Beyond ‘Japanese/Women Artists’

The artists Nobuho Nagasawa and Chiharu Shiota defy the typical profile of ‘Japanese/women artists’. They were educated in Europe and have both lived in Berlin. They have resided in cosmopolitan cities outside Japan and exhibited their works globally over the last decade. Their travels helped them attain the perspective of the ‘outsider’ and enriched their artistic creation. Their mobility also lent complexity to their identities, which could no longer be pigeon-holed according to ethnic or cultural origin. These artists’ career paths and their growing reception in the global art scene pose important questions about being an artist of Asian origin working outside one's home country. Through in-depth analysis this article demonstrates how the work of these two artists transcends the conventionally held presumptions regarding ‘Japanese/women artists’. It also considers how they both internalize cultural displacement within their work, while catalysing artistic dialogue beyond national and cultural borders.Keywords: Midori YoshimotoNobuho NagasawaChiharu ShiotaJapanese women artistsartists of Asian origintransnational artiststransnational dialogueidentity explorationgenderothernesscultural displacementglobalization and art To see the images of artworks that could not be reproduced here and the artists' biographies, please visit the following websites: emedia.art.sunysb.edu/nagasawa/ for Nagasawa, and www.chiharu-shiota.com/ for Shiota.Notes1 Chiharu Shiota, interview with Aomi Okabe, transcribed and edited by Mayuko Aota, Musashino Art University, Department of Arts Policy and Management, 2009, http://apm.musabi.ac.jp/imsc/cp/menu/artist/shiota_chiharu/interview.html, accessed 31 October 2012. Unless otherwise noted, quotes from the Japanese have been translated into English by the author.2 Nobuho Nagasawa, quoted in Midori Yoshimoto, ‘Reflections on Creative Collaboration in Contemporary Art: Collaborative Art of Nobuho Nagasawa’, Academic Forum (published by New Jersey City University), vol 13, no 2, 2004, p 57. See http://www.njcu.edu/aa/academic-forum/.3 Nobuho Nagasawa, ‘General Approach and Influences’, unpublished statement, 2004, no pagination4 Nagasawa quoted in Yoshimoto, op cit, p 575 Didi Kirsten Tatlow, ‘Interview with Chiharu Shiota: ai performance for the planet’, ai, summer 2001, pp 20–27, www.texte.chiharu-shiota.com/texte/ai.pdf, accessed 25 October 20126 Chiharu Shiota, statement in Third Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, exhibition catalogue, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, 2005, p 1587 Shiota, interview with Okabe, op cit8 The official title of the work has been extended as it has travelled around the world. As of 2012, it is Seoul Home/LA Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home/LA Home, 1999. For the image of this work, see www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/do-ho-suh/press_release/0/artist_selected/1, accessed 17 October 2012.9 Chiharu Shiota, ‘Shiota Chiharu no Berurin daiarī’ (‘Berlin Diary by Chiharu Shiota’), Asahi Gurafu, 11 February 2000, www.hotcola.com/chiharu/press_3.html, accessed 17 October 201210 Regarding the tower's history, see Doug Smith, ‘Free-spirited Sculptor Nobi Creates Art and Shelter in Her Adobe on Campus of CalArts: Fired Imagination’, Los Angeles Times, 10 May 1987; and David Colker, ‘Controversy Lingers Over Sculpture: CalArts: Questions remain over the handling of demolition of the tower, which was vandalized, and what – if anything – to put in its place’, Los Angeles Times, 18 January 1991.11 Eric C Shiner, ‘Planting Minefields of Engagement as Far as the Mind Can See’, in Eric C Shiner and Reiko Tomii, eds, Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York, Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2007, p 12112 Takashi Serizawa, Konowakusei o yudosuru: Intanetto jidai ni mou hitotsu no ikikata o motomete (Orbiting the Planet: Seeking An Alternative Lifestyle in the Internet Age), Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 1996, pp 25–2613 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Death of a Discipline, Columbia University Press, New York, 2003, pp 71–10214 Nobuho Nagasawa, text included in the documentary video of Bodywaves, http://emedia.art.sunysb.edu/nagasawa/, accessed 31 October 201215 Shiota quoted in Tatehata, ‘Allegory of Absence’, op cit, no pagination16 Steffi Goldmann quoted in Rachel Wolff, ‘The Annotated Artwork Waiting’, New York, 18 February 2008, p 6317 Midori Yamamura recently challenged the established myth of Yayoi Kusama's illness and argued that her hallucination was largely caused by medications prescribed by a psychiatrist she started seeing in New York in 1962. While this analysis is significant, the author believes that Kusama's shift around 1962–1963 from object-making to the construction of her persona through performance and fashion was a self-conscious act. See Midori Yamamura, ‘Re-Viewing Kusama, 1950–1975: Biography of Things’, in Jaap Guldemond, Franck Gautherot and Seungduk Kim, eds, Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years, exhibition catalogue, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2009, p 100. On the latter point by Yamamura, see Midori Yoshimoto, ‘Yayoi Kusama sauve le monde par la Self-Obliteration’, in Yayoi Kusama, exhibition catalogue, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2011, pp 73–74.18 Tsutomu Mizusawa, ‘Something Wriggling in the Distant Quietude – Where Chiharu Shiota Belongs’, in From In Silence: Chiharu Shiota, exhibition catalogue, Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery, Yokohama, 2007, p 1519 Yoshinaga Moritani, ‘Artist Interview Shiota Chiharu’, Midori Yoshimoto, trans, 2001, www.hotcola.com/chiharu/press_2.html, accessed 31 October 201220 Tatlow, ‘Interview with Chiharu Shiota’, op cit21 Shōji Inoue, ‘Futashikana jibun eno sokonashi no fuan’ (Bottomless Anxiety of Uncertain Self), Tenpyō 9, autumn 2001, www.hotcola.com/chiharu/press_1.html, accessed 17 October 201222 Tatlow, ‘Interview with Chiharu Shiota’, op cit23 Ming Tiampo, Gutai: Decentering Modernism, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2011, pp 42–4324 Tatlow, ‘Interview with Chiharu Shiota, op cit25 Nobuho Nagasawa, email communication to the author, 30 October 201226 Yoko Ono, quoted in Midori Yoshimoto, ‘Instructions for Life: Rediscovering Yoko Ono’, dialogue (the Magazine of the Asian American Arts Alliance), vol 4, no 1, spring 2001, p 2027 Yoko Ono, in conversation with David Ross, an event held in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Yes Yoko Ono’ at the Japan Society, New York, October 200028 Yayoi Kusama, quoted in Dana Friis-Hansen, ‘Yayoi Kusama's Feminism’, ART + TEXT 49, 1994, p 5029 For more on my discussion of Ono and Kusama, see Midori Yoshimoto, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey and London, 200530 Nobuho Nagasawa, letter to Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, 24 February 200331 Nobuho Nagasawa, quoted in Yoshimoto, ‘Reflections on Creative Collaboration in Contemporary Art’, op cit, p 5932 Nobuho Nagasawa, artist statement for her render – she gives back naturally what is true in her nature, 200333 David Elliott, ‘Bye Bye Kitty’, in Elliott, Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art, Japan Society, New York and Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011, p 3634 Madoka Matsumura, ‘The Works of Chiharu Shiota – A Study’, in Chiharu Shiota – Where Are We Going?, exhibition catalogue, Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan, 2012, p 5935 ‘Me as Others’ (tasha de aru watashi) was the title Shiota gave to her recent exhibition at the Mitsubishi-Jisho Altium Gallery in Fukuoka, Japan in 2012.36 Tatlow, ‘Interview with Chiharu Shiota’, op cit37 For the background of the art producer Fram Kitagawa and his Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial and Setouchi International Art Festival, see Adrian Favell, Before and After Superflat: A Short History of Japanese Contemporary Art 1900–2011, Blue Kingfisher, Hong Kong, 2011, pp 174–183.38 It is worth noting that both Echigo-Tsumari and Setouchi list all artists alphabetically and provide their originating country or prefecture (in the case of Japan), whereas Fukushima divides the artists by the countries of their residence. For example, Nagasawa's origin is listed as ‘Tokyo’ on the Setouchi website, while she is categorized under USA with Yoko Ono and two other Japanese artists on the Fukushima website. See www.echigo-tsumari.jp/artist/all/ (Echigo-Tsumari); setouchi-artfest.jp/en/artists (Setouchi); and www.wa-art.com/bien/bien2012e/sakka.html (Fukushima), accessed 30 October 2012.39 Nobuho Nagasawa, unpublished PowerPoint presentation on Time Sculpture – Koro-pok-kuru, 201240 Natsuko Odate, ‘Shiota Chiharu intabyū: Sasaina omoi ga yobisamasu kyotsu kioku no suicchi’ (‘Chiharu Shiota Interview: Small Sentiments Trigger Common Memory Like a Switch’), ART iT, 10 September 2010, www.art-it.asia/u/admin_ed_itv/i2vWjzhgHI7kLYVuxMA8/, accessed 31 October 2012

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