Press Release

BuBu de la Madeleine

A Mermaid’s Territory – Flags and Internal Organs
9 Apr – 28 May 2022

11:00 - 19:00

Closed on Sun. Mon. and National Holidays

Sketch drawing of the exhibition

BuBu de la Madeleine came into renown through Dumb Type’s performance piece S/N which toured to twenty
cities in fifteen countries between 1994 and 1996. Especially notable was the last scene played to the sweet melodyof "Amapola." In it, she reclined on a chair completely nude, slowly moving from the right to the left on the stage,
while pulling the flags of all nations from her barely lit crotch. After leaving Dumb Type, BuBu started to work
as a solo artist and a social activist confronting the issues of HIV/AIDS and sex work. "A Mermaid’s Territory Flags and Internal Organs" is her first solo exhibition at Ota Fine Arts since 2006, after a hiatus of sixteen years.
She will show a new installation piece and drawings inspired by the project. Thematically, this body of new works
can be called a sequel to her 2019 piece, A Mermaid’s Territory and Shedding of Old Skin, which was presentedat Arts Maebashi in the group exhibition, "The Ecology of Expression."

A Mermaid’s Territory is a subject matter BuBu has pursued since 2004. In the aftermath of her best friend’s
death, she began to examine how a mermaid signified a being. For BuBu at this time, the mermaid resisted therough waves in the space between the sea, the world of the dead, and the land. During the 2010s, BuBu became
more aware of the boundary between her own body and those of the others through her everyday life as a sexworker. This was amplified by her experience as a domestic care giver for a family member. The initialtransgression of an individual’s physical body, the trespass of a personal boundary, can be defined as the momentof "touching or being touched." There are two ways for that to happen: as an expression of friendliness and care,or as the desire to conquer and attack. These trespasses are repeated on a larger scale at the borders of thenational territories, against ethnic groups, genders, and sexualities, and we continue to be bombarded by theseassaults on our daily lives. BuBu has come to think that "water," which is a den and a territory of a mermaid, canfunction as a metaphor for the world in which women and the other minorities who have been deprived of social
power on the land can live.
BuBu had suffered a chronic psoriasis, a skin disease, for numerous years. Seeing her dry skin peel, she came up
with an idea that perhaps a mermaid would molt. This evolved to her 2019 installation piece, A Mermaid’sTerritory and Shedding of Old Skin. Covering the structure made with wires were pieces of old fabric comingfrom the garments BuBu had worn for many years, her favorite linens, and the costumes for drag queens whoperformed at the clubs. The huge structure signified the "mermaid’s skin" after molting. From the skin the scales,
the pieces of cloth, had peeled and pattered. As the pieces of fabric directly touched the skin—the inner andouter boundary of the body which is the individual’s territory— they had absorbed various memories of physicalepisodes which the mermaid’s territory, their body, experienced. Those scales had departed from the mermaid’sbody, transformed into a line of flags and flew up into the sky.

A MERMAID'S TERRITORY AND SHEDDING
OF OLD SKIN, 2019
Installation view: "The Ecology of Expression Remaking Our Relations with the World", Arts
Maebashi, Gunma, 2019-2020
Photo by Kogure Shinya

In the following year 2020, BuBu had her ovaries and uterus removed because she had cysts and fibroids. While
the surgery brought physical pain to her, BuBu was astonished to find out that pre- and post-operation, herfeelings and senses did not change at all. The ovaries and the uterus were simply colleagues to other internalorgans that worked together within her. Nevertheless, they were burdened with the bigger and more complicatedmeanings. Having them extracted from inside of her body gave BuBu a refreshing sensation. Unlike BuBu’s pastwork that dealt with the surface of the body, in her pieces in this exhibition the innards also molt. Because BuBu
experienced not only pain and suffering from the surgery but also afterwards gained the solid belief that the bodycan be reborn anew from the inside, she decided to create this new work. The sense of regeneration that hit
home with BuBu will guide us as people to rethink the nuances surrounding life and death, gender roles, andprocreation. Furthermore, it will regain richness and complexity for a person, revitalizing within a greater being.
We are proudly presenting this show in the hope that when the array of flags leaves the mermaid’s body andreaches the destinations far beyond, that will function as a moment which will celebrate us, who have been
unfettered from earthly restraints.
[BuBu de la Madelaine] BuBu was born in 1961 in Osaka. She
completed her BA in Concept and Media Planning at Kyoto CityUniversity of Arts. BuBu joined the artist collective Dumb Typeand appeared in their performance “S/N” (1994-96), subsequently
releasing her own works in various media. Around the same time,
she committed herself to civil movements related to health andhuman rights such as people living with HIV and AIDS, and sex
workers. She has also performed as a drag queen in shows at clubs.
In 2020, she undertook fibroid and ovarian cysts surgery to havetotal hysterectomy. The installation work in this exhibition wasinspired by the surgical experience. Major solo exhibitions include“Territory of Mermaid”, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo (2004). She has also
participated group exhibitions such as “Made in Occupied Japan”(a collaboration exhibition with Yoshiko Shimada), Ota Fine Arts,Tokyo (1997), “Donai yanen!: contemporary creation in Japan”,
Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (1998), “Sex andConsumerism: Contemporary Art in Japan”, University of Brighton,Brighton (2001), “The Ecology of Expression: Remaking Our
Relations with the World”, Arts Maebashi, Gunma (2019) and“JAPAN UNLIMITED”, frei_raum Q21 exhibition space,MuseumsQuartier Wien, Vienna (2019).
BuBu de la Madeleine, A Mermaid’s Territory - Parade #001
2022 acrylic, pastel and colored pencil on paper, 27.4 x 19.5 cm

Installation view:

Photo: Kanichi Kanegae

Ota Fine Arts Tokyo

Piramide Bldg. 3F, 6-6-9 Roppongi Minatoku, Tokyo, 1060032 Japan
03-6447-1123
info@otafinearts.com
www.otafinearts.com