Art in Japan>Contemporary Art 1930-2004>Makoto Aida: My Ken Ten (long version)

Original articles on art, artists, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, museums and cultural institutions around Tokyo, Japan.

Makoto Aida: My Ken Ten (long version)

by John McGee

Installation view of Makoto Aida's "Minna to Issho" series, 2002- (ongoing), 
marker and watercolor on imitation Japanese vellum, each approx. 150x110cm 
(photos: John McGee)

Does Makoto Aida want the beardless lawyers from the Happiest Place on Earth to visit his Naka-Meguro gallery? Why else would he paint a 1.5-meter-tall image of a crazed, frothing Mickey Mouse sodomizing a bug-eyed Minnie? To be perfectly clear, Japan's baddest bad boy artist scrawled "Copyright? F---k it! Come if you wanna come!" in kanji above a hand-painted Disney logo. 

Aida (b.1965) is an a-hole. He's also one of the most important, if least loveable, artists of his generation. His sarcastic work weds gold-leaf Nihonga with manga, Japanese yesterday with Shibuya today. Twisted images of sex, death and other easily transgressed subjects might be mistaken for political cartoons if the artist had an agenda other than to mock his culture. Such irreverence has gotten Aida into the 2001 Yokohama Triennale, the Whitney Museum's recent "American Effect" and other major exhibitions. 

At Mizuma Art Gallery, Aida has assembled a personal ken ten (a "prefectural exhibition," usually where local amateurs display their work). A vitrine in the center of the gallery holds used brushes, paints, markers and a bucket. Written on the pedestal beneath is the show's theme, "Minna to Issho" ("Everyone Together/Same as Everyone"). Seventeen hastily drawn, cartoon-y image and text paintings (English translation available) on 1x1.5 meter sheets of colored paper hang on fake green bulletin boards made of paper and wood trim. They are fabricated newspapers and announcements, crude sexual puns posing as advertisements, and bad "manner posters." 

Makoto Aida, Niigata Shinkansen and Japan mo from the "Minna to Issho" series, both 2002 

The artist calls this collection of sardonic brain farts his "life work." In some, his usual players do their usual things. A schoolboy stabs a schoolgirl on an empty country road as an ancient green-and-white bullet train passes on a bridge overhead. A before-and-after diptych illustrates a Jim Jones "eradication operation" for salarymen: poison their energy drinks. 

Ironic Aida also comments on his unique POV. One drawing has two concentric circles. The smaller one, labeled "the world," is enclosed by the larger one labeled "Niigata," Aida's hometown. Next to it is a drawing of Japan covered in plants with the caption "Wherever weeds grow, I can survive." 

The World Idiot Conference poster further elaborates Aida's back-street worldview. It's a proposal for an Urakokuren (Counter United Nations) made up of baka (idiots), including alcoholics, perverts and thieves, who would communicate over the Internet by webcam. 

In the gallery's other room is Jomon Shiki Kaiju No Unko (Turd from a Jomon Period Monster), an unrelated piece Aida made on a ski slope in Aomori Prefecture this summer. A video and photos document Aida and local volunteers constructing a pile of fecal filigree out of hay bales and clay. Bikini girls add the final touches before the whole thing is covered in lumber and fired on site. A small piece of the ceramic result—which vaguely resembles the coils of prehistoric Jomon vessels—plus a sign and T-shirt from the event are also on display. 

Makoto Aida, Turd from a Jomon Period Monster, 2003, video, photos, sign

Aida's good-natured, bad-mouthed ribbing of his country has been clearer in past shows. But his skillful navigation between cruel and funny is always refreshing in a city where cute and polite dominate. 

If you snickered nervously when the class clown made faces behind the teacher's back, you'll probably like this show. If you didn't, you, like the yet-to-arrive Disney lawyers, will probably want to kick Aida's ass.

This exhibition was held Nov-Dec 2003 at Mizuma Art Gallery in Naka-Meguro, Tokyo, Japan.

©2006 John McGee

©2006-2008 John McGee. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission.