Funeral for Bioengineering to Not to Die – Early Works by Arakawa Shusaku

     Shusaku Arakawa passed away on 19 May, 2010. He consistently repudiated the notion that human death is destiny which one can’t escape, and developed and practiced his own thought without adhering to common sense. I awfully regret his too early passing. The exhibition entitled “Funeral for Bioengineering to Not to Die – Early Works by Arakawa Shusaku” (17 Apr 2010 – 27 Jun 2010, The National Museum of Art, Osaka), which collected Arakawa’s early works, gave me an opportunity to think anew the existence/absence of Arakawa, who “has decided not to die”.

     The “early works” included in the title of this exhibition means Arakawa’s creations which were presented in Japan. On 28 December, 1961, he left for the U.S. by himself, and since then he has developed creating activities based in New York. His active period in Japan before going to U.S. is only about four years which includes participating as one of exhibitors in “The nineth Yomiuri Independent” (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1957), his first solo exhibition named “Mouhitotsu-no-Hakaba (Another graveyard)” (Muramatsu Gallery, 1960), and the second solo exhibition which was held at Mudo Gallery in 1961. This time exhibition successfully showed his twenty works, commonly known as “coffin” series, which had been exhibited in his two solo exhibitions at Muramatsu Gallery and Mudo Gallery, by collecting them from museums throughout Japan.
     By the way, what kind of works are Arakawa’s “early works” which were brought together after fifty years? Entering the exhibition room, we find there are black wooden boxes which look like coffins. Glossy cloth which is colored purple, dark blue and silver is laid inside of the boxes. On the cloth, there are oddly shaped cement. The surface of the “objects” which remind us of dead bodies is similar to unattractive, sore and injured human skin. Various kinds of materials, such as projections and cotton, are found in some parts of the objects. These works “seem to represent Arakawa’s thought that he completely denied existing forms of art and the current conditions in the field of art in Japan and wished to start his own artistic experiment.”^* If so, these exhibits can be called requiems which were written with the aim of opposing existing styles of art and supporting his new artistic experiment.
     In 1997, Arakawa became the first Japanese to hold his solo exhibition at Guggenheim Museum. The title of the exhibition was “We have decided not to die”. Then, will the death of Arakawa himself, who “has decided not to die”, collapse his “thought”? Arakawa consistently denied death, developed and practiced his tenacious thought, and lived out his natural life. Did he leave only unfeasible ideas to posterity? Here, I would like to consider what the terms, “reversing destiny”, advocated by Arakawa, mean.

“Destiny means mortal weird. All living matters, including human beings, can’t escape their destiny. Therefore, reversing destiny means pursuing the choice of not dying which can never be selected.”^*2

     Then, let’s “reverse destiny” under the assumption that this act is an “option which can never be selected”. In other words, I would like to propose that we should consider this exhibition as both Arakawa’s retrospective show of his early works and the solo exhibition of his “latest creations”. We should not consider his works which are displayed in this exhibition from “retrospective” viewpoint or as his “early works”. Based on the expression, “reversing destiny”, which has been propounded by Arakawa, we must “reverse” our perspective of this exhibition. That is exactly why we view his early works in 2010. (In Arakawa’s words, this would mean exercising “the mechanism of meaning”.) As a result, Arakawa’s biography will be “reversed”. His “early works” will come to be deemed not his past creations which were made in his early years but his current (late-stage) works. This exhibition showed Arakawa’s early works as well as his latest creations. It can be called both his last solo exhibition and his “first solo exhibition”. We, viewers, would be given an opportunity to “discover” new aspects of Shusaku Arakawa’s creations through this exhibition.

*1

Yukihiro Hirayoshi “About the early works by Shusaku Arakawa”, Catalogue of “Funeral for Bioengineering to Not to Die – Early Works by Arakawa Shusaku”, National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2010, p.10

*2

Fumi Tsukahara “Tracks and miracle by Osamu Arakawa”, NTT Publishing Co., Ltd., 2009, p.20