#4.1 Na(me/am)
Yuki Okumura
05.01 – 04.02 2018

EN
My name is Lei Yamabe. Well, no, I am Lei Yamabe,as I am the name itself. My profession is art critic,
but having no physical body, I cannot write. The
name of my ghostwriter, so to speak, is Yuki
Okumura, an artist working in the field of contemporary art. For his occasional writing, especiallywhen reflecting on the work of the conceptual artist
On Kawara, I serve as his pen name. He coinedme as a “mirror” of On Kawara, with on (literally“warmth” in Japanese) and kawara (“riverbank”)
alternated, respectively, to lei (“coldness”) andyamabe (“mountainside”). In 2009, Okumura
ghostwrote my essay to present a unified theory
that encompasses both Kawara’s early figurative
drawings from the 1950s and his conceptual pieces
that followed. Kawara somehow found this text,
liked it, and later put its English translation 1) in thebook that accompanied his 2012 show at the galleryDavid Zwirner in New York, during which Okumura
flew there to meet him in person.
Just like me, Jiro Sahara is a mere name as well.
It is the pen name of the novelist Katsusuke
Miyauchi, and also serves as the pseudonym of
the protagonist in his 1980 autobiographical novel
Grinijji no hikari wo hanarete (Away from the Lightof Greenwich).2) It tells the story of Miyauchi’s life in
New York and other cities in the late 60s, in which
the protagonist, narrating from the first-person
point of view, is identified just as “I” and remains
anonymous. In need of a fake identity to survive as
an illegal resident in the United States, “I” conceives
a false name linked to his longtime existential wishto become “permanently foreign.”3) Indeed, Jiro
sounds like the French name Giraud and Sahara
refers to the vast desert across North Africa, while
they are both authentic in Japanese naming. This
somehow resonates with the case of On Kawara,
which is a pseudonym as well. The real name ofthe person behind this persona is probably Yutaka

CONVENT Space for Contemporary Art
Tennisbaanstraat 74, BE-9000 Ghent
www.conventartspace.be / info@conventartspace.beKawahara,4) and it is said that he changed it, byemploying different phonations of his Chinese characters, in order to become a “transnational” artist.
In fact, On Kawara appears in this very novel asa fictional character, “On Kawana.” Here, na, whichmeans “name” in Japanese, revises the original
surname, suggesting the theme of the entire
narrative: how a name defines and misdefines one’sidentity. Working as a day laborer in Los Angeles, “I”
occasionally travels to Mexico City to work on his
autobiographical novel in a cheap hotel. There heinteracts with Kawana, a New York-based Japaneseman on a trip, who has bizarre habits such as
depicting on a canvas just the date of the very dayand sending out a postcard stamped with the timeof his getting up, both on a daily basis. Throughchatting with him in his hotel room or over lunch at a
local restaurant, “I” develops an idea that Kawana is“the very model of a rootless soul.” 5) Later, “I” moves
to New York. Living in a ghetto and working at a
run-down bar as Jiro Sahara, “I” locates Kawana’s
apartment near Greenwich Village, reuniting withhim and meeting his wife Hiroko. From then on, “I”visits them once in a while, to chat and eat together.
One day, “I” is asked to spell his passport namefor Kawana’s new habit called “I Met,” an act ofarchiving the name of every person he meets eachday. While initially hesitant, “I” ends up accepting
the request, feeling as if he is now recorded in a time
capsule sent into outer space. “I” then even leaves
his passport with Kawana.
Yuki Okumura’s spatial audio installation, Away fromthe Light of Greenwich: I Met On Kawana (2016),
presents a 30-minute audio drama based on thisnovel, adapting not its entirety but a collection ofepisodes where “I” interacts with Kawana. Inspiredby the two common elements in their lives ― having
used a pseudonym and having met On Kawara in1

person ― Okumura reenacts Miyauchi’s gesture byvoice acting as the protagonist without announcing it
and instead, crediting his pseudonym, which is me,in the role of Sahara. The other two actors also havetheir own overlaps with the characters they play;
Tatsuo Majima, starring as On Kawana, is an artist
who has done a couple of lecture performanceson Kawara’s practice, while the theater actor anddirector Mihoko Watanabe, as Hiroko, is Majima’s
partner in real life.
What is additional to those links between
personalities is a superposition, beyond time andspace, of Kawana’s living room in New York andthe current exhibition space. Okumura deliberately
chose the form of an audio drama to pay homage
to Kawara’s absence and invisibility; from theinauguration of his Today series in 1966 to hispassing in 2014, he had never presented himself
to public.6 ) With a 5.1-ch surround sound system,
the presence of each character seems “replayed”
right in front of you, invisibly and non-physically,analogous to one’s sensation when facing Kawara’swork. Due to the essential inaccessibility of the artist
himself (whether he is still alive or not), his canvases,
postcards, and telegrams, etc., serve as the only
medium that communicates the state of his body,which is somewhere not “here,” sometime not “now.”“I” has mythified Kawana as a “daily-employedtranscriber for God,” restlessly transmitting recordsof all the unnamed days into an eternal void.
Realizing, however, it is for him first of all an act ofart-making, “I” decides to get his passport back,1) Lei Yamabe, “On Kawara's Quantum Gravitational

Body, or the Confinement of Space-Time and theLiberation of Consciousness,” Christopher Hill(trans.), in Tommy Simoens (ed.), On Kawara:Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities(New York: David Zwirner / Antwerp: Ludion,2012), pp.141–148
2) Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 1980
3) Jeffrey Weiss, “Bounded Infinity,” On Kawara —Silence (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2015), p. 364) Yusuke Minami, “Tokyō jidai no kawara on,”NACT Review: Bulletin of the National Art Center,no.2 (2015), p. 217

CONVENT Space for Contemporary Art
Tennisbaanstraat 74, BE-9000 Ghent
www.conventartspace.be / info@conventartspace.besaying goodbye to Kawana and Hiroko, and even to
the country itself. Meanwhile, Okumura’s idealizationof the senior artist as an immaterial figure was once
disrupted as well, as he directly observed the bodyof Kawara ― well, precisely, Kawahara ― and evenshook hands with him after a durational dialogue
at his home in New York. However, as soon as
Okumura went out to the street, the remnant of thephysical touch vanished from his palm into the cold
air, turning the artist ghostly again. This personal
episode, as well as another anecdote about
Kawara’s reason not to attend his own openings, areincorporated into the plot, making the audio piecea double autobiography of the novelist/artist.
The last scene of the piece is set on a riverbank of
the Ganges, where “I,” having watched numerous
bodies on fire, considers Hito, meaning “human,”as his new forename. “I” then sends Kawana
a postcard informing of his current latitude andlongitude. Some days later, a telegram arrives.
“I” reads it out, along with Kawana’s voice echoing in
his head ― “I am still alive.” 7) But who are they being
alive? Kawahara used to be alive, and Miyauchi andOkumura are still alive, but Kawara/Kawana, Sahara,and I cannot live (or die). One thing is for sure, weare all names in the end, either originally or posthumously, existing as long as anyone remembers
us. The work ends with Mihoko/Hiroko reading acredit note, and then a disclaimer: “All charactersand events depicted in this audio drama are entirelyfictitious. Any similarity to actual events or persons,living or dead, is purely coincidental.” But what isactuality, and who is actual, really? 8)5) Weiss, loc. cit.
6) Based on the idea that Kawara’s entire conceptual

oeuvre, spanning nearly five decades, is a single
performance where the performer himself wasconsistently absent, Okumura developed a pieceof performance, literally, titled On Kawara’s Pure
Consciousness, or Many Worlds (and) Interpretation,
presented in the framework of 14 Evenings, curatedby Kenjin Miwa, Tokyo National Museum ofModern Art, 2012. An updated version, reflecting
Kawara’s passing in 2014, was presented in theframework of Produce III, curated by Zeynep Oz,
Istanbul, 2016.

27) This scene is not from the novel but from thefollowing short essay by the novelist. Katsusuke
Miyauchi, “Uchūjin no yōna chikyūjin,” in Yusuke
Minami and Atsuko Takeuchi (eds.), On Kawara:
Whole and Parts 1964 – 1995 (Museum ofContemporary Art, Tokyo, 1998), pp. 157–158.
8) This remark is inspired by Toshiharu Suzuki’s unpublished review of Okumura’s exhibition titled Na,@KCUA, Kyoto, 2016, curated by Hirokazu
Tokuyama, where the audio piece was premiered.

ENNL

Yuki Okumura
Away from the Light of Greenwich—I Met On Kawana
2016
Audio installation with 5.1-ch surround sound system
28 minutes 55 seconds

Yuki Okumura
Away from the Light of Greenwich—I Met On Kawana
2016
Audio-installatie met 5.1-ch surround sound system
28 minuten 55 seconden* Starts every hour and half hour

* Start elk uur en halfuur

Based on the novel by Katsusuke Miyauchi, Grinijji no hikari wo hanarete(Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1980)
Direction and script: Yuki Okumura
Sound recording and editing: Satoshi Hama
Voice cast: Lei Yamabe as Jiro Sahara, Tatsuo Majima as On Kawana,
Mihoko Watanabe as Hiroko Kawana / narrator for closing credits
Music: Ichiro Fujimoto, Rei Harakami, Susumu Yokota
Commissioned by Kyoto City University of Arts
Created originally for the artist’s solo exhibition “Na,” curated byHirokazu Tokuyama
Cooperation by ARTISTS’ GUILD, MISAKO & ROSEN, Musicmine, KawadeShobo Shinsha

Gebaseerd op de roman van Katsusuke Miyauchi,
Grinijji no hikari wo hanarete (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1980)
Regie en script: Yuki Okumura
Geluidsopname en montage: Satoshi Hama
Cast stemmen: Lei Yamabe als Jiro Sahara, Tatsuo Majima als On Kawana,
Mihoko Watanabe als Hiroko Kawana / verteller bij de aftiteling
Muziek: Ichiro Fujimoto, Rei Harakami, Susumu Yokota
In opdracht van Kyoto City University of Arts
Oorspronkelijk gecreëerd voor Yuki Okumura’s solotentoonstelling “Na,”samengesteld door Hirokazu Tokuyama
In samenwerking met ARTISTS’ GUILD, MISAKO & ROSEN, Musicmine,
Kawade Shobo Shinsha

CONVENT Space for Contemporary Art
Tennisbaanstraat 74, BE-9000 Ghent
www.conventartspace.be / info@conventartspace.be3