Art in Japan>Contemporary Art 1930-2004>Space-jack!

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

Space-jack!

by John McGee

Ernesto Neto, Sleeping Body Almost Nude/Live Water Lick Stone, 2001 
(Photos: ©Mie Morimoto)

You can hear laughter from a block away. In front of the Yokohama Museum of Art, five people wrapped in a wide, stretchy band of fabric shuffle back and forth, pushing in every direction with gleeful abandon. The tension of the fabric corral—an artwork by Fabien Lerat—restricts some movements and propels others, the “body” expanding this way and that like an indecisive amoeba.

The piece is part of “Space-jack!”, a fun, interactive group show organized by independent curator Yukie Kamiya. The artists in the exhibition—three Japanese and three non-Japanese—perform reorientations of the gallery’s architectural and social space, much like a squatter does to an adopted building. Kamiya sees squatting—the readaptation of abandoned or empty buildings—as a creative, if illegal, form of urban redevelopment. The artists in this show don’t squat but “jack” the gallery space, only temporarily altering its physical and conceptual boundaries.

No wall flowers allowed in the works of Martin Creed (British), Ernesto Neto (Brazilian), and Fabien Lerat (French). Their playful sculptures invite, no require, physical interaction to catalyze their transformation of subtle social dynamics into tactile experiences. Personal space is made visible: glances and gestures become fabric, foam, and balloons.  

Inside the museum gallery, visitors shout “otsukaresama deshita” to each other as they spread their arms and fall back into Ernesto Neto’s amorphous mounds of black gooshiness spread between the walls. Comfortable and cute, this oversized beanbag—desert tent meets 1960s futurist interior—embraces you with the fluid arms of Barbamama. Try to get back up again and you’ll feel more like Brer Rabbit—the pliable softness threatens to consume you before you can scramble away. 

On the other side of Minato Mirai, a head-high sea of black balloons takes up “half the air in a given space” (the title of the piece) inside the Yokohama Portside Gallery. Martin Creed’s installation looks dark and claustrophobic, but apprehension soon turns to unstifled giggles as visitors plow through and under the balloons, waves of them flowing overhead. 

Kyoco Taniyama, Window Porch, 2001

The three Japanese artists—Kyoco Taniyama, Yoshihiro Suda and Yusuke Mitsukawa—explore the boundaries of the gallery and the city rather than those of the human body. Their installations trace features of anonymous or ambiguous spaces on the gallery’s ready-made background. 

One of Suda’s weeds sprouts in the dusty shadow of a fire extinguisher. A branch juts from high on the wall. Suda hand-carves and paints these tiny wooden sculptures, so lifelike they might easily be missed or passed over as bad housekeeping. 

Taniyama turns the gallery inside out, redefining the interior. A low orange platform around an internal column frames and amplifies the connection between floor and wall. Nearby, the bottom of a wall appears to leak a clear substance into a puddle on the floor. But it doesn’t flow—it’s solid and hard. 

Mitsukawa photographically samples the texture of urban facades, transforming them into A4 sheets he pastes like delicate gray wallpaper in the corners of the gallery. The smudgy grids disrupt the pristine walls of the white cube, then fade back into them. 

The only weak part of this entertaining and thoughtful show is the distance between the two galleries (the city-owned Yokohama Museum of Art, Art Gallery and the nonprofit Yokohama Portside Gallery) and the inconvenient public transportation connections. But walk the 15 minutes between to enjoy panoramas of Minato Mirai and time to reflect.

This exhibition was held in Sep-Oct 2001 at the Yokohama Museum of Art and Yokohama Portside Gallery, Yokohama, Japan.

©2006 John McGee

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