As I woke up I was willing to share with you a view of Nagoya. See, I did not lie. It is quite gray as a city. But at the minute I am writing those lines, 11 days after, on December 16th, I forgive everything. I am in Paradise. I am sure you are curious why and where. But I won't tell you. You will have to read everything to know. The only teaser I give is: I am at the Benesse Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Naoshima and you can't believe how this place is. It is just beyond our dreams and it is my reality for one afternoon, one evening and one night. So, please let me enjoy. I won't allow words to spoil my paradise.
Anyway, on December 5th I took the train for Kyoto. As you can see on the image, discipline is a key concept in Japan. People wait in line to enter the train. Very unusual for a French citizen. Ran into the hotel. Checked in and ran (again) to the Museum of Modern Art to meet with curator Shinji Kohmoto. Still raining. Shinji Kohmoto is a great curator. We had a very open conversation with no "wooden tongue" (literal translation of French way mean that one is hiding the truth). As usual, we played the game of the list. He was very helpful. Giving me addresses, advises. As soon as he was leaving to look for some catalogue I took images of the empty offices. I like empty offices and I also like the fact that his office was as a mess as mine.
I also like that, in those place supposed to display good taste, one can not control anything and you end up with strange decorative objects in the offices such as a little colorful elephant, which very probably moves its head and a crystal alarm clock. I really enjoyed meeting him and I really appreciated that he took the time while his staff was installing an exhibition.
After the meeting I had a quick walk in Kyoto. Kyoto is beautiful. Very traditional. Monuments are all over the place. It is kind of frustrating. One would like to be able to visit everything. But I had to head back to the hotel to meet with an artist recommanded by Junko Shimada from Gallery Side 2 in Tokyo. His name was Atsushi Nishijima. He is doing mostly sound installations. He is in a tradition which started with John Cage, Fluxus, and he is a friend of Takehisa Kosugi (who came to the Walker to perform with Christian Marclay and Jim O'Rourk, for the Merce Cunningham performance). Also very helpful, gave names and address for place and people to visit in Kyoto.
Of course everybody recommended Dumb Type. But they were all abroad performing. An other is the Voice Gallery. Good meeting, very nice person. I realized speaking with him that the specificity of the art scene in Kyoto is that the artists seem to be very connected to the performing arts and the club scene. Maybe because of the lack of gallery spaces, clubs become the place where thing can happen.
It is a nice place with an accordeon player performing old French song (Yves Montand - Charles Trenet - Edith Piaf...). My blood was beating in my removed body and my foot were moving with the rythm of eveything I denied when I was still leaving in the old continent (Yves Montand...Go figure...in Kyoto).
The name of the person is Yoshimasa Ishibashi. Yoshiko Isshiki in Tokyo gave his phone number and I have seen in Paris some of his video that he signed under the name of Kyupi Kyupi. Of course I was not able to locate this artist and Yoshiko Isshiki saved me. It was a great meeting. Even if I was starving to death because I totally forget to eat anything.
Anyway he arrived with two other people. One designer and one documentary film maker from london, living in Kyoto, Tobias Bando (what a name). It was very strange at the beginning. I was feeling embarassed to be the only one to order food, but since they order wine and beer as soon as they arrived and that the manager of the club kept bringing to our table unfinished bottles of champagne I figured out that I'd better put something in this removed body I mentioned few minutes ago, in order to be able to handle the situation without bringing shame on my institution reputation. I mean by that, without ending the meeting under the table. It would have been pathetic.
At first I was mostly speaking with Tobias. Because of the language and because each time I was asking a question to Ishibashi he answered me with something like: "right", "of course", "possible". So I was thinking either he does not speak English, either he is very shy, either he is a moron, either he is an asshole. After a while, I ended up answering him the same way, just to make fun of him. And, then he happened to be not shy, not a moron and not even an asshole but a very funny person.
After some wine, beer and champagne we left the bar to go to Tobias place in order to see some of his videos. Tobias is editing Ishibashi's films. I saw the one did during a performance of the collective Kyupi Kyupi. My good god. It is Cabaret with a touch of Leigh Bowery. First Ishibashi appeared on stage, dancing a little bit, just a little, wearing a golden suit and a green mask which looks like something between an octopus and a sextoy (yeah, Baby!).
He was the
Entertainer of this performance. Then a Geisha came on stage and started
singing old Japanese popular songs, as well as American and French. She
had a band performing the music. The musicians were wearing, if memory
serves, also golden suits and fish masks. Insane. More videos. As crazy.
Out of there (is that good English?). As you can guess I invited to be
part of Let's Entertain.
Tobias brought us a soup, very good and we watch some video that Ishibashi
did for Bubu de la Madeleine. An other artist from Kyoto that I will meet
on Monday. It was kind of late and Tobias had to leave to work in a Filipino
club. Don't ask. I did not.
I immortalized them and let them
go into their night.
