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Sean looks very proud of his latest hard work, completed MECCANO train! Emily, Booby and Chinatsu-chan are happily laying on the fresh cut grass in the neibour's field.(HK) |
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| Visiting museums in Iwate by chartered bus with Friends of Ishigami no Oka Museum. Iwate prefecture Museum and Iwate Iwayama Japanese Urushi Museum in Morioka. (HK) | ||
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This is my high school friends, Kouhei (right) and Hayashi (left) in ffront of Kouhei's proud Hyundai. They came to Ukishima and stayed last night. kouhei is in charge of organising School reunions and also for the Gwangju sculpture project.(HK) |
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Sean's 8th birthday celebrated by his school friends.(HK) |
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Got up at 5 O'cloch this moring and made our lunch box. All kids and parents drove together in own cars into Morioka Budo tournament Hall and watch them fighting whole day. (HK) |
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Emily in fight. |
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Sean and Emily with her team mate. Sean in fight. |
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Sean was specially allowed to open just one of his tomorrow's birthday present. he opened LEGO's "AT AT walker". (HK) | |
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Mukais help us packing swimming pool. (HK) |
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| Reading the stack of Gwangju Biennale catalogues to start writing my report for the Japan Times (will be published on 29th September). Then clearing up the studio after the Nango library project in preparation for starting the next sculpture project for a new primary school.
Cinnamon`s dog house was another victim of the typhoon, so the children and Kata set to after school to make her a new one. (KT) |
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| After the high life of the last few days, spent a jolly day in high places fixing the damage caused by the typhoon before we left for Korea.
Up on the roof of the studio removing broken glass and hammering the roof back down to meet the window frame, and up in the tree to cut down the huge branch hanging by a thread before it clouted someone on the head. Iwate got off very lightly compared to other areas in Japan but it was still pretty dramatic.(KT) |
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| At Gallery Q we met Ueda san who was the Japanese curator for one of the previous Gwangju Biennales and had a fascinating morning looking through catalogues of Korean artists` work, like Insik Quac (1919-1988) who lived in Japan for years after tearing up his Korean passport in the 1950s in disgust at the governments request that he should spy on Japan, and did not return to Korea until 1980.
Looking at Ueda san`s report on the "History of Korea and Japan Culture Exchange 1916-2002" proves there is a strong link between the two countries. NB Gallery Q is worth visiting on a regular basis as they show a wide selection of interesting work by young artists. On just now until 18th Sept. are Abe Yoshimi`s landscape photographs - great sense of space and proportion. Gallery Q can also provide you with a map in English of other galleries in the Ginza area. After a gallery crawl through Ginza we set off home for Ukishima. (KT) |
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Got up before dawn to catch the plane to Seoul and then Tokyo.
Kata`s monumental hangover was just beginning to recover when a spectacular view of Mt.Fuji signalled that we were nearly there. The only regret about the Gwangju trip was that we missed the Biennale EcoMetro site, so we did not get to see our friend Jim Buckley`s work there. Could have done with a lot more time to see everything properly. |
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Straight from Haneda airport to to meet Jane Dixon who is over from London for her "Under False Colours" exhibitions inTokyo Gallery and Yokohama Portside Gallery. Camoflaged decoy tanks & houses, and interiors of war planes, may sound fairly aggressive subjects with obvious connotations. But they are much more challenging. Gorgeous, subtle layers of texture and association built up to illustrate the frailty of the human body and psyche become richer and more engrossing the longer you look at them. Like the obsessively worked studies of skin, and breathing machines she was working on when we met in Cambridge University in 2001, these new works imply contradictions of fragility and strength with complex dualities of protection and destruction. On show until 6th October see above link for more details. |
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Then raced in to the Hermes Gallery to see "Noguchi: The Bollingen Journey" a fascinating glimpse into the great sculptor`s way of looking with photographs and drawings from his trips around the world and how they were followed through into models researching how to make sculpture that was really relevant to society
To Johnnie Walker`s A.R.T. gallery in Ebisu to see Jack McKlean and Lorenzo Fantini`s exhibition. to see the review in the Japan Times go to: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fa20040915a1.htm And on to Spica Gallery in Minami Aoyama to see Yoshiaki Watanabe`s intriguing Borromean rings made up from tiny candles and meet Mr and Mrs Nishijima「SPICA art」(KT) |
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First call to see Mr Kim,Hyuk Jong, the President of Gwangju Universtiy who kindly provided the luxurious guest room we have been staying in on his campus (photo of which is on the wall behind us). |
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His wife the painter and printmaker Song Sook-Nam showed us some of her beautiful work and we both got enthusiastic about having a joint show in Sendai some time soon. Later on we had a much less formal meeting with Mr Kim. |
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Visited Korean artists Woo Jae-gil`s gallery, studio, office, storage and house in one elegant building. The ideal place for an artist to work and exhibit - all we need to do now is find a way to extend and improve our own place to a similar quality! But not sure if we would get the same government endorsement as a museum - there seems to be a unique cultural attitude in Gwangju. |
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Then a very interesting meeting with Po-chun Kim, the president of the Gwangju Biennale who speaks fluent Japanese (so I was struggling to keep up) and told us all about the idea of the viewer participants and public and his own expectations about art (look out for my article in the Japan Times on 29th Septmber for more on this). At site 2 for the Biennale - the Education & PR Hall we saw the "Korea Express" exhibition showing work by 29 Korean artists from home and abroad |
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The 40m high Memorial Tower at the May 18th Cemetary |
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We visited the May 18 Cemetary, and the 5.18 Memorial Park
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On May 18th 1980 there was an explosion of civilian dissent against the military junta which had siezed power on May 17th. The junta cracked down brutally, culminating in the "Gwangju Massacre" of hundreds of students and civilians. Sparking Korea`s democracy movement and ultimately the overthrow of the military dictatorship and the installation of Korea`s first civilian led government in 1993. These memorials to Kwangju Democratic Uprising are also intended as shrines for the opressed people of the world who continue to struggle for liberty, democracy and justice. |
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Then to the 5.18 Liberty Park - the Sangmu district site of the barracks, courtroom and guardhouse of the former military police.
And also site 3 for the Gwangju Biennale exhibition titled "And Others - minority". Teams of young Korean artists address everything relevant to the area from the "Gwangju Massacre" to the rampant development and commercialisation of the surrounding area at the expense of environmental preservation. The site itself had more impact on our friend Myoung who although he knew students who were incacerated here during the uprising had never been here before. He told us that he was reminded of his promise when he left school that he would work for a positive future for the community to repay his friends sacrificed in the May 18 Uprising. (KT) |
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On our way to meet Kim san for a meal Myoung`s car got a punctured tyre. So he and Kata set too - almost as much of a bonding session as the drinking that soon followed with good friends together. |
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Amazing food, incredible amounts of alcohol, and very interesting conversation about how we can work together to improve education and international understanding, before moving on to a Karaoke bar (Myoung did not drive himself home). |
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the Doctor of Education Kim and Myoung
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the respected writer Kim and me.Kata took the photos just to prove he was not under the table... yet! |
| We met up with 8 of Myoung`s friends to visit the -----temple and the house of one of our party Mr Lee. The pouring rain seemed to enhance rather than dampen the atmosphere of both sites and the closeness of the group. | ||
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Richly painted buildings and sculptures making sense of the references to the colors of Korea in several of the contemporay Korean art works we have seen. |
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Mr Lee`s family (near left) welcomed us to their 350 year old farmer`s house designated a national treasure, and laid on a delicious lunch.
Then back to Gwangju where we were interviewed by the Korean Times with Myoung translating from Japanese to Korean for us (short article published in Korean next to a review of the Biennale.) Kata was tickled that our faces in the portrait photo were bigger than the President`s in the photograph of the Biennale opening in the same paper, the President being on the front page in a much larger group while we were on the arts page.) |
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Dashed in to see 2 exhibitions outwith the Biennale - "10 Years has gone by, 100 more years to go" celebrating the success of the Gwang Ju Fine Arts Award established in February 1995 by about 60 senior and intermediate local artists to support young artists recovering from difficult social and financial times and work towards the development of the work of local artists in the world over the next 100 years. The award winning artists on show included the painter Soong Phil-yong who we had enjoyed talking to so much at Mr Lee`s house earlier today.
Plus an exhibition of Moon Seung Keun`s work. Myoung then took us to meet the bass singer Mr Lim, director of one of Gwangju`s opera companies who is planning to bring his opera to Sendai. Then we all went to a concert by several local music groups - wonderful traditional music and story telling. Very relaxing to use our ears after looking at so many diverse art works. Followed by yet another delicious meal with the 4 of us. (KT) |
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| At 10am Myoung, Kata and I went to the opening ceremony of the Gwnagju Biennale 2004.
We met art directors, curators, judges, artists, gallerists, saw most of the art works in the exhibitions at the Biennale Hall and generally had a fascinating day of artists interpretations of the theme "A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water" referring to life cycles and encompassing environmental and human rights awareness. (KT) |
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Myoung and me in front of the Gwangju Culture & Arts Center |
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President Noh Moo-hyun on stage with the cast of the fusion style opening performance before announcing the declaration of the first year of Gwangju as the cultural capital. |
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Site 1 "Amusing Footsteps" the courtyard in front of the Biennale Hall |
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Dust section
El Anatsui (born in Ghana lives in Nsukka, Nigeria) with his work made from re-cyled newspaper printing plates. As Anatsui said "wouldn`t it be incredible if we could also recycle all the knowledge and ideas contained here which were thrown away after being read only once" |
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British artist Peter Randall Page`s stone sculpture in the "Amusing Footsteps" courtyard.
I am not crazy about Page`s work, but he seems to have risen to the occasion - this is the best piece I have seen by him. It does seem to have been rather arbitarily plonked. This is not entirely his fault the whole courtyard does not rise to the expectations raised by the declaration in the Biennale information that "Amusing Footsteps will be a communications space, a meeting point, and a bridge between events of the Biennale and the public" |
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American Jim Sanborn has collected actual 'antique electronics' from the Los Alamos laboratory for the Manhatten project to recreate the place where America developed its first atomic bomb in his "Critical Assembly" installation . G-M counters click ominously (in this case reacting to benign radium dial clocks set next to them) and all the associations of the allure of pure science and the ethical dilemmas that have faced research scientists for decades are brought to mind, while the instinctive reaction is to get out of here. Apparently this could be used to construct and atomic bomb if a few grams of weapons grade uramium were available. As he says "These materials aren`t well enough protected, they`re far too easily available"
Amazing that he managed to ship all of this stuff to Korea in the current high security climate and with the row going on about the experiments conducted in south Korea which have recently been disclosed. Sanborn`s work is about disclosure (like his sculpture made up of a lattice of script sited at the CIA` s offices, which has taken two of their top encryptologists 10 years to decipher). |
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Waltercio Caldas (Brazil) won the Grand Prize for this installation of colored woolen threads. Supremely simple but actually creates intriguing sense of space. |
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Jin-ran Kim (born in Seoul lives and works in Seoul and Berlin) a fascinatingly gentle feminist performance about futility - washing a floor made of soap. |
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Ok-sang Lim (Korean lives in Seol) created a bar for the Club using old bomb shells. |
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Me and Minjung Kim (Korean born In Gwangju lives in Milan, Italy) in front of her work in the Club. Kim was amazed at the changes in Gwangju since she left after high school. particularly too much concrete, but people are more free to talk. She feels the biennale has been a great chance to understand other artists thinking through good discussion. |
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Momoyo Torimitsu (Japanese lives in New York), robot businessmen battle it out over oil rigs, and real estate in the landscape. |
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Tatsuo Miyajima (Japanese lives in Ibaraki, Japan), L.E.D. diode lights form a river of numbers in the 'Water' section. |
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Sendai in north Japan (where Kata`s family live), is twinned with Gwangju . Kata came over in May with several of his class mates from Sendai for the May 18th anniversary to meet their contemporaries from the Gwangju Dai Ichi Ko High School which has developed a close relationship with Sendi Dai Ichi Ko High School. Myoung took us along to meet several of them for supper. Great fun, and wonderful to sit down and have a drink. (KT) |
| We flew to Korea to visit "Gwangju Biennale 2004". Mr. Myoung Dong-ho came to fetch us at the Gwangju Airport and went to supper with his wife to a countryside restaurant. (HK) |
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It took four hours to set seven pieces of Nango sculpture. This collaboration project by Kate and me, is the second attempt, the first one of which was in 1990 in Hamamatsu "Watch The Moon Come Down", came out with great satisfactory even though we had fight almost every day! (HK)
And I thought the process had gone so smoothly! Several of the construction workers finishing up the library building came out to photograph the sculpture after we had taken the photos of our team. Very satisfying when the sort of people who can be the most cynical critics get enthusiastic about the work we have done. (KT) |
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Put the finished sculpture onto truck and wait for tomorrow to set the pieces. (HK) |
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Finished polishing all 7 stones! Now we are drilling holes for the pins. This drill is the most funtasic machine for the sculptors...why?(HK) |
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Forklift house was blown over by Typhoon. (HK)
Kata loves playing with the big machines. (KT) |