#05 Secretly, the waste, continues…
Artist: Koji Tsujigo
Date: June 15 - July 14, 2019
Curator: Hidetada Karasuyama
A sudden meditation in my mind’s eye.
Humor hidden in the quotidian
fleeting impressions
memories etched into mind and body
deception, impatience, and disappointment
caused by emotional instability.
The whirlpool of mental effects warps
distorting, twisting, driving me to sit before a blank piece of paper.
A convoluted sea of
amorphous lead and
innumerable drawings the product of
unforgettable scenes
imaginations run wild and
deep-seated depressive dispositions
or the fragments of a puerile psyche
the detritus of daily tinkering
aka
waste
I suppose drawing is a form of consolation for me.
Ever since I was a young child, I have always been a misfit, a wimp, and perhaps even worse, too shy to unburden my troubles. You could say that I’ve led an almost embarrassingly pained and troubled life…
In such a life, drawing naturally became the only thing that I could lean on. Comfort is all I need—subject and compositional intent don’t matter so much to me. If I can fill a blank piece of paper with all the things that can’t be articulated in words – the subtleties of my emotions, the whims and whatnot filling my mind at the time – well, that’s enough to bring me calm.
I’d rather not apply such lofty terms as "self-portraiture" or "trajectory" to my incoherent drawings. Instead, it seems more appropriate to liken them to a ball of post-masturbation Kleenex or the inner recesses of a bag of combustible garbage. That which is embarrassing, filthy, lurid, and best kept private, yet still necessarily generated in the course of life.
Yes, these drawings are my "waste" looming in lead. And I continue to generate more and more "waste" by the day. For after all, to live is to suffer.
Koji Tsujigo (illustrator)
Koji TSUJIGO
1992 Born in Nagasaki
2016 Graduated from Tama Art University
working at a printing company in Kawasaki City
Koji Tsujigo leads a quiet, simple life. He rises with the sun and sleeps at sunset after a few drinks with supper. I’ve known Tsujigo for eight years. Each time we meet, he never fails to bring a stack of small sketchbooks filled with his latest drawings to show me. In some of them, he tries to put on a joyful face, but these drawings always still betray a certain loneliness and longing.
Each of the drawings in this prolific collection are titled, simply, “Untitled.” As drawing is an integral byproduct of his daily routine, as natural as breathing, he presumably does not feel the need to title each one, hence the moniker, “waste.” He retraces his daily experiences or things weighing on his mind, then regurgitates them on paper. A drawing may take just a few seconds, or sometimes one month to complete. We can see different times and spaces, and varieties of silhouettes and textures in his work, all intricately intermingled with one another. The simplicity of his medium, paper and pencil, showcases the expansive scope and sensitivity to texture that characterize his works.
This exhibition constitutes the first attempt to present the results of his private inner ritual to the viewing public. I look forwarding to seeing how viewers (Tsujigo included) will receive the work that he so self-deprecatingly refers to as “waste.” Nowadays, all too many artists tend to be trapped in the obsession with exhibitionistic self-assertion and full-throated justification of their stance. Tsujigo is quite the opposite. Perhaps he is the silent spokesman engaged in a quiet rebellion against our times. Tsujigo may not be alone in his uniqueness. However, he suggests that we all have the potential to become an artist, as he continues to silently disgorge his “waste” in secret.
Hidetada Karasuyama (painter)
#05 密かに、続く、廃棄物
出品作家:辻郷晃司
企画:烏山秀直
会期:2019年6月15日(土) - 7月14日(日) / 14:00-19:00
オープニング:6月15日(土) 17:00-
気がつくと、イメージが浮かんでいます。日常に潜むユーモア、ふとした瞬間の感動、心身に刻み込まれた記憶、不安定な情緒に由来する欺瞞、焦燥、失望。
私の心を渦巻く様々な作用が歪み、ねじ曲がって私を白紙の前へと向かわせます。
鉛色で立ち現れるこれらまとまりのない描画の数々は忘れられない情景やふくらんだ空想奥底に隠れる鬱的気質などの未熟な精神の断片を日々いじくる過程でできてしまったいわば、「廃棄物」のようなものなのです。(お絵描きは僕にとって、慰みなんだと思います。)(僕は子供の頃から、社会不適合な人格でありながら、打たれ弱く、その上、気が小さくて悩みを吐露することも出来ない、まぁ、ちょっと恥ずかしいくらい、苦しく、生きづらい人生を送ってきたんですが、)
絵を描くことはそんな人生の中で僕の心の拠り所になっていたんだと思うんです。
多分、癒しを得られれば、何を対象とするか、何を意図するのかっていうところは結構どうでもよくて、白紙の中に何か言葉で形に出来ない、その時の感情の機微というか、しょうもない思いつきというか、そこらへんのものが投影されていれば、それだけで心が落ち着くんです。
僕はこのまとまりのないドローイングに「自画像」とか「軌跡」みたいな高尚な言葉はあんまり使いたくなくて、例えば「自慰行為の後の紙くず」とか「燃えるゴミのゴミ袋の中」みたいな、恥ずかしくて、汚くて、生々しい、普通人には見せないもの、でも、生きてく上でどうしても出てしまうものが言葉としては適当なんじゃないかなって思うんです。
そうですね。このドローイングは、いわば、鉛色であらわれた僕の「廃棄物」と言えるのかもしれません。
「廃棄物」はどんどん増えてます。
やっぱり、生きることはそれだけ苦しいから。(辻郷晃司)
辻郷晃司 Koji TSUJIGO
1992 長崎県生まれ
2016 多摩美術大学卒業
現在、川崎市内の印刷会社勤務
夜が明けると起床し、日が沈むと晩酌をしながら眠りに付く淡々とした日々を送る・・・
辻郷くんとはそんな人物だ。彼と知り合って8年経つのだが、私と会う機会があれば必ず描き溜めた小さなスケッチブックを何冊も持ってきては見せてもらっている。自分自身を明るく振舞おうと見せる作品は、どこか孤独感や切なさが滲み出している。
これらの描かれている膨大な作品のタイトルは全て「無題」である。呼吸をするように、自然な振舞いのような中で描いた数々の作品を彼は『廃棄物』と呼んでいるのはタイトルをわざわざ付ける必要はないからであろう。その日あった事、気になった事を回想し、数秒で、時には1ヶ月程をかけて1つの作品を吐き出す。そこには多種多様な時間や空間、シルエットや質感それぞれの幅があり、また互いが複雑に絡み合う。紙と鉛筆というシンプルな素材で描くため、益々それらの幅や質感が見るものに訴えかけてくることになる。
今回はじめて彼が何も求めずに行っているこの内向的儀式を、外部の眼に晒す機会を得た。自身が『廃棄物』という作品たちを公にした時、彼も含め見た者に一体どのように映るのであろうか。声高に己の顕示欲や立ち位置の正当性など、存在を強く叫ばなければならないと強迫観念に陥りそうな昨今の日常や流れに対し、対極にある辻郷くんのスタンスはもしかすると、誰も気づかない次代の静かな抵抗者であり、物言わぬ代弁者なのかもしれない。なにも彼だけが特別ではない、誰もが表現者となりうる可能性を秘めていることを示唆し、密かに吐き出し続けているのだ。(烏山秀直)
Room B / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room B / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room B / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room A / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room A / Photo by Jun Azumatei
Room C / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room A
#05.5 Live Performance
Performers: Soft-Concrete, HellTaku, Space Satoru
Date: July 20
Curator: Jun Azumatei
In the humid heat of hot summer, I just don’t feel like going out for “artistic” activities with some protection against heatstroke. Rather than that, I would like to spend times of vacation and festivals and barbeque—dreaming of fancy dream like this, Azumatei Project will hold two shows this summer. The first: Live performance by two units, and the second: a group exhibition by eight female creators, girlish/Gilgamesh.
Kota Saito (musician) and I, Jun Azumatei (contemporary artist), have done several live performances around Noge area. Welcoming a songstress from Oslo, Norway, we officially formed a duo, Soft-Concrete and we’ve been waiting for her, however, the planned show had to be canceled for some reasons. Meanwhile, HELL (Hellhead), a singer friend of ours, and Takuro Ishii (sculptor/member of AZP) had met in AZP and they decided to perform as a duo, HellTaku. Now we would like to hold the show on the date we already announced with slightly different lineup; two units mentioned above plus an opening act by Space Satoru (Hellhead), which is his debut solo performance.
Jun Azumatei (contemporary artist)
#05.5 Live Performance
出演者 : Soft-Concrete, HellTaku, Space Satoru
企画:東亭順
会期:2019年7月20日(土) OPEN 17:00 START 18:00
あつい夏、ひとごみをかきわけて熱中症対策しながらアートにでかけるという気持ちになれない。
できることならバカンスとフェスとバーバキューで過ごしたい。なんてセレブ的なものに魅せられて、アズマテイプロジェクトの夏は2つのショーを開催します。1つめは、7/20(土) 2組のライヴパフォーマンスです。
齋藤浩太と東亭順はこれまで野毛界隈でいくつかのライヴパフォーマンスを行ってきました。
この夏にオスロから歌姫が参戦するということで、ソフトコンクリートというユニットを正式に組んで待っていましたが、諸事情により中止となってしまったのです。しかし、HELL(HELLHEAD)と彫刻家 石井琢郎が出会い、HellTakuが誕生。中止となったイベントをカタチを変えて開催することになりました。
この2組のライヴパフォーマンスと前座/SPACE SATORU(HELLHEAD)のソロデビューを行います。(東亭順)
Soft-Concrete at IZK Gallery in Nagasaki
2019年7月31日(水)18:00-
コイケ炎上
烏亭炎上
Soft-Concrete(ソフトコンクリート)
齋藤浩太(GLDN)と東亭順によるライヴユニット。
Memento Mori (2019/アズマテイプロジェクト)、Improvisation Live Meeting#6 (2018/Jazz Spot Dolphy)、Improvisation Live Meeting#5 (2018/旧バラ荘)、コイケ炎上(2017/Echo's)、烏亭炎上(2017/Echo's)等の活動を経て、2019年4月12日に結成。
Soft-Concrete / Photo by Takuro Ishii
Soft-Concrete / Photo by Saku
Soft-Concrete / Photo by Saku
HellTaku
Space Satoru
#06 girlish/Gilgamesh
Artists: yomikake – illustration | Rommy – painting/drawing | Fumiko Seki – handicraft | marsa – ball-jointed dolls | Seiko Onda – photography | Asaka Watanabe – embroidery | Saiya Kawabe – illustration | Kiyoka Mori – pottery
Date: August 10 – 12, 2019
Curator: Jun Azumatei
Gilgamesh was a legendary king in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, whose name presumably means, “The ancestor is a hero.” According to the Epic of Gilgamesh, he was also hailed as a man "who knew (everything), was wise in all matters.”
The title of this exhibition is a play on words that juxtaposes “girlish” and “Gilgamesh” to suggest our girlish ancestral heroes. However, the title simultaneously connotes the reading, “innocence slashes omniscience.”
This group exhibition introduces eight female creators ranging in age from their twenties to seventies. Hailing from diverse backgrounds and active in mediums running the gamut from painting to drawing, photography, illustration, pottery, handicraft, embroidery, and doll making, this octet of artists will assemble for three-days in our old multitenant building, which has been a landmark in the Isezaki-cho area since its construction shortly after the Second Word War.
Jun Azumatei (contemporary artist)
#06 girlish/Gilgamesh
出品作家:yomikake - イラストレーション | Rommy - 絵画、ドローイング | 関文子 - 手芸 | marsa - 球体関節人形 | オンダセイコ - 写真 | わたなべあさか - 刺繍 | 川辺彩矢 - イラストレーション | 森聖華 - 陶芸
企画:東亭順
会期:2019年8月10日,11日,12日 / 11:00-19:00(最終日は18:00まで)
ギルガメッシュとは、古代メソポタミアの伝説的な王であり「祖先の英雄」を意味し、その叙事詩によると「全てを見通し、全てを知った」人といわれた表現がなされています。
展覧会タイトルは、少女のような(girlish)/祖先の英雄(Girgamesh)であり、同時に無邪気さ(girlish)が全知全能(Girgamesh)を切り裂く(slash)。という意味にもとれるかもしれません。
本展覧会は20歳代から70歳代による女性クリエイターによるグループショーです。絵画、ドローイング、写真、イラストレーション、陶芸、手芸、刺繍、人形などを制作しているクリエイターが、戦後まもなく建設され、当時の伊勢佐木町のランドマークであっただろう雑居ビルに集まります。表現形態、経歴、年齢も異なる8名の女性作家によるグループショーを即売形式で3日間開催します。(東亭順)
Installation view | marsa
Installation view | Rommy
Installation view | Asaka Watanabe, Kiyoka Mori, Fumiko Seki
Installation view | yomikake
Installation view | Saiya Kawabe
Installation view | Seiko Onda
#07 Watershed, Counter, Propagation
Artist: Jun Azumatei
Date: September 14 - October 13, 2019
Featured live performances:
September 21… Soft-Concrete Trilogy: Part One - Beginning of The World
October 5… Soft-Concrete Trilogy: Part Two - Living in A Dirty River
October 12… Soft-Concrete Trilogy: Part Three - End of The World (ft. Karasu-Tei)
September 22… Gekidan-Tokimeki (Theatre of Fluttering-Heart) debut performance
I had published a series of paintings using the photographs of skies and clouds I took as their bases, and on which I overlaid, daubed and polished up "documents and memories". As I received grants from two foundations in 2009, I moved my base to Switzerland/Germany, and then about a year and a half later, I experienced a profound turning point in my life—the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I had never spent so long watching the news and videos posted on the net with zeal and horror. I just couldn't keep my eyes off my laptop screen. This experience completely changed my world. Violent and murky streams were swallowing up everything in sight, while invisible substances were bubbling to the fore. I felt the fear to be taken in, and yet felt that chaotic energy of the world was persuading me to take a step forward, into the future.
There had been a sure-footed path leading to the world we had been dreaming of. At least that's how I used to feel, but I saw the gilded veneer of that path peeling away from afar, the ground drying up and cracking, and saw the new world showing its pale face from underneath. And it started to eject the world's suppressed sediment to slowly make a giant stream. The stream kept growing wider and stronger, and it made all of us feel like we were being washed away uncontrollably, helplessly.
Back to my daily life, everything around me looked different. I just couldn't look at things as they used to be, and consequently, I became interested in the history and evolution of the many things that populate our lives. One day, I encountered an old damask bed sheet in an antique shop in Switzerland. I could tell that it originally came from the Far East, and during the course of the slow journey across the Silk Road toward Western Europe, it had been passed through the hands of people in many countries, successively dyed in the respective colors of each new home. It was well woven and somehow, gave me a feeling of familiarity. As I was touching and examining its frays and seams, I felt the palpable bustle and lingering warmth imbued by each of its previous owners. I decided to start working on a new series using these damask sheets. While photography is documentary evidence of each particular moment in which the object and subject once shared, the damask bed sheet is story itself. People usually spend one third of their lives in beds, and these bed sheets had once been used as bed coverings. Each of them provoked me to think of the histories of their travels all along the Silk Road, and by painting on their floral patterns, I updated their stories that previous owners had woven within each threads, of warp and weft. I deepened my interest in documentation and memory through the production of this series.
After I came back to Japan in 2015, I started to shift my style from prepared studio works to live performances, in which I ventured to venues to create uninhibited work on-site. This shift was triggered, at least in part, by the atmosphere of I found in my new home in the Noge/Yokohama area, as well as the lifestyles of the musicians I met. But at the same time, the shift was also compelled because I had come to realize that live performance is one of the most effective ways of sharing documentation and memory with others at the same moment and place, and also came to believe profoundly that the works and life of an artist could not be talked about separately—I was crossing the Rubicon in a way.
Through all my activities, now I can clearly feel the water I scoop, dripping down through my hands. I suppose we always desire more water than we can actually hold. But there is no use crying over spilt water. If you’re still thirsty, you can always dip into the wellspring again. What’s important is that we continue tirelessly searching for new water sources to whet our creative palates.
KARASU-TEI (art performance duo)
#07 分水嶺、カウンター、伝播
出品作家:東亭順
会期:2019年9月14日(土) - 10月13日(日) / 14:00-19:00
オープニング:9月14日(土) 18:00-
"Soft-Concrete" Trilogy of live Performances
9月21日(土) "セカイノハジマリ"
10月5日(土) "ドブガワニイキル"
10月12日(土) "セカイノオワリ" +烏亭
9月22日(日)激団ときめき初公演
自ら撮影した空や雲の写真を下敷きに、記録と記憶を重ね合わせ塗り固め磨き上げた絵画を発表してきました。
二〇〇九年より助成を得て、スイス・ドイツに制作拠点を移し、約一年半後に大きな転換期を迎えます。
ラップトップの前に流れるニュースや動画を繰り返しこれほど熱心に呆然と見続けた時間はなかったでしょう。その経験は、自分の世界を一変させました。どろりとした濁りがあらゆるものを飲み込み、不過視の物質が舞い上がり、滲み出し、取り込む恐れを抱えながら、未来に踏み出せという世界です。
疑いもなく歩みを進めていた世界に続くだっただろう道の遠くからメッキが剥がれ落ち、乾涸びてひび割れ、青ざめた世界が顔をのぞかせはじめます。その澱みはゆっくりと流れをうみだし、次第に勢いを増しながら強大な空気を作り出して私達をコントロールするように押し流そうとしています。
いま手にしているものがどのような歴史を辿ってきたのだろうかという興味を抱いた頃、スイスの中古屋でダマスク織りのベッドシーツをたまたま手にしました。極東からシルクロードをゆっくりと横断しながら、その土地の色に染められて姿を少し変えながら西洋へ辿り着き、その地の人々が手にしてきこのデザインは、どこか馴染みを覚える良質な出来栄えでした。
中古である以上、何者かが使い込んだ気配の染み付いた温もりのような微妙なざわめきを綻びやほつれから感じとれます。
過ぎ去った時間を共にした証としての写真ではなく、シルクロードを旅した歴史に想いを巡らせ、人生の三分の一を過ごすベッドを覆う、縦糸と横糸で織り込まれた白い花柄模様に紡がれた物語に上書きしていく。そういった制作に取り組みはじめ、記録と記憶という興味を深化させていきました。
二〇一五年に帰国し、アトリエで制作を終えて完成された作品を展示する展覧会という形式ではなく、身ひとつで会場入りして表現活動を行うライヴ活動に向かいはじめます。
これは、横浜・野毛という場の力や身近にいる音楽家の生き様もおおいに加勢しているでしょうが、記録と記憶を同時に他者と共有できる方法のひとつでもあり、また美術家の表現(作品)と美術家の人生は別物で語れるものではないという考えに確固たるものを強く感じ、河を渡り歩みはじめたからです。
活動を通して、手のひらに掬った水が零れ落ちていく感覚をはっきりと自覚します。しかし同時にそれは我々が掬った以上のものを期待していただけなのかもしれません。零れ落ちる水に憂うのではなく、喉の渇きを満たしたければまた掬えばよいのであって、大事なのはその水がどこにあるか探すことを怠らない事のように思います。(烏亭)
Room B / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room B 【CMYRGB】/ Photo by Jun Azumatei
Room A / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room A / Seisaku Murata (Butoh)
Room C / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room C / Photo by Ryuhei Kaiho
Room B 【CMYRGB】 / Photo by Jun Azumatei
"The End Of The World" by Soft-Concrete with KARASUTEI
"Living in a Sewage River" by Soft-Concrete with SORA
"Beginning of the World" by Soft-Concrete