Recently I received some comments on Mr.s work from Kentaro Takekuma. Takekuma is the author of Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, a satirical comic which completely dissected the manga industry. Hes also one of the true first generation otaku, so I was really happy to hear from him. Mr. gives off the air of really complicating or exacerbating something. Heres another one of his works. Hes an apprentice of Takashi Murakamis. I look at this and I cant help but grin.This is Mr. too. The way it mixes moe with feelings of desolation is quite elegant. Mr., like me, is an artist working in the field of contemporary art. At age 45, he has now become quite a sought after figure. 95% of his works sell and his prices are fairly stable on the secondary market. That security has made him popular with collectors in their thirties. To cite one example, a painting he did of a young girl lifting her leg and shouting Yoshi(cchi) at our 2011 New Day Charity Auction sold for $152,000, prompting many in the Japanese otaku community to cry foul at the high value. But his position as an artist within the Western art scene is on the same coordinate plane as my own, meaning that he is filling a need and the popularity of his style and character are no mere coincidence. The first thing we notice about Mr. is his name and the accompanying sense of itai (embarrassment, self-effacement) it carries. The immediate source of the name was the legendary number 3 of the Yomiuri Giants, Shigeo Nagashima (who was called Mr. Giants) and it was chosen by me because like Nagashima, Mr. has a tendency to be absorbed in his own world and unable to read the air, a quality which can be lovable but results in some remarkably eccentric behavior. I got the idea to give him a name like this from the comedians who surrounded Takeshi Kitano at the time, many of whom were given similarly eccentric stage names. But as much as I was copying Kitano, I also felt that the name would have special appeal for a Japanese artist working inside the Western art scene. To state the obvious, Mr. is an English language honorific directed at men. So when Mr. is abroad, the calling of his name leads to a succession of Mr. Mr. or in French, Monsieur Mr. So from his very name, the first impression you get is of an Asian man who doesnt understand English, someone inherently unsophisticated. Mr. himself hated the name in the beginning and, for a period of time, continued trying to market himself using his real name. The reason for this was that he felt he was being made a fool of. But lets take a step beyond that and examine how the concept of self-effacement = unsophisticated does actually lead to popularity for Mr. The logic is as follows: 1. As mentioned above, the act of giving him a stage name was inspired by the Takeshi Gundan, a group of comedians created by comedian/film director Takeshi Kitano. The Japanese entertainment industry is largely divided into seperate offices or agencies, which an aspiring talent must join if they hope to succeed. In most cases, they remain a member of these groups their whole career. One historical example is a group formed by the actor Yujiro Ishihara, the younger brother of the former governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara. During his prime as an actor, Ishihara formed the Ishihara Gundan, a gang of young actors modeled after the American Rat Pack, and took the Japanese media by storm. It was this specific context that Takeshi Kitano was parodying when he gathered around himself a large stable of young comedians. He then decided to take the joke to the next level by parodying the existing structure of master-apprentice which is part of the Japanese tradition and gave many of his pupils bizarre, self-effacing stage names. In the end, these names became symbolic of the comedians relationship with Kitano and stuck with the performers throughout their careers. Mr. captures the relationship between him and myself in the same way and I felt that this inherently Japanese relationship structure would have a certain air of Asian exoticism when carried onto the contemporary art scene, an important strategic element. 2. Stylistically, we have connected the anime-tinged point of view with Mr.s personal life. Each motif is connected to his various complexes and has a story behind it. 3. In this way, Mr. is transformed into a kind of punk presence, a way of flipping the bird at the Western preconception of art as high culture. 4. The somewhat clumsy way in which he paints anime figures inspires a kind of nostalgia... for example, its fairly well known that in Europe, the anime Grendizer was quite popular. The impact that these 70s anime had on countries outside of Japan and the otaku cultural zone they left in their wake cannot be ignored. ５. Among the people in zone 4 above, there are many who succeeded in business and are now in a position to buy artworks. When they begin collecting, the first thing they do is survey the scene and buy works by prominent Western artists. Once that is done, they next take a second look at the global scene and begin looking for works that fit with their own tastes. At this point, they begin longing for something in an anime style, and, upon discovering Mr., are met with a wave of nostalgia, as well as a respect for the punk spirit that is imbued in his works. It is from here that they begin collecting. There are many other artists who paint anime style images but what sets Mr. apart is #2, the juxtaposition with his personal complexes. The fact that he was born and grew up in the unique state of poverty that existed in the postwar Japanese countryside, the fact that he was a yanki (a delinquent subculture in Japan that is known for garish dress and behavior), the domestic violence inflicted by his brother, who was admitted to a welfare facility and was subjected to rehabilitation efforts (think One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest), the sense that he is a person faced with certain genetic defects and the attempt to escape from these things through lolicon culture... In general, his story is an all too common one of having grown up in an unhappy environment, amplified by his own general clumsiness and awkwardness in dealing with other people (like Shigeo Nagashima or the Japanese outsider artist Kiyoshi Yamashita). The combination of all of these things, however, has also made him a person of pure heart who is loved by many. It is thus my contention that the gap between Mr.s general personal unhappiness and the warmth in his art lends the work a certain kind of power. If we interpret, as many postwar Japanese do, art as nothing more than cool subculture, then it is no mystery why uncool artists like myself and Mr. are so disliked in our own country. But lets pause there for a second. The Japanese also love van Gogh. And what do we know about him? It is a well known matter of historical fact that van Gogh was a mental patient and that his work is linked to this state. People are attracted by the enigma of an artist who was so obviously unhappy and yet was able to paint such vibrant color and imagery. They are moved by what they see as the mystery of human nature and the power possessed in our dark sides. Another example is the popularity abroad of the artist Tetsuya Ishida, who died an untimely death in 2005. city.hiratsuka.kanagawa.jp/art-muse/2014201.htm What we gather from all this is that one of the core aspects of art appreciation is to observe and appreciate the unhappiness of others. This fact is completely ignored in Japan. Conversely, the definition of art as cool subculture has no history as part of art appreciation. For this reason, no matter how much work emerges in the Japanese anime style, it will never fit well with the context of fine art. Therein lies the secret of Mr.s popularity and value. Lastly, theres Mr.s short film Nobody Dies. This film is a portrait of middle school girls obsessed with war games and is, in his own clumsy way, a portrait of the Japanese identity. youtube/watch?v=zHx-OY3jzn0 As you can see, it is Mr.s complicated, unfortunate life and his nostalgia-inducing, Japanese anime-style paintings that led to his popularity overseas.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 20:37:25 +0000
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