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Art/Photography

[Daily Life/Off Record Exhibition Linked Project] Yukako Ando × Masaharu Sato Cross Interview

【日常/オフレコ展連動企画】 安藤由佳子 × 佐藤雅晴 クロスインタビュー

A cross-interview with artists participating in the "Nichijou/Off the Record" exhibition held at the KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theater Middle Studio from January 11, 2014 (Saturday) to January 30, 2014 (Thursday).
This time, we are presenting an exhibition to two artists: Yukako Ando, an artist who skillfully uses everyday materials such as newspapers and calendars to create conceptual works, and Masaharu Sato, who uses animation to tell realistic stories. The meeting was an opportunity for us to ask each other questions about what we were curious about about each other's work.
The two are old friends, having graduated from the same Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of story comes out.

sozai-sato-ando

■Question from Yukako Ando to Masaharu Sato

Yukako Ando (Ando): We met in the 90s, right?

Masaharu Sato (hereinafter referred to as Sato): Around 1998.

Ando: At that time, Mr. Sato was a graduate student at Tokyo University of the Arts, and I was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, and we first met as part of a cultural exchange between our schools.
From my perspective, the style of his current animation work and the style he created when I first met him are completely different, but I think there may be some similarities in terms of concept. How did you develop your current animation work?

Sato: First of all, the first thing I made as soon as I moved to Germany was a stop-motion animation piece drawn with charcoal on paper, and that's where I started doing animation.But before I came to Germany, I had been making installation pieces from the time I was an undergraduate at university until I became a graduate student. I was making

Ando: Yes, I had the impression that he was working outdoors with nature and buildings. What was the story of your first charcoal animation work?

500sato_ando_3

Sato: I went to Germany from Japan with just a trunk, and the place I lived in was a four-and-a-half tatami room, but when I thought about what to do there, the scenery and cities of Germany were new to me, so I decided to take pictures of the city. I wanted to take a picture of it and move it. I created an animation that combines the scenery of that city with the dreams I had while I was sleeping. Also, I started using a computer around 2004, and since then I no longer need a studio and have been working from home.

Ando: The work environment changed in that way, and I think it was necessary to go through the process of going outside instead of working in a room. At that time, I thought that I had never seen this work being done at a school.

Sato: I'm kind of scared of the big communal ateliers at universities... Things and tools always disappear when I leave them behind (lol)

Ando: Yes, if you don't come every day, your workshop will be empty, and if you're not there all the time, your tools will be gone. That's strange, isn't it?

Sato: I don't understand the reason for the discussion either (lol)

Ando: Discussions are scary, aren't they? However, when Mr. Sato came to that class, the atmosphere was a little relaxed. In the past, we had classes where we all worked together to discuss concepts, and I learned a lot in both good and bad ways. When I first joined the class, it was a hanging place. (lol)

Sato: (laughs)! Because of that, I ended up staying at home for two years, and when I finally submitted a piece of work, my teacher called it a "catastrophe" (lol).

Ando: (laughs)! What's the content? ! Could you please explain a little bit about what your work is?

Sato: I drew the city of Düsseldorf in great detail with charcoal on a piece of paper about 3 meters long, and my severed head suddenly appeared there. The piece takes frame-by-frame shots of the process of erasing it with an eraser and drawing it again, and in the end it disappears, but when it disappears, it leaves a crater in the city.

Ando: Was Mr. Sato smiling or...?

Sato: I was yawning (lol)

Ando: (laughs)! Was that the last of your class?

2sato-ando

Sato: Yes (lol) In the end, when I tried to become a regular student, my teacher wouldn't give me permission and told me to "quickly become a writer." When my visa expired and I was considering whether to go back to Japan or stay in Germany, I was talking about getting married to my current wife, so I ended up staying in Germany for another year until she graduated.
So I got a job at an izakaya run by a Japanese person, and for about 8 years, I worked in the izakaya's kitchen making yakitori skewers. (Laughs) Because I was eating yakitori every day, the person I had always wanted to be as an artist began to crumble.

Ando: My true self has come out. Maybe what you felt in the kitchen of a pub was condensed when you had time to create, and is reflected in your current surreal work?

Sato: That's right... There are parts that are a bit creepy. But my driving force is anger, depression, and dissatisfaction, so I guess it was nourishment instead. So while I was in Germany, from 2004 to 2007, I spent about four years making a 10-minute animation. I was thinking of becoming an animator.

Ando: How is the feeling of being an animator different from being an artist?

Sato: I don't think I can become an artist because I have no pride.

Ando: I didn't have that feeling from the beginning. I had never really made it clear to myself that I wanted to be an artist.

Sato: That's right.

Ando: That's the kind of environment that makes me feel at home, and I'm an extension of that. I often hear people around me saying that they want to study in Germany or become a German artist, but I had no idea. (lol)

Sato: I see. Also, isn't Germany called "Kunstler"? I'm not an "artist" by definition. That was really nice. When you write ``I'm an artist'' when opening a bank account in Japan, people ask you things like ``What do you sing?'' (lol) In Germany, Kunstler is dubbed to mean ``something new.'' The reactions of the people around you are also natural.

500sato_ando_8

Ando: There are no boundaries. They become more and more interested and ask questions. It's really fun when an old lady comes over and says, ``What is this?''

Sato: That's right. Because of that, I am seen as a special person in Japan, and even my family and relatives ask me, ``How are you going to survive?'' On the other hand, if I appear in a newspaper, I get compliments back and forth. Or. (Laughs) When I was in Germany, I felt that being an artist is a very natural way to be a member of society, whereas in Japan, I feel like I'm not really a member of society.

Ando: If anything, I would be positioned as an outsider. Germany has a position in society, so they understand that and transmit information from that place.

■Question from Masaharu Sato to Yukako Ando

Sato: Next, I would like to ask you a question. Mr. Ando, I believe you have the experience of curating three artists at the request of a curator. Could you tell us about that time?

Ando: It was at a space called Kunstraum owned by the Cultural Affairs Bureau in Düsseldorf, and of course the curators are supposed to curate the exhibitions themselves, but at that time we did something a little different, and there were five curators. There was a project where we picked up artists and those five artists then selected three artists each to curate, and I was chosen as one of the five artists.
In other words, there are 15 artists exhibiting at the exhibition. There are 5 curators and artists. It's a big exhibition when you look at it as a whole, so we kept the exhibition period very short and passed it around like a relay.

Sato: Ando-san, before you were approached by the original curator, did you ever publish any work that was planned by that person?

Ando: We held an exhibition there in 2001 called ``FAULWERK.'' It was a two-person exhibition.

Sato: When you were asked to be a curator, you wondered why they chose you, right?

900sato-ando

Ando: That's right. In fact, I asked him about it after the exhibition that he had curated had begun, and he said, ``You probably know a lot about the scene, and you can create an exhibition that's unique to you with a different perspective and approach than Germans.'' "I thought you might be able to curate it," he said. I think I can do it from my point of view, but I don't know much about it... (lol)

Sato: It's not like artists go to see exhibitions like curators. I'm basically producing it.

Ando: What was interesting was that after I got the curatorial job, I looked at the works in a different way. Like a hunter (lol)
I worked on the curation twice, in 2011 and 2012. The first time in 2011 was not a visual project, but a very conceptual one, and I decided that I wanted to do something like this myself, so I gathered a group of artists.
For example, it would be better if the three writers were from different countries, or if they lived in different places and were involved in different fields. We also gave the artists the freedom to create new works based on what they had already done.
However, the second time, I felt like I should pick up the works more like a curator, and I arranged them in a more sensuous way, using my own imagination to find works that fit the exhibition both visually and thematically. .

Sato: I see, so the first time I tried to fulfill my role as a curator, I tried to act as a curator, and the second time I felt like I was more of an artist.

Ando: Both are the same. I guess it feels like the way you play the reins is different.

Sato: In the end, which was better, the first time or the second time?

Ando: Both had some interesting parts. It may have looked like it was curated by a different person. But, you know, I can do it because it's only my second time, but I'm not in a position to plan things as I am someone who makes things.
I thought that curators are always thinking ahead, looking at different things, and putting them in different drawers, which was really interesting.

■About the works exhibited this time

datemaki2013
"Datemaki" (2013) Masaharu Sato

Ando: I have only seen photos of Mr. Sato's work Datemaki, which will be exhibited this time, and have not seen the actual product yet. Is this a factory?'' I'm curious about those two things.

Sato: The work "Datemaki" that will be exhibited at this off-the-record exhibition is an off-the-record (what is usually invisible or what is not stored in memory) perspective of things that we often see but do not know how they are processed. This is a work that was made into an animation. We actually interviewed the process of making date rolls at a kamaboko factory that was damaged in the Great East Japan Earthquake.
This work was created through a combination of factors: first, I got cancer in the summer of 2010, then the earthquake in 2011, and then my wife fell ill with subarachnoid hemorrhage in 2013. My wife and I are both fine now, but when my wife collapsed, we were told at the hospital to ``be prepared'' and it was really scary. When I thought about this and many other things, I naturally felt that I wanted to go to the disaster-affected areas, which I had been unable to do for fear of my cancer coming back.
Then I learned about the kamaboko factory... The entire factory was once washed away by a tsunami, but apparently it was rebuilt in the same location. The president's wife was a director there, and she had come from outside, so apparently she was afraid of the sea, so when the tsunami hit, she told all the employees to evacuate to higher ground. Thanks to this, the employee apparently survived, but on the other hand, a local man died while going out to see the sea.
This work is made up of stories like that and many other things that are directly or indirectly related, put together like a puzzle.

Ando: I’m looking forward to seeing it at the venue!

*Kamaboko Factory《 Marumata Kamaboko Manufacturing Co., Ltd. http://marumatakamaboko.com/

Sato: The door work that Mr. Ando will be exhibiting is, but the first thing I wanted to know is whether you came up with it after being asked to exhibit it at this off-the-record exhibition, or whether you had been planning to make it for some time. But...

Ando: The title of the door piece is ``# (Unit) 29'', but in foreign countries, it means the number of the apartment in the apartment, and it says ``I live in #3'', right? That 《#29》 is the title. When I first heard about it, I had heard that it would be exhibited at the Prefectural Hall Gallery, so I was thinking of something completely different, but when I heard that the Prefectural Hall Gallery was being renovated and moved to KAAT, I decided to take a preview. You went there.
I usually exhibit in everyday spaces such as white cubes or outdoors, so to be honest, I thought, ``Wow, what should I do?'' Personally, I have never chosen a so-called black box venue for my exhibition, where the surroundings are dark and the subject is illuminated by light, as would be the case for a theater performance.
I was a bit perplexed as this was completely the opposite of my approach, but after being shown the various mechanisms, I realized that one of the features of being a theater was that things could be hung from the ceiling.
As I was thinking about how I could use it, I combined the image I had of a door with KAAT's theater space. Therefore, 《#29》 was inspired by the venue. Rather than a real door, I'd like to create an installation that feels more like a stage set, but that's also a concept unique to this space.

Sato: Oh, I see.

Ando: I was a little interested in this direction, where there is a viewer and a viewer. When displaying the door, I thought it would be nice to be able to see it when you change direction and lie flat on your back against the ceiling. At first, it was an installation in which the door was opened by gravity, but I thought it would be interesting to open and close it while it was unfolding, so I had a mechanism made and made it open and close at random. did. In my mind, I imagine an invisible person suddenly opening the door and peering in.

Sato: When I saw Mr. Ando's plan, I thought it was similar to the image from the movie ``CUBE.'' There is a square room with doors on all sides. The characters can go anywhere inside the cube...

Ando: Hmm, I don't know (lol) The work consists of 24 almost life-sized doors (3 x 8) suspended from the ceiling, and they are not at a height that the audience can reach. , I'm making it so that it feels like a door you can't reach.

Sato: I see. I’m looking forward to seeing how amazing the doors are this time! !
plan2
device for doors

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