20090509 ARAI Shin-ichi + Jill McDammid "Arigatou Joseph Beuys, Thank you Joseph Beuys"
Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn NYC
In 1984, when I was a
student at Bigakko, Joseph Beuys came to Japan for a
retrospective exhibition.
He gave several lectures,
and I went to the hall of the Asahi Shimbun. There were so many
people who could not get inside that monitors were hastily set
up outside.
After the lecture, the
audience formed a long line to get Beuys’s autograph.
At last, I got his
signature on my tote bag. I was tremendously excited.
At that time, we discussed
how sculpture, installation, and performance that could change
society, like Beuys’s work, might be possible in Japan.
Around that time, I met
KONISHI Yasu.
KONISHI Yasu had been a
student at Beuys’s famous free class in Düsseldorf, Germany.
After the famous May Day
demonstration in East Berlin, he took part in a performance
cleaning up the streets, and he was photographed together with
Beuys.
After returning to Japan,
KONISHI Yasu founded “Gallery Merdo (Shit)” with friends in
Ekoda Tokyo and called themselves Japan Fluxus.
When I told an older friend
that I was involved with KONISHI Yasu, he said:
“Stay away from KONISHI.”
A few years earlier,
according to him, while he was having a solo exhibition at a
“rental” gallery, a complete stranger came into the exhibition
space, suddenly took a shit there, and calmly walked away.
That stranger was KONISHI
Yasu.
And, he said, he was not
the only victim.
However, I knew that
KONISHI Yasu was criticizing Japan’s warped “rental” gallery
system and the Japanese art world itself.
In 1986, I traveled around
Europe for one month.
I stayed in cheap places
such as youth hostels and dormitories.
In their dining rooms,
butter and honey were always available.
The blankets were worn-out,
thin felt.
I realized that butter and
honey were like soy sauce and wasabi, and felt was like futon
bedding.
Butter, honey, and thick
felt are important materials in Beuys’s work.
I had mistaken them for
mysterious materials.
Recently, I had stopped
thinking much about Joseph Beuys.
He no longer seemed as
important to me as he once had.
A few years ago, I visited
the apartment of a Chinese friend in Beijing who makes wonderful
land art.
On his bookshelf, I found a
Chinese-language biography of Joseph Beuys.
Jill smears butter and
honey on photocopies of Beuys’s works copied from “Leve Sieht
Beuys.”
ARAI Shin-ichi takes a walk
with a toy rabbit.
Using chopsticks, he picks
up the photocopies of the works Jill has prepared, dips them in
wasabi and soy sauce, and stuffs them into his mouth.
Then he puts his hands
together and says:
“Thank you, Arigatou,
Joseph Beuys.”
Of the 24 photocopies, 23
become impossible to continue with.
Finally, he writes on the
blackboard:
“Everyone is an artist.
Except me.”