxicated by the created drama, Takayama
silently withdraws, taking the helm of a cooler and more critical enthusiasm and steering it out on to thesea of oblivion.
Toyoda Hitoshi presents his photographs in slideshows using reversal film, rejecting the usual processof turning images into solid objects by printing them on paper. They appear only to disappear, anddisappear only to appear, a story told in accumulated fragments of light. Images as light, flashing onand off again, beckon us to drift further out to sea, leaving us stranded in the midst of a profoundsilence.

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[Yokohama Museum of Art / Shinko Pier Exhibition Hall]

Chapter 9: Performing “Fahrenheit 451” (tentative)
Chapter 10: The Days After Deluge (tentative)
All sorts of floating objects drift in from all directions, coming together for a time in the same place, andeventually drifting apart in every direction again. This exhibition, and indeed all our human endeavors,
can be seen as such chance meetings and partings of flotsam and jetsam on the sea.
The Sapporo International Art Festival, the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, and the Yokohama Triennale
are all unfolding at around the same time, a chance encounter resulting in fluid exchanges. Viewers
may find themselves not being sure which international art festival they are seeing, but without a doubt
this opening of airways will let in fresh breezes and provide a much broader view.

[Shinko Pier Exhibition Hall]

Chapter 11: Drifting in a Sea of Oblivion
After seeing everything, the voyagers (viewers) at last come face to face with the boundless sea ofoblivion.
Silence, whispers, death (and life), nothingness, chaos, reversion, light… the sea is too deep and wide
for memories or information to penetrate.
The voyagers are adrift on this sea of oblivion. At the same time they are each embarking on their own
voyage of discovery, each moving toward his or her own destination.

MORIMURA Yasumasa©Morimura Yasumasa + ROJIAN

Born 1951 in Osaka (Japan). Lives and works there.
In 1985, he exhibited a photographic self-portrait replicating a painted
self-portrait by Van Gogh. Since then he has consistently produced
photographic and video self-portraits, reproducing historic works of art orimpersonating actresses of cinema’s golden age, famous 20th-century figures,and others. Recent major solo exhibitions include Rembrandt Room Revisited(2013) at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Velasquez: Las MeninasRenacen de Noche (In Praise of Velásquez: Handmaidens Reborn in theNight) (2013) at the Shiseido Gallery; and Theater of the Self (2013-14) at theAndy Warhol Museum. Morimura has received many awards, including theMinister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2007, the 52nd Mainichi Art Awardin 2011 and the Medal with Purple Ribbon (Artistic Excellence) in autumn 2011.

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