Q-1. Over the past year or so, you entered into a period of greater activity in the United States, with the LACMA retrospective earlier this year, the Dallas Contemporary exhibition coming up, and the publication of the book by Phaidon. What prompted this flurry of projects in this part of the world?
A. I hadn’t really thought about this myself, but let me try analyzing this... Exactly 10 years ago I had my first NY museum show at the Asia Society Museum of New York, and it was received so positively that it set a record for the highest number of attendees. 3 years after that, I started having constant shows with the long established major gallery, Pace. Also in the last few years, there’s a sense of established popularity in Greater China. The first time my works came to the US was in 1995, in California. Surely, no one who came to see the first Japanese artist shown by the then-newly opened Blum and Poe Gallery, could have imagined that 25 years later, this would lead to a retrospective at LACMA.
Q-2. You created many of the works in the Dallas Contemporary exhibition specifically for the exhibition. How would you describe these works?
A. No, there are some new works, but this exhibition has a strong retrospective element. Compared to the formal exhibition at LACMA, we are planning on making the show at Dallas a lighter composition with more pop or street elements. To create a little variation within this, I created the large, heavy bronze sculptures and the monotone paintings, that are airily rendered like graffiti on cardboard.
Q-3. What sort of thoughts or feelings were you looking to express in the works?
A. It’s hard to think of the right words, but I created these pieces with a feeling of not taking things too seriously – a feeling that I think is invaluable during this COVID pandemic. That said, I am not an optimist. My aim was to take a deep negativity and reflect it in the mirror of myself, to sublime it into a lightness with depth.
Q-4. Many of the works in the show relate to music. Could you talk a bit about your relationship to music and its influence on your art? Is it a particular focus at this moment? Why is it related to so many of the works you’ve created for this show?
A. Art people often ask me, “Who are the artists you admire, who are the artists that influenced you?” and I always answer, “Neil Young, for one.” This answer usually gets a doubtful look from the questioner, but the truth is that it’s not art that plays a major role in my life; it’s music and literature, film and nature. I’m not “an artist who loves music,” but rather, “a music lover than can also paint.”
Q-5. Your large-scale canvases, such as “Through the Break in the Rain,” are quite painterly in their technique. But it looks as though many of the works on the exhibition checklist are smaller artworks made with colored pencil, or colored pencil and acrylic, on cardboard. What is your approach to works like these, and how is it different from the way you approach your large-scale paintings?
A. As I mentioned in #2, I take a casual approach that can be easily accepted into the everyday by everyone. In that, I may be trying to be free at my own core, and not pandering to an audience.
Q-6. What is it about colored pencil and cardboard that make them appropriate materials for the works in the exhibition? How do these materials relate to what you are looking to express with these works?
A. Originally, I had little interest in expressing myself on canvas and having an audience see it. I think it’s more me to work on materials like paper and boards, drawings that are like doodling in a personal diary. If I were to use a music metaphor, these are like the rough mixes before the final recording. In this unrefined form, only the most important things shine. Or, you could say it’s like a raw stone before it’s polished. At times, these sorts of demo sounds might speak to the heart more than the high tech mixes with an orchestral backing.
Q-7. Could you talk a bit about the recent bronze sculptures in the exhibition? What were the circumstances of their creation? Could you tell us about the themes they explore?
A. In 2011, Japan suffered the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the 600-kilometer area that connects the place I currently live and the place I was born and raised, was affected. I think a lot of people, even in America, remember the footage of tsunamis destroying towns and nature. After that disaster, I lost my will to create, and could not feel positively towards my existence as an artist. In the midst of this, I faced off with clumps of clay like it was therapy, and started creating large heads without any tools, just using my hands. And those sculptures with vivid handprints have been replaced with bronze forms that have the power of semi-permanence. Compared to my past dimensional pieces with smooth fiberglass surfaces, these bronze sculptures look sort of dorky, like backwards country bumpkins, but I felt in them a reality that allowed me to stand on my own two feet.
Q-8. Looking at the exhibition checklist as a whole, what do you think it might say about where you are at this point in your creative path?
A. I don’t know... To be honest, I’m thinking I would like to take a break from creating and travel for a while as a backpacker. I want go and explore outlands that are remote but inhabited by people. The truth is that I’ve had this traveling spirit since I was young. I went to Pakistan at age 20, and at 23 I went to China, which was still filled with bicycles and Mao suits back then. I also traveled to Afghanistan in 2002, and more recently in 2019, I visited Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, near the Syrian border. A lot of people think of me as a painter, a sculptor, but for me, that’s just the half of it. Others may see me as a person who plants forests, or a traveler interested in indigenous peoples of nearby countries.
Q-9. When you look at the course of your creative career, are there moments that stand out for you as turning points? Could you say a little about how your art changed as a result of these turning points?
A. That would be my “student days” in Germany. In 1988, I graduated art school in Japan with no desire to become an artist, but I kind of wanted to continue a student lifestyle so I applied to a German art academy and miraculously was accepted. My student life in Germany taught me about much more than the small world that is art. It allowed me to learn about how to be a human being in a much larger sense.
Q-10. How would you describe the impact on you personally of the great earthquake and Fukushima disaster of 2011? How has that been reflected in your art?
A. It made me realize that being in the art world had become the norm for me, and I had stopped thinking about other worlds. It gave me a catalyst to have conversations with myself again, and at the same time, made me think about society and history, as well as my own identity as a person born in the Tohoku region.
Q-11. The first two works on the checklist are “Stop the Bombs” and “No War.” Why are these works—and these ideas—important to you?
A. The Vietnam War happened when I was a child. It was the first war that the media sent straight into our living rooms, through on-site photographs and video footage. Those visuals that the photographers and reporters risked their lives to send us are vividly burned into my memory. At the time, the US military bases in Japan were a transit point, used to send manpower and materials to Vietnam. It was the first time I witnessed demonstrations, the anti-war protests by students and citizens. Also, rock music with anti-war themes from this era moved me greatly. Before I entered the world of art, this anti-war movement was what made me first empathize with this feeling of calling out, declaring a message.
Q-12. In the new book, Yeewan Koon discusses the influence of Shinto traditions and beliefs on your work. There are a few works on the checklist that made me think of that. Could you talk about Shinto traditions and their influence on your art? And how they are reflected in your work?
A. I’ve never thought about it that deeply myself. I personally am not religious. When I was young, I had many opportunities to hear the “good stories” for children from not just Shintoism, but also from Buddhism and Christianity, and I enjoyed them all. In that sense, I think there has been some Shinto influence in my everyday life, but my works themselves are probably influenced by many different religions.
Q-13. You have an active fan base in Japan and elsewhere in the world. How would you describe your relationship with your fans? What part does social media play in this relationship?
A. Sometimes I encounter people who understand or love my work better than I do. They may be people I’ve never met in person, just on social media. Connecting with them and having exciting conversations about non-art topics like music or movies feels like making good friends and this makes me really happy. For this, I am grateful to social media. However, there are also people who are only interested in my work for superficial reasons, or because of trends, or think of them in terms of financial value. So there are also times I resent social media.
Q-14. Could you identify two or three works on the checklist that have particular resonance or significance for you, and why they are especially meaningful?
A. The two pieces from #11 and the below pieces:
Miss Forest / Creamy Snow 2016
I think this piece might be the final finished form of the clay sculpture series I began in 2011. The image for this piece is of being born out of the earth as if reaching upwards, and communicating with the sky above. I think of it as being close to the sense of indigenous people who have been communicating with the sky since ancient times.
Wall Painting from Nara’s Cabin 2006
In the little houses installation series in 2006, I painted this on one full wall of my studio cabin, and had it cut out when we dismantled it. In the 2000s I did a lot of little house installations, but I remember vaguely feeling that at the end of the day, I return to the flat surface.
Q-15. Are you planning to come to Dallas to work on the installation of the exhibition with Pedro?
A. Of course!
Q-16. Is there anything you would like to add? Is there, for instance, a topic that we have not touched on that you think should be part of the conversation?
No, nothing in particular. Thank you very much.