絵画や彫刻に限らず音楽や映画、あるいは演劇など創作活動を誘発するものは様々です。
中でも、戦争も含めた社会の変革や自然災害、あるいは産業革命や情報革命など人々の日々の生活に密接に関連した現象は芸術家の心を激しく揺さぶり、その中から社会へのメッセージとしての『作品』が作られてきました。スペイン内戦への怒りとして描かれたピカソの「ゲルニカ」や現代社会への疑問符としての映画「イージーライダー」等表現は様々ですが、これらの作品が社会を動かすきっかけにもなってきました。
今回紹介する若手グループthreeは福島で一昨年の3月11日に地震と原発事故の直接の被害を経験しなおかつその被災地で活動を続けています。それまで彼らは携帯ストラップやフィギュア、あるいは古新聞など日常生活の身近にあるものを使って、消費する都市と生産する地方とのギャップへの疑問を投げかける、社会性の強い作品を作ってきました。
キーワードにもなっている151503という数字は、原発事故によって県外避難を余儀なくさせられた人々の数です。地震・津波災害や原発事故後の膨大な量の現地からの報道に対する素朴な感情と違和感を彼らは二つの作品で表現しました。
キューブの作品は、原発建屋の縮小モデル、そこに取り付けられたカラフルな魚の“醤油さし”の数は151503。またスクリーンに映し出される映像は同時期・同時刻の東京と居住制限区域の飯館村の風景です。
マスコミなどで頻繁に報道される被災地の「事実」と彼ら自身が経験している被害者としての「真実」の微妙なずれを否定も肯定もせず作品の中に表現し、見る側にその判断をゆだねています。言葉や映像があふれる現代社会の中で敢えて沈黙し、単純作業の繰り返しの中で完成される作品は見る者の心を強くとらえます。震災後尚、変化を怖れ視方を変えることを躊躇する現代社会において、彼らからの問いかけに真摯に向き合えればと思います。
Whether it is painting, sculpture, music, movies or theater, creative work can be triggered by a variety of things.
Especially, phenomena that are closely related to day-to-day human lives such as shakeups in the world, including wars, natural disasters or information revolutions, shake the minds of artists with intensity, and as the result, “works” as messages to the social world come about. Picasso’s “Guernica,” which was painted to express his anger towards the Spanish Civil War and “Easy Rider” are such examples. They are all expressed in a variety of different ways but certainly did play a role of catalysts in moving the society
“three,” a group of young artists that we are introducing at this time, is a first-hand victim of the earthquake on March 11 two years ago and the subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, and this group continues its creative activity in the disaster stricken area. Until the earthquake, the group had been creating pieces that would make strong social statements, questioning the gap between the consuming urban areas and the producing rural areas, using things that are readily accessible in our daily lives such as cell phone straps, figures or used newspapers.
The number 151503, which is also a key word, is the number of people who were forced to evacuate the Fukushima prefecture after the nuclear disaster. They expressed their natural skepticism and a sense of discomfort towards the enormous amount of media coverage from the disaster areas in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear accident with two pieces of work.
The work with a shape of a cube is a reduced model of the nuclear reactor building, and the number of colorful, fish-shaped “soy sauce droppers” attached to it is also 151503. The images that are projected on the screens are the sceneries from Tokyo and Iitate Village, where the return of the evacuees is designated either as difficult or limited, captured at the same time, in the same time of the year.
They express the subtle disconnect between the “facts” that are frequently reported by media and the “facts” they experience themselves as the victims in their work, by neither denying nor approving it, and they leave the judgment to be made by those who see it. In this modern society inundated with words and video pictures, they dare to stay silent: Their works that are perfected through a repetition of simple tasks powerfully grab the hearts of those who see them. Maybe they are calling on us to realize the meaning of silence in this modern society that is inundated with words and video pictures.
In this modern day society where people still fear changes and hesitate to alter the way they see things even after the disaster of the earthquake, I hope we will be able to face their questions eye-to-eye, with sincerity.