Two main words of Kentaro Isotani artistic vocabulary might be “ranbō” (violence/roughness/ excess/wildness/rudeness) and “fujōri” (absurd/nonsense). Therefore, he is the one who proposes “easy and quick sculpture” (“modeling work”), which still hints at its material as well as making process. It is artworks made from mud, grease, silicon or waste oil with different kinds of inlaid garbage. Isotani prefers to play with identities of “homeless”, “junky“ and “outsider”: an image of “a piece of shit”, who can without delay spit out his opinion in shape of an artwork. Here lays one of the energy sources of his critical stance. Isotani at the same time is the one who imaginatively confronts a miracle or an object for warship, The Sacred. He says, “I make the kind of things, which an uncultured alcoholic, lonely delusive lout would fanatically start to produce after accidentally being impressed by religious sculpture in a church”. (The key concept of Isotani’s “St A…Z” series sculptures.) The mix of fascination/ecstasy/surprise with bold, uncultivated forms brings an irony, cynicism and self-criticism in Isotani’s work. The same collision of astonishment (elevation of the spirit or feelings) and mud (the “low” material) refers to fundamental problems of art and civilization: “primitive/infantile/insane” imagination and Fine Arts, self-destructive impulses and creation, as well as “crudity in delicate”, “filthiness in sacred” and so on. Isotani’s Modeling Work is giving a shape to something that doesn’t have a shape but in the way that reversal movement back to “unformed” is still tangible. Nevertheless, his figures present the opposite process from Form to Formless as well, but in the dimension of the language: Isotani cuts out words from popular magazines to compose (almost) incomprehensive, (almost) shapeless sentences. “There You Are .15% MIDNIGHT”, “I realize I was. The original”, “Wherever You Go, philosophy ANTICIPATED”, “ONLY THIS TIME Understanding Everything” are, let’s say, “muddy speech”, “letters that came too close to material”, but still hold a space for possible interpretations “Keep Smiling! (God Loves Idiots!)” Exhibition therefore presents the core paradox of Isotani: “Keep Smiling!” calls for an idolatry and unbound happiness - “God Loves Idiots!” cancels it all and gives a wakening slap to an onlooker. The phrase is suicidal, pragmatic, horrible as well as humorous, charming, pacifying. Let’s polish Isotani’s “sarcastic-romantic” controversy with three examples. Controversy #1: Besides “St A…Z” series, pet bottles and mud made “Comet sisters” and “Comet boys” will be presented. Let’s not forget that a comet in its narrow sense is “a mass of ice and dust that moves around the sun and looks like a bright star with a tail”. Nevertheless and strangely, it is a burning mass of dust, which pushes people to make wishes or even kiss each other. Controversy#2: Isotani presents his works in Art Project Frantic. Is there a better place for “Keep Smiling! (God Loves Idiots!)”? Let’s not forget that “frantic” refers to something “that is done quickly and with a lot of activity, but in a way that is not well organized”, namely to something rough and raw, as well as to “a highly emotional state especially in the case of being worried”. Controversy#3: It is impossible to reach Isotani by phone during the day. He works in the basement of one of the tallest buildings of one of the biggest companies: no connection, no private conversations, no light. This artist is locked in The Corporation. The daily work of this artist is to cut documents that descend in the corporation cellar (there is a big machine in his disposal). His duty is to crumble The Corporative Letter in dust, literally to materialize records of economic transactions. On the way home he sometimes finds thrown out magazines. During the night he uses them to cut out and to compose unreasonable messages for his figures with critical grin. Related Events:
Gallery Talk: “Mud, Noise and Language”
Kentaro Isotani (artist, sculpture), Taisuke Morishita (artist, noise) and Rodion Trofimchenko (curator) talk about relationship of Sculpture and Music, Mud and Language, Noise and Communication, Exhibition space and presented audio-visual artworks.
Time: Sat. 14th Feb. 18.00~20.00 * The text was provided by art project frantic.