The Path Going Forward for the Young People of Amabiki
“AMABIKI 2006” began on April 1 as the cherry blossoms bloomed and went on as the blossoms gave way to vivid green leaves. It ended on June 4, just before the onset of rainy season and as the green of the leaves deepened further. Two weeks later, all the art had been cleared away and the flow of time in Amabiki village regained its customary tranquility.
The pleasant climate of April and May, write ups on the exhibition in various newspapers, and reports on TV and radio all helped to bring the number of visitors to the exhibition to at least 1,500, only in the visitor’s book, 50% more than the year before. The bus tour events we arranged during the exhibition period received many more applications than we could accommodate. We arranged a second tour with more seating and a second bus, but we still had to turn people away. On the Sundays, volunteers staffed the Yamato Nade Shikoan rest area and served tea, the “Handmade Soba Appreciation Society” sold and demonstrated how to make buckwheat (soba) noodles, and people all along the 15km exhibition course provided comfortable rest spots. As a related event, a planning exhibition entitled “From Amabiki Village” was held at Gallery SEIHO in Tokyo from April 24 to 28. The event showed plans and sketches of the 44 artists’ works and served as a satellite gallery for a short period.
Now that all the art has been cleared away, what has it left behind for the hillsides and for the people who live there? It is as if the 44 artists who participated in the exhibition have left behind a radiant heat that has yet to cool down.
About ten years ago seven stone sculptors joined together to create the First Amabiki Village and Sculpture Exhibition as a venue for creative work in this quarry rich area. Rather than being staged by town or village authorities, the event was run by the sculptors themselves. They looked for their own exhibition sites, got permission from landowners, and created and installed their works, all in a dialog with their surroundings. Today, that principle remains as the underlying principle of the exhibition and the source of its character. The scenery of cultivated hillsides and hamlets makes a delightful exhibition space, but the sculptors were also drawn to the area as a social space woven from relationships with local people and the community. In spaces such as art museums and galleries, people know in advance that they will see sculptures and what kind of works they will be – that such spaces present art is self evident. But with this exhibition space there is a gap between the public’s perception of art and what the sculptors are doing, and this risks their work sometimes being seen as bizarre or of being misunderstood or ignored by the public. This type of experience gives the artists an opportunity to reflect on their work as it is now and re-examine what it should be. The number of participating artists has grown with every event and now numbers 44. The Amabiki Exhibition gives these artists a chance to question themselves anew about the significance of art and sculpture.
With the selecting of locations, the process of creating the art has already begun. The site, how the artist interprets it, the relationship the artist forms with it, will be the key to bringing out his or her artistic vision and ideas. Each artist will have a completely different perspective of the same place. As the artists explore these differences among them they lead to new discoveries and further stimulate their creativity. A sense of friendly rivalry is born. As years pass, many group exhibitions lose the idealism and edge they started out with and become no more than a facade of what they once were. Ten years have passed and yet the Amabiki Exhibition still possesses its initial vision, maintaining its ideal as a group exhibition. That might be due to the strength of Amabiki village as a venue. Or it might be due to the will and desire that the sculptors have kept alive through their own self management.
Be that as it may, the last exhibition was starting to show signs of strain, of going through the motions, so we started working on this year’s exhibition with an emphasis of getting back to basics. The municipal merger incorporating Yamato village into the newly formed Sakuragawa city was another factor. We spent about three meetings just on the issues of whether or not to hold an exhibition and what to call it. We examined each of the issues and dilemmas, one by one, so that we could produce a better exhibition. We hold regular monthly meetings, starting a year in advance, to make the necessary decisions. Every artist is assigned a task, and each has equal responsibilities and duties, regardless of age or career history. Perhaps the monthly meetings function as a kind of ceremony that uplifts the morale of individual artists and builds solidarity between them. At the end of these preparations we sent out posters and invitations, and opened the exhibition under its new name, “AMABIKI 2006”.
The result, as mentioned above, was an unprecedented success. Many of the pieces drew on the characteristics of their sites, and many powerful pieces gave the viewer an unprecedented feel for the artist’s vision and ideas. Certainly people cycling around the exhibition amid the fresh breezes of spring felt the presence of these sculptures. For many of the artists, these works were probably an important step forward in their artistic development. The bus tours including talks by the artists were must see and popular events.
Critics in the mass media followed up their previous articles on “artists staging an exhibition for free” to actually commenting on individual pieces. In fact, there was also an article criticizing the exhibition, saying: “for many of the works, the relationship with the surroundings was as no more than borrowed background, they lacked relationship with the community.”
During the two months of the exhibition, the surrounding environment was in a state of constant change. At the start of May, rice paddies covered with water completely transformed the scenery. All at once, the air was filled with the sound of farm work and the croaking of frogs. The greenery deepened. The shifts in the environment wrought subtle changes to the pieces they surrounded and how the public viewed them. Besides the appeal of an outdoor setting, attention turned to the beauty and richness of the mountain village cultivated hillsides formed by both nature and human work amid Japanese scenery.
There were some cases of local people unintentionally altering an exhibition space. For example, at the start of May, a photographic exhibition entitled “Citizens’ Gallery” was set up on panels behind the table exhibit that was installed inside the Yamato Station building. That action reflected the desire of the municipal authorities and local people to improve the environment in the unstaffed station and was prompted by the Amabiki Exhibition, but it was subsequently removed, as it changed the meaning of the station space from what the artist had intended. I am reporting this incident as one that made us aware of the difficulty of bridging the gulf in how pieces are understood and perceived.
When marking the last day of the exhibition and extolling its success, Executive Committee chairman Jiro Sugawara, had the following to say: “We have finally reached the stage where we are seriously reviewed and critiqued, which means that our ten years of diligent work is beginning to be recognized and is taking root. We must take this very seriously.”
That night everybody talked about a number of issues that arose in the course of the exhibition. We discussed issues that are essential to the success of the event, such as individual artists’ differing levels of enthusiasm, relations with Sakuragawa city, the problems of using e-mail to build a consensus of what the artists want to do, and the gaps between the artist’s and the public’s perception of art. We also had quite a lot to drink.
I feel that the purity and passion of this exhibition reflect the nature of youth.
The artists’ drive on behalf of their work and the Amabiki Exhibition, a drive that was sometimes naive, sometimes foolish, is stimulated by an extremely personal drive for self expression. In this exhibition, this personal drive for self expression came together into a cultural movement that cannot be overlooked by the local community. We stood at that point where youth takes the first step toward the next stage of artistic development. Going forward, we will have many more opportunities to discuss what direction our work should take in the context of personal expression and its relations to society.
KANAZAWA Kenichi, participating artist.
