The New Normal interview series: Will art emerge stronger from the crisis?

‘I’ve been working with art in the Japanese countryside for 20 years now, ever since the first Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale was held back in 2000. My work in places such as the Seto Inland Sea region, the Boso Peninsula in Chiba, the Northern Alps and Oku-Noto has all drawn on my conviction that the countryside has great potential.

‘Looking at history, ever since the time of the cave paintings of Altamira and Lascaux (which were painted some 20,000 years ago), art has been a means of expression for the many issues, contradictions, emotions and vagaries of life that take shape during the interplay of nature, people and civilisation. The emergence of the bourgeoisie coincided with the separation of art from real estate – art on wood or canvas instead of walls or ceilings – and the eventual transformation of art into financial property, stored and exhibited in sterile museums and galleries. That is a development that has made me uncomfortable.

‘In modern society, people are forced to endure endless competition, a constant flow of information and stimuli – something that I feel is turning us into robots. These developments are homogenising cities, which exist mainly to further mass consumption, destroying the environment, robbing capitalism of its logic and expanding inequality.

‘Art is being co-opted by the market, all cities look the same, and people are being standardised. My work in art stems from a desire to oppose all that. Only in art is being different considered a virtue. I think art as a whole is about sending the message that none of us are the same, we’re all different – all 7.7 billion of us. Through art, I’ve been trying to relay how interesting and exciting it is that everyone is different.

‘I’ve done plenty of projects in cities, but switched my focus to the countryside when presented with the opportunity to start a festival in Echigo-Tsumari. For me, the countryside is where real communities still exist, where rich cultures, traditions and nature coexist. Instead of the marketised, homogenised space of the city, places in the countryside have their own sense of time, rooted in the history of each place, so I thought it would be interesting to add art to that equation. So after Echigo-Tsumari, I came to direct art festivals in places like Setouchi, the Boso Peninsula, the Northern Alps and Oku-Noto.

‘Since getting into the rural art festival scene, I’ve seen much positive change throughout the countryside. In Setouchi, an old lady who lives along the way to a certain artwork started selling juice on the street in front of her house. I asked her where the juice comes from, and she told me she buys it from a nearby vending machine for ¥120 and sells it for ¥100, so she doesn’t have to worry about change. She doesn’t mind being in the red, because she has so much fun interacting with the people who come to see the art. Hearing and seeing things like that is what keeps me motivated.’

‘The best thing about art in the countryside is when people come from far away and cross borders to spend time, eat, and enjoy art together. The Covid-19 pandemic has put a stop to all that. The three festivals we were planning to hold this year (the Boso-Satoyama Art Festival Ichihara Art x Mix, the Northern Alps Art Festival and the Oku-Noto Triennale) have all been postponed, and we still don’t know whether we’ll be able to hold next year’s Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale as planned.

‘It’s a completely new situation, but luckily we had been making preparations to deal with unforeseen circumstances such as natural disasters since last summer. The climate has been changing drastically, and you can never tell when a destructive tsunami or flood might strike. Our work depends on selling tickets, so we had been preparing for situations when things don’t go as planned due to natural disasters and the like. That preparedness has made it possible for me to pay my employees this year, and we were able to discuss how to deal with the situation with our local government partners before the pandemic really started raging.

‘Our office switched to remote working at an early stage, and I was surprised to notice that a company can function even if everyone isn’t working hard all the time [laughs]. During the state of emergency, we only had a third or a fourth of our employees come to the office, but it was enough to keep the company running.

‘Not being able to go on business trips, I had a lot more time for myself, so I played shogi and watched old movies and Korean TV dramas. I watched quite a few 60- or 80-year-old films from the prewar period, and was impressed by how the artists and staff back then clearly put a lot of thought into their work. As for the Korean dramas, they’re really well marketed: shows like ‘Crash Landing on You’ are so calculated and targeted to specific audiences, it’s impressive.

‘On the topic of marketing, say there are people from A to Z, and those around N and M are the median consumer. In Japan we make TV shows for and about those people, but a show like ‘Crash Landing on You’ has characters from A to Z and H to boot. That allows for all sorts of people to get engaged with the story, which obviously translates to popularity. I think that sort of perspective is pretty interesting.

‘Of course, I’ve also had time to read up on the coronavirus and Covid-19. Looking at the entire history of life and viruses and how these have evolved over the three and a half billion years they’ve been around on this planet, I’m particularly interested in the medieval Black Death (which killed about a third of the population of Europe) and the impact it had on history. The Church lost much of its authority, and eventually Europe moved towards the Renaissance. The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting people all over the world simultaneously. This is quite unprecedented, and what effect it will have remains to be seen. This is a bold prediction, but I do think the current pandemic could bring about changes as far-reaching as the Renaissance.’

‘The coronavirus crisis has forced us to postpone all the art festivals that were supposed to be rooted in thinking about the relationship between society and nature, and restrictions have been placed on movement, gatherings and meetings over dinner. These circumstances have forced me to really think hard – harder than ever, perhaps – about how to accomplish what I’m hoping to do. It’s tough, sure, but in a way I also find it interesting to be in the midst of a historic situation that will most likely change the world.

‘It’s possible that future art festivals won’t be able to exhibit the kind of art we’ve seen before – art that both encourages the local people and educates and entertains visitors. We don’t know whether our audience will be back next year, and artists from abroad can’t even enter Japan right now. That considered, we have to think about what kind of experiences we can provide to make our host regions more exciting. It won’t be easy, but I believe that as long as diverse people are given the opportunity to communicate and cooperate, we may be able to come up with something completely new.

‘We’re already planning for the 2022 Setouchi Triennale, but I can’t actually visit the area right now. Villages in the region, which are usually more than happy to welcome visitors, are unable to do so due to the virus situation. But local schools have started working on ways to participate in the festival, and in a village I visited the other day, the residents showed me a tour they’d like to provide. There are restrictions and concerns, sure, but these people are thinking about art even more seriously than before.

‘That’s true for other regions, too. The other day, a nonprofit hoping to organise an art project in Iitate, Fukushima, put on an online event that I was invited to, and it attracted more than 100 participants. Another online lecture organised by Sony and themed on art and business got about 200 live viewers. I feel like the fact that people are unable to visit places and see different things is spurring ever greater interest in art.

‘I was really happy to receive a submission for next year’s Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale from the renowned Ilya Kabakov, a Russian-born conceptual artist who was unable to present his work until he was well over 50, because of Soviet censorship. He was like “you guys are really working hard, and I’d like to be part of that”.

‘I wanted to know what artists like Kabakov, who are unable to publish their work because of the coronavirus crisis, are thinking and doing right now, so I started an Instagram project called Artists’ Breath. I contacted artists who have participated in the five festivals that I’m general director of, and we now post a video contribution from a different artist every day.

‘This is our own project and we pay the participating artists. We ask for two-minute clips, but some people send us 10 minutes of footage, others 10 seconds. Managing it all is hard work and pretty troublesome [laughs], but the diversity is interesting. I think showing what different artists are up to is also a way to document the coronavirus crisis from a unique perspective.

‘We don’t know what will happen next year, but as Kabakov said in his Artists’ Breath contribution, “This is a time for everyone to think.” He means that difficult circumstances carry to potential for great artistic advances. I’d love to provide people with an opportunity to experience these advances.’