critical essays

トレース・エレメンツ――日豪の写真メディアにおける精神と記憶

カタログ論考「現代の微量元素」(執筆者:飯田志保子)より部分抜粋(pp.15-17 日本語頁)

 

共同企画:

ベック・ディーン(パフォーマンス・スペース アソシエイト・ディレクター)

飯田志保子(東京オペラシティアートギャラリー キュレーター)

*肩書はいずれも執筆当時。

 

カタログ発行:2008719

発行:財団法人東京オペラシティ文化財団

ISBN 978-4-925204-22-4 C0070

 

 

(以下、抜粋部分)

 

松井智惠は80年代から一貫して、視覚の優位に基づく前近代的な二項対立型の思考原理を突き崩し、身体性を重視した実践を重ねてきた作家である。80年代には視覚だけでなく触覚を刺激する素材を頻繁に用い、90年代には空間内に階段や通路を仮設し、観客の具体的な身体経験を要請するサイト・スペシフィックなインスタレーションを行ってきた。*12 松井の実践は、断片的な要素に分裂し続ける意味や関係性を、全体性のうちに再統合することである。*13 そしてインスタレション《彼女は溶ける》(1999年)の空間内で自身の反復動作を撮影した映像作品《she dissolves》(2000年)以降、パフォーマンスと映像に連続性をもたせることによって、彼女の作品は反復性と偏在性をより強く感じさせるものになってきた。

松井はパフォーマンスと映像の関係について、次のように述べている。「パフォーマンスは時間を止められず、映像は断片的なシーンを撮ってイメージのしりとりのようにして作っていくが、どちらもシーンとシーンの間、つまり時間のつなぎ目を考えていくという点では同じ。」*14 この「しりとり式」は、ジョイントを残すことである。切り替えれば別の映像が出来上がる可能性をもたせたまま、一つの可能性を選び取る行為である。

 

中略

彼女の身体はそこにあり

そこにない

 

彼女の視線はそこになく

そこにある

 

彼女の視線は一点に集中し

欲望へとかわる記憶を

溶かす

 

彼女は忘れ去ることさえ溶かし

 

溶ける

 

――松井智惠『彼女は溶ける』1999年より *15

 

ここで「彼女」の身体は偏在的である。肯定と否定、主体と客体の二項対立を転倒し、どこかに/何かに溶解して文章は終わる。だが完結ではない。なぜなら「彼女」のイメージは再び床下から梯子を上って床上に現れるからだ。ヴィデオは反復可能なメディアである。画像が目前になくとも、イメージは私たちの記憶のなかで反復し、「彼女」はどこにでも出現する。

「(イメージは)記憶のレイヤーの一つとして残ればいい。[中略]モノはなくなっても消えたわけではなく、記憶の中にそのものとしてストックされている。実体はないけれどそこにあり続ける。」と松井は言う。*16 私たちはまさしくそのことを、《she dissolves》における「遅延されたイメージの反復」として経験するだろう。地底にある見えない地下水脈として偏在する時間は、「彼女」を別の次元にジョイントし、反復させる。

もう一つの出品作である《HEIDI 46-1 “brick house”》の撮影が行われた大阪の築港赤煉瓦倉庫は、大正12年(1923年)に建てられ、戦後コンテナ船が主流となって1999年に倉庫としての役割を終えるまで、国内外を結ぶ貨客船への貨物の積み卸ろしが行われる物流拠点として栄えた歴史を持つ。その後2006年まで現代美術やサウンドアートの展示に使われ、松井もその運営に関わっていた。*17 偶然にもシドニー展の会場となる現在のパフォーマンス・スペースが位置する赤煉瓦倉庫の複合文化施設キャリアジュ・ワークスと重なる歴史と外観である。その大阪港の赤煉瓦倉庫での文化事業が終止符を打った2006年から開始した「ハイジ」のシリーズは、松井がヨハンナ・シュピーリ原作の『ハイジ』から、自分と同じ年齢になったハイジとその物語の風景を読み取り、自身の内面世界と重ねながら映像化した作品で、作品の枝番号には彼女自身の実年齢が付けられている。港や倉庫は、大勢の人とモノが行き来したアノニマスで集団的な記憶と時間を集積した場である。シリーズのなかでも特に《brick house》は、「そこにあり続けた」と仮定されたハイジ=松井という器を通して、倉庫にストックされた記憶と時間を一時映像に留め置き、再び流し出す、中継地点としての性格が強い作品である。倉庫の重い扉を開くラストシーンは時間の循環を予感させ、きわめて象徴的である。

 

「器」という考え方は、人の無意識の境界線上にまたがるさまざまな感情の闇を受け止める。ジェーン・バートンが演じる被写体の女性像、そして圏外にある時間を受信するメディウムであろうとする志賀にも通じる。

反復性とは、写真を見るたびに過去の記憶を呼び覚ますことと同義ではない。記憶が印画紙やモニターに回帰、再来するのではなく、イメージは常にそこにあって、私たちがイメージの側に連れて行かれることだ。アーティストは、写真メディアによってかき回された時間の隙間を探り当て、偏在する「そこにあった」イメージを自ら捉えに行く。「彼女」は偏在し、代入可能な存在である。松井が演じる「彼女」はハイジであり、古屋にとってのクリスティーネでもある。

 

(以下略)

 

 

12. 中村敬二「松井智惠とインスタレーション」、中村敬二・松井智惠『一度もデートをしなかった』、松井智惠/ロバフィルム舎、2005年、pp.68-81参照。

13. 松井智惠「エッセイ――作品とともに」、前掲書、pp.68-70参照。

14. 松井智惠「ゆっくり生きる。」展アーティスト・トーク(芦屋市立美術博物館、2008119日)でのコメントより。

15. 松井智惠「彼女は溶ける」、前掲書、pp.46-47

16. 松井、前掲「ゆっくり生きる。」展トークでのコメントより。

17. 松井との会話とMEMから提供の資料より。

 

 松井智惠へのインタヴュー

 

 

あなたの初期の作品は、匿名の場をインスタレーションによって特殊な場(スペシフィック・サイト)に変容させていました。しかし映像作品を始めてからの仕事は逆に、場をアノニマスで遍在的なものにしているように思います。あなたにとって「スペシフィックな場」とは何でしょうか?映像のなかで、ご自身でパフォーマンスをすることはその変化に影響していますか?また、物語を映像によって再構築することと、インスタレーションとして仮設の場を作ることの間には、どのような関係があると思いますか?

 

 

「スペシフィックな場」については、少し乱暴な言い方になりますが、どのような場であっても「そこに何が、あるいは誰が、どのような状態で在るか」がスペシフィックな場を生じさせていると考えています。それは「人にとって空間とは何か」という問いかけを、物理的なインスタレーションを制作している間に、作品にもたらすようになったからです。結果として、私のインスタレーションの作品は「問い」であることは確かです。

空間を成り立たせている無数の要素。例えば、質感や湿度、大きさや光などという要素を得た人間の共通認識の底にある、原初的な感覚に私の関心は移っていきます。そこで、神話、寓話、物語に顕著に現れている、簡略化されたできごとや場所を探るようになりました。そして具体的な要素を用いて、1993年頃の作品から寓意を含んだインスタレーションへと変化し始めました。

映像作品を作り始めたのは、実際には2000年からです。ただ、初期のインスタレーションから時々、写真を要素として使っていました。身体の一部分の写真や、自分の記憶にない古いスライドからのプリントです。この使い方では、写真自体はアノニマスな状態です。

 

インスタレーションは、「記憶の共有」を強調するための装置とも言えるでしょう。共有できない記憶は、個々人のなかで居場所を失い、宙づりになったままとは言えないでしょうか?しかし、共有された記憶も、朧さと鮮烈さの両面を持ち合わせています。誰もが既に物語を持っている状態で、何を表現すれば良いのか?大げさですが、簡単ではありません。美術家としてではなく、一人の人間としてこの空間と記憶に関わることを決めた時に、映像としてのインスタレーションを作ることになっていきました。人間の持つ原風景を表したいと、心の中で希求していたことに気づいたのです。もちろん、自分がその場所で何かをすることに躊躇もします。しかし何を作るときでも、前へ進んだり後ろに下がったりと、「記憶」と「空間」の囚われ人になるのは仕方のないことです。そうやってインスタレーションは、風景でもなく光景でもない状態を作ります。質問のように、初期のインスタレーションと現在の映像作品とでは「場」の在りようのベクトルが反対ですが、たどればどこかにつなぎ目があります。インスタレーションのなかを歩き回り、映像作品のなかで座る。どちらも「寓意の入れもの」の働きを持っています。そのような関係が両者にはできています。

 

こうした経緯を経て、現在の作品は物語をなぞるものではなく、「想像」を喚起するものは何かという問いかけと、風景と光景の間を表現することがテーマとなっています。

 

[聞き手:飯田志保子]

 

 

「ゆっくり生きる」What is the Real Nature of Being (2008年1月12日~2月24日)

カタログより、抜粋


現代の『ハイジ』


 1980年代よりインスタレーションの代表的作家として早くから評価されてきた松井智惠は、2000年以降主に映像を表現媒体にしている。しかしそれは、すでに中村敬治が的確に指摘しているとおり、近年溢れている映像作品とは一線を画すものであり、それまでのインスタレーション作品における思索の帰結として、その展開として立ち現れたものである。中でも《ハイジ44》(2004年)は、インスタレーションでの問題意識を総括しつつ、映像の特質を新たに融合させ、その後の映像の性格を方向づけた意味で重要な代表作と呼べるだろう。

 本作品は、そのタイトルからも窺えるようにヨハンナ・シュピリ原作の『ハイジ』を元にしており、原作のハイジが44歳――制作当時の松井の年齢――になったとしたら、どのような寓意を生むかという問いから生まれたという(1)。その映像は、がらんとした倉庫を上から俯瞰する場面より始まる。倉庫の暗闇に、松井が扮する夢遊病の「ハイジ」が横たわる。周囲には親子の鹿の剥製、おもちゃの楽器がひっそりと離れて置かれ、それらは時折明滅する光によっておぼろげに浮かび上がる。その後場面は一転し、幾重にも重ね着をして大きなリュックを背負いながらもう一つ別のかばんを引きずって歩く「ハイジ」が映し出される。彼女は駅の改札を出て、倉庫までの道のりを歩いて行くが、道中、身につけていたものを一つずつ路上に打ち捨てながら最後は白い寝間着の状態で倉庫へたどり着く。しばしおもちゃの楽器を無作為に鳴らした後、梯子を上って天井に張り巡らされた梁の間を行きつ戻りつしながらゆるゆると歩き、座り、寝転びながら一巡りして、最後には梯子を下りて倉庫を出て行く。場面は変わって、かばんを引きずって倉庫の外を歩く「ハイジ」。途中で最初の厚着の状態に突如変化し、再び倉庫へ入って行く。映像の最初と最後には、松井自身が創作した、ハイジとある人物との間で交わされる会話が、作家自らの朗読により架空の言語で流れる。

 以上の概要からも明らかなように、また作者自身が明言しているように、《ハイジ44》は「物語のあらすじを映像化するのが、目的ではない」(2)。あるいはまた、『ハイジ』にまつわる作家の私的な感情の吐露を試みたものでもない。もちろん、最初厚着であったハイジが倉庫へ向かう過程で身軽になってゆく過程は原作を参照していると思われるし、白い寝間着であてどもなくあちこちを彷徨う姿は、明らかに夢遊病のハイジを下敷きにしている。ただ、そうした原作との細かな対応関係よりも重要なのは、何よりもまず、山に帰りたいあまり夢遊病になってしまった「ハイジ」という人物像を思い起こさせること、言い換えれば、山という自然の世界から、街という人工的な環境が支配する世界に突然入ることで大きな葛藤を体験した人間一般を想起させることであろう。

 この作品に対して多くの人がまず感じるのは、映像全体の脈絡のなさではないか。鹿の剥製、楽器は何を意味しているのか、なぜ倉庫にあるのか、なぜハイジはわざわざ危険な梁の上を歩くのか、そもそもハイジが倉庫をめざす理由は何かなど、目を凝らして見れば見るほど、しかも同時に流れる言葉と関連づけて解釈しようとすればするほど、明快な意味づけから離れて行き、つかみ所のない混沌とした感覚が増幅される。だがそれこそが逆説的にも、一貫した文脈の生成や体系化を拒む作家の精神の有り様を浮彫りにしており、この特質自体は映像作品に移る前から松井の作品に顕著であった。 松井の2000年以前のインスタレーション作品は、質感の異なる様々な素材のオブジェが空間の各所に配され、またそれぞれが微妙なつながりを暗示するため、鑑賞者は実際にあちらこちらを歩き回りながら、意味の断片を試行錯誤でつなぎ合わせ、手探りで全体像をつかみ取る必要があった。それは、視覚だけでなく、身体の全感覚が関わることを見る者に要請する作品であった。それゆえにかつて中村は、日本では松井のみが真の意味でインスタレーションを自己の表現方法としている作家だと評し、インスタレーションの特性として次の点を挙げる。「インスタレーションは、主体と客体、形式と内容、そして美術と生活という、これまで絶対とされてきた区別の外側に美術を位置付けることを可能にする。インスタレーションは、非近代的あるいは超近代的な、超西欧的な態度のための方法であるともいえよう」(3)。

 つまり松井のインスタレーション作品で試みられてきたのは、近代における分析、還元、体系化の追求によって不可避的に失われてきた、様々な要素の複雑な関係性とその錯綜する全体性の感覚を回復することではなかったか。幾多のオブジェを併置し、ときには文字も加えることで、作品の意味をあえて曖昧にし、渾然とした世界へと見る者を誘い入れ、しかも身体すべてでそれを感じ取ることを目指した装置としての作品。松井自身がすでに1993年に作品の意図について次のように語っている。「神話や宗教や寓話といったものは、かつては非常に強力な体系を各々つくりあげ、空間そのものに、象徴によって強靭に関係づけられた全体性を与えていたと思います。それは、世界そのものが分化されることを執拗に拒む作用とも言い換えられるでしょう。……いったん分裂を始めてしまい、分裂し続けるあらゆる囲い込み。神話や宗教や寓話が現在の人間の世界像の中にちりばめられてしまったそれらの状態を、たった今もちりばめられ続けている運動をも含めてひと粒ずつを振動させ、世界像の体系を織りなす『系』そのものを振動によって生成される動きのあるものへと変換することは不可能なことでしょうか。その変換によって、全体性といったものを、もともと分裂不可能なものに逆転することが可能な装置としての芸術を提示する。それがわたしの作品を支えている考えです」(4)。

 映像では、鑑賞者自らが空間内を移動することは求められないものの、落下のおそれがありながら無防備きわまりない恰好でよろめきつつ歩き回るという「ハイジ」の危機に瀕した状況が、見る人自身の切迫感を否が応でも沸き立たせ、身体のこわばりすら引き起こす。この生身の身体への働きかけが、松井の映像とインスタレーション作品とを強固につなぐと同時に、もっぱら視覚に訴える多くの絵画的な映像作品と松井作品とを分かつ特質になっている。さらに映像においては、以前のインスタレーションでは潜伏していた時間的要素の顕在化や音声の導入によって、より複雑で重層的な世界像の中に見る者を引き込み、その世界を「見る」のではなく、まさに「生きる」ことを求める。他でもないそれが、分析し秩序だった体系を求めるあまり実感し難くなってしまった世界というものの根源的な姿ではないか。それゆえに《ハイジ44》を初めとする一連の映像作品は、アルプスに住む少女ハイジを寓意化するのではなく、『ハイジ』という物語の枠組そのものを寓意化することで、今を生きる私たちに現実世界本来の有様を再認識させ、その世界とのつながりを体験させてくれる「寓意の入れもの」になる。それはまた、かつて90年代に松井が語っていた、個と個の意識の間を流れる「水路」としての作品の在り方、すなわち個の独自性という名の陥穽から抜け出すための装置でもある。
(1)中村敬治、松井智惠『一度もデートをしなかった』(ロバフィルム舎、2005年11月1日)付録DVD収録「COMENTARY」《HEIDI 44》

(2)前掲、p.15

(3)前掲、p.80(初出:Out of Place, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1993, p.111)

(4)前掲、pp.68-70(初出:Out of Place, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1993, p.101)


©加藤瑞穂(元芦屋市立美術博物館学芸員・現大阪大学博物館招聘准教授)

__________________________________________


Chie Matsui (1960-)


Chie Matsui first studied textile design in Kyoto City University of Arts and started her first installation using mixed media including silkscreen on various fabric, wood and plaster in early 80s.  In 1990 Matsui was invited to Aperto in the 44th Biennale di Venezia.  Since then, her works have been presented in many overseas venues including Site Santa Fe, Vancouver Art gallery, Louisiana Museum and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Through the 1990’s she had been working on large-scale installations consisting of minimal white walls, symbolic objects and drawings.  In mid 90s, Matsui started “Labor” series that uses different kinds of materials such as fake fur, mirrors and round saws surrounded by red walls with cut out letters.  Such cut out letters read, “She works”, “She testifies”, “She lacks” and so on.  She also represented the characters and landscapes from famous stories for children written by Grimm Brothers and Aesop in her drawings and objects.  In the series Matsui questions contemporary issues such as the position of women as well as artists in Japan’s society.  In 2000 Matsui produced her first video work She dissolves.  In the work, Matsui herself appears out of a square hall on the floor in her installation room and crosses the room to go underground again through another hall.  The course of action is repeated for about 30 minutes.  Matsui produced various version of this type of video; each shows Matsui herself repeating a simple course of action and behavior in gallery space, seashore of a small island and a spiral staircase in an old building.  Her tortured body bearing hard work reminds the viewers of penance by a pilgrim.   In Heidi series Matsui refers to a famous fable by Johanna Spyri and casts herself on the heroin, Heidi, who is an orphan raised by her grandfather in Alps.  Through the series, Matsui challenges the internationally well-known moral character and creates her own visionary story.  Her second Heidi series Heidi 45 was first presented in Yokohama Triennale 2005 in hi-definition format.  Heidi 45 starts with a cryptic dialogue between an old lady and a girl in imaginary language with subtitles.  Matsui is also known for her hallucinating drawings and paintings, which have been shown at the gallery from time to time.  Her drawings are not plans or drafts for her video/installation, but more independently created in association with her video/installation.Chie Matsui was born Osaka in a Buddhist temple family.  She lives and works in Osaka, Japan.


©Mizuho Kato

松井智惠の映像作品について ― 夢と覚醒と ―

青山 勝

 

「なんと薄いのだ、この世界の窓は」(《HEIDI 53 "None"》)

 

 松井智惠は、1980年代以来、彼女が「寓意の入れ物」と呼ぶインスタレーション作品を発表し、注目を浴びてきた美術家である。それは、「布やレンガ、あるいは砂、丸太、毛皮など触覚性の強い材料の使用によって、視覚だけではなく、身体的な感覚を喚起する作品であった」(1)。2000年に松井は映像制作を開始するが、以来それらの映像作品は、最新作の《HEIDI 54 "Purusha"》(2014年)にいたるまで、基本的にインスタレーションの一部として組み込まれ、そこで周囲のたたずまいとともに全身で受けとめられるべきものとして発表されてきた。それゆえ松井の映像作品は、一般的な意味で「映像作品」と呼ぶのが躊躇われる作品である(2)

 とはいえ、このことは、松井の映像作品がインスタレーションの「素材」にすぎず、そこから引き離したときには「作品」としての魅力をすっかり失ってしまう、ということを意味するものではない。むしろ逆である。それは「映像作品」として特異なものであるがゆえに他に類を見ない独自の力を湛えた「映像作品」となっているのだ。今回のMEMギャラリーでの上映会では、2004年以来10年にわたって継続的に制作されてきた〈HEIDI〉シリーズのうち最新作を含む8作品が上映される。これだけの映像作品がまとめて上映される機会はきわめて稀で貴重なものだ。映像作品に興味をもつ多くの人の目に触れることを期待したい。

 〈HEIDI〉シリーズは、J・シュピーリの『ハイジ』を原作とする。だが、その「物語のあらすじを映像化する」ことを目的としたものではない。松井はこの原作を「勝手に」読み込み、そのなかのいくつかの要素を映像という「寓意の入れ物」に放り込んでいる。

 《HEIDI 45》の冒頭には、滑稽なまでに重ね着をした女性――松井自身が演じる――が登場する。これはハイジの原作の冒頭にある描写と照応関係にあることは間違いない。しかし、この重ね着の姿は、それと対比的な女性、すなわち、〈HEIDI〉シリーズに繰り返し姿を現す白いワンピースの寝間着姿の女性――これも松井自身が演じる――のイメージを際立たせる存在として重要なのであり、その意味は『ハイジ』の原作の物語における表面的な意味とはさしあたり無関係である。〈HEIDI〉シリーズの第一作《HEIDI 44》で、幾重にも重ねられた衣服を脱ぎ捨て、白の寝間着姿になった裸足のハイジは、それ以来10年にわたって、あちこちをさすらい、さまよい続けてきた。その姿には、少なくとも原作に含まれる2つの、正反対ともいえる少女のイメージが重なり合いながら圧縮されているように私には思える。

 一つは、〈大人〉が押しつけるさまざまな拘束から逃れ、〈自然〉のなかで自由になった無邪気な少女のイメージだ。5才のハイジは重ね着を脱ぎ捨て、裸足になってペーターと豊かな自然のなかで生き生きと戯れる。白の寝間着姿の女性も、裸足の無防備な姿で、周囲の空間を〈大人〉が思いもしないような意外な経路を通って縦横無尽にまさぐり尽くす。

 もう一つは、あの痛切な夢遊病者のイメージである。アルプスの山に帰りたいという少女の思いは、昼間はその心の底に無理矢理押し込められるのだが、夜になると意識の底から溢れ出し、少女の身体を夜ごとベッドから抜け出させ、彼女の身体を危険にさらす。〈自然〉への憧憬が、まさに亡霊のような姿をとって現れてくるのだ。

 これらの二つのイメージはまったく正反対のようでありながら、日常的な視覚の論理を逃れ、いわば無重力状態にある「夢」の論理とでもいうべきものである点ではよく似ているといえるかもしれない。その飛翔、高揚、逸脱、躍動、疾走は、夢から覚醒したときの、落下、沈滞、拘束、停止と裏腹である。松井のどの作品にも通奏低音として響き続けている情動が、どこか痛切な悲しみとでもいうべきものによって彩られているように感じられるのは、そのせいかもしれない。

 夢から覚める夢を見るかのような多層的、重層的世界。さまざまな夢が合わせ鏡のようにお互いを反射しあう世界。その映像美に陶酔しつつも、私たちの意識は、ナルシシズム的な混濁とは無縁の透明な覚醒へと導かれていく。最新作のタイトルであるプルシャとは、「物質原理『プラクリティ』とは全く隔絶した純粋な精神原理」であり、「水面や鏡に映った映像を見る人にたとえることができる」と説明される(3)。「映像」という非物質的な存在もまた、鏡やガラス窓に似た存在である。それはさまざまな様態の世界を映し出してくれるが、それ自体はなんとも頼りなく、傷つきやすく、脆く、ほとんど目にとまらぬ「薄い」存在である。松井の「映像作品」は、映像の「薄さ」を隠したり、取り繕ったりすることなく露わに呈示しているという点で、凡百の「映像作品」とは次元の異なる考古学的な輝きを放っている。

 松井の「映像作品」は、願望としての美しい「夢」を私たちに見せてくれるのではない。それはむしろ、私たちを「夢」から覚醒させる、美しくも残酷な「夢」なのである。

 

(1) 中村敬治「橫浜ポートサイド・ギャラリー企画案」(中村敬治・松井智惠『一度もデートをしなかった』ロバフィルム舎、2005年、pp. 12-13)。

(2) 上記の企画案のなかで中村敬治氏は、2000年前後の美術界における世界的な「映像作品」の隆盛を片目に見つつ、松井の作品を「ヴィデオ/パフォーマンス作品」と呼び、いわゆる「映像作品」と対峙させることで、そのポテンシャルを明確に際立たせた。

(3) 松井智惠「作品について」、平成26年春の有隣荘特別公開「松井智惠 プルシャ」展カタログ(公益財団法人 大原美術館)に掲載予定。

 

 

©青山勝 (大阪芸術大学芸術学部教授)

 

On Chie Matsui’s Video Art —Dreams and Awakenings—

Masaru Aoyama

 

How thin are the windows of this world

(HEIDI 53 None )

 

Starting with her installation titled Allegorical Vessels, Chie Matsui has steadily been gaining

recognition for her work since the 1980s. The tactility of the materials she used--cloth, bricks,

sand, logs and furs--involved the senses and engaged visitors in a corporeal experience. 1

Although she began delving into the video in 2000, the works she produced between then and

her most recent HEIDI 54 Purusha (2014) have generally been conceived as parts of a larger

whole in an immersive installation. For this reason, one hesitates in categorizing Matsui simply

as a video artist.2

Despite this fact, Matsui s videos are far from mere material components of her installations;

isolating them from the installations does not render them lackluster or incomplete as artwork.

In fact, it often seems the opposite is true. Idiosyncrasies of the piece unravel in new directions

and realign themselves in shifted focus within their altered contexts. In this exhibition at

MEM, 8 works from the HEIDI series will be shown together. Including her latest piece, they

represent a project begun in 2004 and developed over the course of 10 years. It is an extremely

rare and valuable opportunity to be able to experience such a comprehensive collection of

Matsuis videos and surely a notable occasion for all those invested in the medium.

The HEIDI series is based on J. Spyri  s novel of the same title, but not with the aim of

videographically reenacting its narrative. Matsui s method instead involves liberally selecting

elements from the original and throwing them into the allegorical vessel of video.

At the beginning of HEIDI 45, a woman (played by Matsui herself) appears bundled in heavily

layered clothing. This woman undoubtedly stands in an anaphoric relationship to the over-clad

character who is portrayed in the beginning sections of the original text, and in contrast

against the woman, also played by Matsui, who appears and reappears throughout the same

HEIDI series wearing a white sleeping gown. She, however, is not a surface-level narrative

reenactment of the cloaked girl who plods across the landscape in Spyri s introduction. The

Heidi who first shed her manifold layers for the white gown in HEIDI 44 (the start of the

series) has since roamed here and there, barefoot, during the past 10 years. Within her figure, I

see a compression and overlapping of these two oppositional visions of the girl put forth in the

original story.

 

The first of these images is of a girl who has fled from constraints pressed upon her by the

adults of society to find liberation and innocence in nature. The 5-year-old Heidi discards her

heavily layered clothing and frolics with her friend Peter in the vast and bountiful country.

Similarly free meanderings are also acted out by the woman in the white night gown. She, too,

is barefoot and vulnerable, roaming and feeling her way through surrounding spaces in paths

whose unconventionality bewilder the adult minds around her.

The other is that poignant image of the somnambulist. The girl who yearns to return to the

Alps contains her impulses during the day, but they flow out from the bottom of her uncapped

consciousness at night, risking harm to the girls body by pulling it out of the safety of her bed.

It is as if her longing for the mountains were manifesting itself as a ghost-like presence.

These images of the young girl are nearly opposites of one another, but the two share an

incompatibility with the perception-based order of daily life and may instead belong to the

zero-gravity realm of dream-logic. Their elating dynamism, deviation, and unfettered motion

lie on the other side of the stagnation and confinement that trail the fall-like awakening from

dreams. This may be why one senses a profound sadness or wistfulness that continuously

reverberates in the depths through all of Matsuis works.

The manifold, multi-leveled universe that unravels here provides an experience similar to

dreaming of waking from a dream. It is a universe where dreams reflect one another endlessly,

like images caught and bounced between coupled mirrors. Yet while the beauty of these scenes

may first threaten to intoxicate us, our consciousness is guided not toward the clouded

confusion of solipsism but closer instead to a clearer state of awakening. Purusha, the title of

Matsui s latest piece, indicates a spiritual-mental ontology that distinguishes itself from its

Prakrti counterpart of material phenomena. The former is frequently iterated with the

analogy of a person looking at reflections in a pool of water or mirror. 3 Video images,

characterized by the same immateriality, are closely related to these mirrors and glass

windows. Although they may reveal to us the diverse states of our world, they are themselves

fragile, contingent on external objects, thin, and near-transparent as an immanent presence.

Paradoxically, Matsui is able to endow her work with the brilliance, frankness, and

authenticity of archeological artifacts by fully acknowledging this thinness of video. She

makes no attempt at concealment or compensation.

What Matsuis art allows us to see is not the stuff of dreams in the sense of enthralling desires.

It is in fact these alluring visions from which her work beautifully yet cruelly awakens us.

 

(1) Keiji Nakamura Yokohama Portside Gallery Exhibition Statement ( We Never Went Out on a Date, Keiji Nakamura

and Chie Matsui, Robafilm Publishing, 2005, pp.12-13).

(2) In the statement cited above, Keiji Nakamura highlighted the new alternative possibilities offered by Matsui s work,

calling it a kind of video-performance art and positioning it in confrontation against the practice of working in the

more widely explored terrain of video art that was collecting momentum in the art world around the turn of the 21st

century.

(3) Chie Matsui, On the work, Catalogue for the Yurinsou Special Exhibition of Spring 2014 (Chie Matsui: Purusha),

Ohara Museum of Art.

 

©Masaru Aoyama

Close but Far, Far but Close

 

Hideyuki Yanagisawa 

Curator, Ohara Museum of Art

 

Chie Matsui’s research on Kurashiki began in earnest in the fall of 2013 in preparation for the exhibition in the spring of the following year. Together we wandered around the museum area, and visited Kojima, Mizushima, and Tamashima, which despite being part of the city of Kurashiki have a distinctly different feel, as we slowly breathed in the air there. 

 

Except for introducing some people who had agreed to help with Matsui’s request to take photographs of glass footwear production and the Mizushima Industrial Complex, it was really just the two of us walking and looking around the town. Amazingly, some of the things we encountered in the street ended up playing important roles in what eventually became her video work HEIDI 54 ”Purusha.” Among these were some glass balls we found in Professor Akihiro Isogai’s laboratory at the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts (Isogai had kindly agreed to show us how to make glass footwear), a glass pitcher made by Masahiro Ishikawa that we happened across at the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft, and the coming and going of sightseeing boats on the Kurashiki River.

 

Matsui shot the work on three visits in the fall and winter. Objects and landscapes that she had collected inspired some scenes, and other scenes demanded new objects. Needless to say, however, the core of the work grew out of Matsui’s critical views and thoughts about the Yurinso Villa. 

 

Yurinso was built by Magosaburo Ohara on the east side of his main residence as an auxiliary house for his family. It was designed by Kazue Yakushiji, who was also involved in designing the main building of the adjacent Ohara Museum of Art and the Hommachi Liaison Office at the Kurashiki branch of Chugoku Bank. As is clear from these buildings, Yakushiji was a specialist in Western-style architecture, and was especially adept at art-deco design, which at the time was seen as cutting-edge. His abilities are on full display in Yurinso’s Western-style room, which was intended as a place for Ohara’s family to enjoy each other’s company. Initial plans called for the entire villa to have a similarly Western style. But the need for a guesthouse, and in particular one with a Japanese flavor, forced Yakushiji to change his original proposal and seek the advice of Chuta Ito, with whom he had studied at Tokyo Imperial University, to create a Japanese-style section. The roof, with its Chinese-style colors, and the decorations in the dining hall reflect the intentions of Torajiro Kojima, a Western-style painter and associate of Ohara’s who helped develop the collection of Western art works that provided the foundation for the Ohara Museum of Art. This explains how the Yurinso Villa, completed in 1928, became such a unique structure, boasting a mixture of Eastern and Western architectural styles.

 

In the artist statement that Matsui wrote for this exhibition (see p. 6), she refers to the villa’s architectural features as a collection of things from a variety of times and places that make it seem as if Yurinso is part of a world map charted on several different temporal axes. 

 

The Orient Room in the Torajiro Kojima Memorial Hall seems to have further enhanced Matsui’s understanding of the villa. She spent an extended period in this room, which I casually mentioned to her, when she began her research. Finding ancient shards of glass and pottery there, Matsui was inspired to consider what kind of civilization existed prior to the emergence of a distinction between East and West, and how culture was transmitted. These fragments apparently conveyed resonant tone-colors that transcended time and space. And the small objects that appear in HEIDI 54 ”Purusha” are also somehow reminiscent of the objects on display in the room.

 

After coming into contact with the Orient Room and the Yurinso Villa, an image of the place seems to have gradually taken shape in Matsui’s mind. She envisioned a place that arose out of a different time and space, but was also tolerant enough to accept various things. 

 

In terms of being accepting, Yurinso also played a part in the work. In her statement, Matsui calls the villa “a refined and harmonious space, a space without any commotion.” She also mentions the absence of noise, saying “the building has no sound.” It is certainly true that the house is isolated from the hustle and bustle, and no matter how crowded it is outside, you do not notice anything at all once you step inside. There is no way of knowing exactly what the designer intended in terms of soundproofing, but in making Yurinso he clearly set out to create a haven of peace and harmony. The house was originally built with Ohara’s sickly wife, Sueko, in mind. While attempting to convey Ohara’s own spirit, Yakushiji, as the architect, Kojima, as the decorator, and Jihee Ogawa VII and VIII, as the designers of the garden, also took their benefactor’s intentions into account and worked to express his feelings for his wife. With its retrained decorations, high roomy ceilings, and the unusual measurements of the stairs, the house is permeated with a broad-minded and gentle ethos. And despite the mixture of architectural elements from East and West, it does not have a restless feel – it is truly a quiet and peaceful space. This is because Ohara and the men involved in making the villa were sincerely trying to convey their feelings to Sueko.

 

Matsui sensed this on some deep level, and for this reason, she also realized that the building was filled with memories of the dead.

 

About one year after the house was completed, Ohara lost his close friend Kojima. He quickly began building a museum across from the house in order to show the things Kojima had collected on visits to Western countries and his own works, but not long after Ohara suffered another misfortune when Sueko died. What was Ohara thinking as he gazed out of the villa’s large windows and watched the museum gradually take shape? The Ohara Museum of Art opened its doors in November of 1930, about six months after Sueko’s death. 

 

As Matsui was heading into the last phase of shooting, she asked me to find an elderly man who exuded a tinge of sadness to appear in the video. As I searched for someone, I felt that there would be a considerable amount of overlap between the man and Ohara himself.

 

Prior to the last shoot, Matsui told me that she was planning to use the word “Purusha” in the exhibition title. I hope that you will read her statement to find out more about this unfamiliar word, but I had a vague impression that it was connected an Eastern worldview of existence. It seemed to be a worldview that was not founded on dichotomies like fact and fiction, truth and appearance, existence and absence, and perfection and imperfection. It was the opposite of the Western idea that various phenomena and entities in the real world are imitations of true forms or archetypes. Since Plato’s theory of forms, artists have been expected to present ideas of this kind in a concrete manner, but what Chie Matsui is attempting to do as an artist is to create work without such distinctions – or work derived from a state that predates this very notion. 

 

Matsui showed me her video work when we were setting up the exhibition about a week before it opened. As she herself says, “You might compare it to looking at your reflection in the surface of the water or a mirror.” In HEIDI 54 ”Purusha,” there are many images related to the surface of the Kurashiki River, and mirrors and windows in the Yurinso Villa. And the display that she created inside the building acts in concert with the video, which is shown in a Japanese-style room on the first floor. 

 

In general, the items on display are objects that appear in the video, but in some cases they have been altered. There are also things that are not in the video. Among the displays is a framed mirror in the Western-style room that serves as the starting point for the relationship between the objects and the scenes in the video. This object, similar to a painting or mirror in that it is enclosed in a frame, is a mirror with a wax drawing on its surface (pp. 14-15). Because it has been deprived of its function as a mirror, it seems more like a painting, but it has the appearance of a clouded mirror. In the video, this image overlaps with the scene of a mirror being clouded with breath (p. 17), and the breath is in turn linked to the form of a white swan with a broken neck on the Kurashiki River in the dead of night.

 

Drawing Purusha 1 and Drawing Purusha 2 (pp. 36-37) are drawings that Matsui made inside Yurinso as preparations for the exhibition were drawing to a close. They are displayed in the dim alcove in the Japanese-style room on the first floor (p. 34). Their lumpy shapes and textures share something with the framed wax drawing. According to Matsui, the obscure figures are images of dragons rising up. This seems to tie in with the dragon patterns that can be found throughout the villa, a reference to the fact that Magosaburo Ohara was born in the year of the dragon, and also suggests that the mirror drawing is connected to Ohara himself. Thus, with the framed mirror as a starting point, the video and display items conjure up images from one another, and on a symbolic level, they connote a circuit that is linked to decorations in Yurinso and can therefore be traced back to Ohara. 

 

However, Matsui does not make such direct connections; she deals with things in a vague and ambiguous manner by making them overlap slightly and then shifting them apart. As a result, instead of comprehending these connections as a whole, viewers are enveloped in a sense of movement and acceleration, flowing or wandering through a variety of situations. In the sense that we do not encounter a complete world, and the objects and video images connect and expand, you might say that what Matsui presents us with an aesthetics of continuity in which Yurinso and the exhibition form links with things outside of this context.

 

This continuity or fluid sensibility also comes into play, and the framed mirror plays an important part in arousing the temporal sensations that emerge from the interaction between the video and the objects. 

 

The objects appear in the Western-style room in the video as well as in the actual display. Thus, when visitors see the video in the Japanese-style room, they encounter the scene as something that they witnessed a moment earlier. As a result, regardless of whether something happened just now or in the distant past, the temporal quality in the video tends to overwhelm us with a strange sensation, making it difficult to establish a sense of perspective in relation to the present. We have the sense that we are suspended in a shifting, rebounding state of uncertain time. The only certain thing is that this time is part of an unattainable past. 

 

The same thing might be said of the sepia photographs. By simply fading to sepia, a picture has the ability to evoke an image from the past, but Matsui supplements this with another device. In both the video and the display, a sepia photograph appears next to a round vermilion box. Though we are apt to mistake them for the same picture, the photograph in the video actually shows three people, a couple with their child (pp. 46-47), but the one in the display is completely different, showing a mother with her two sons (p. 48). Switching the photographs causes a change in everything – the people in the pictures, the people holding the pictures and remembering the people in them, and the time in the pictures.

 

Supplementing the mirror and photographs with this device has the effect of creating different phases and fragments of time. This makes us feel as if we are dreaming. And at the same time, it creates a stronger sense of isolation from the past and the events that happened then as well as a sense of yearning for it. This is also indicates Matsui’s awareness of Yurinso as a place that is filled with memories of the dead.

 

The glass shoes and zori (Japanese sandals), which Matsui had wanted to have made from the outset of the project, play an especially important role in remembering the dead. The footwear, titled Purusha Light, is displayed in one corner of the Western-style room, bathed in bright sunlight (p. 29).

 

The footwear does not appear in the video. There is only a scene at the end of the work in which a woman wearing a white dress steps into the place where the shoes and zori were, as if she is preparing to go out (p. 60). 

 

Yet, the footwear has a deep significance. Who do they belong to? Why are there both shoes and zori? And why are they in this place?

 

In the completed video HEIDI 54 “Purusha,” Matsui changes costumes and appears as four different characters: a woman in a white dress (top, p. 22), a woman in a red kimono dragging a long white cloth (top, p. 23), a woman in a black dress (bottom, p. 23), and a woman in a black crested kimono (bottom, p. 22). There is also a gray-haired man dressed entirely in black (p. 25).

 

The Heidi series is an ongoing project based on the idea that the famous girl from the Alps has reached Matsui’s actual age at the time that she makes each work. Here, the woman in the white dress overlaps with Heidi. We might see the characters dressed in other colors as a group of colors that contrast with white or we might find a connection between black as the opposite of white, and see red as a third extreme. Or based on the fact that the woman in red is also clad in a white cloth and wearing animal headgear, we might see this character as an ambiguous trickster.

 

If we were to search for the owner of the footwear among these figures, and combine them according to the proper gender and clothing, the zori could only belong to the woman in the black kimono and the shoes could only belong to the man in black – the only male here. The color of the characters’ attire and the fact that the carpet beneath the glass footwear is black bolsters this hypothesis.

 

The combination of shoes and zori also overlaps with the image of Yurinso as a place that contains a mixture of Western and Eastern elements, and this could also be extended into the realm of real life. While such a combination is often visible on ceremonial occasions, in what era would it have been common to see a man dressed in Western clothing and shoes alongside a woman in Japanese attire? This would most likely be some time between the prewar era of the late 1920s and ’30s and the high growth period that began after the war. And this would correspond to the period in which Ohara and Sueko lived, and would also overlap with Matsui’s parents’ generation. Bringing up the artist’s parents might seem abrupt, but based on the fact that in her artist statement Matsui refers to the Mizushima Industrial Complex in relation to the period in which she grew up, it would not be altogether wrong to see the work in terms of her personal history.

 

Naturally, in light of Matsui’s approach of creating links that waver in and out of alignment, we must refrain from concluding that the footwear belongs to any specific person. But it is safe to say that the man in black has a lot in common with Magosaburo Ohara. Gazing outside the window alone or looking down at a ball in his palm, he is clearly the man of the house, and he seems to either be waiting for someone or to be immersed in his memories. But I will not go as far as to say that the subject of his thoughts is the woman in the black crested kimono – or Sueko. For example, in the scene in which the woman is evidently holding a cell phone (p. 57), we can hear someone mutter, “Hello? I can’t hear you,” but Sueko could only be remembered by Magosaburo, and she would not be able to call out to him or make an appearance. And in the video, the man in black is not her only counterpart; there are also the women in the white and black dresses, or perhaps she is meant to be a solitary figure without any counterparts. 

 

I will not go into any more detail about specific characters except to say that the owners of the footwear are already dead and should be considered absent from this place. If we look carefully at the end of the video, the woman who steps into the place where the glass shoes were initially seems to be wearing a white dress, but underneath she is also wearing something black. This border, linked to a place that is distinct from Yurinso, must be the line between life and death, or a place where the two dwell alongside each other without any division. And this is where the glass shoes and zori were.

 

Finally, I would like to touch on something else that does not appear in the video – a 1993 work titled Himalaya, made up of three holographic prints (pp. 52-53), which decorate the Western-style room and the Japanese-style room on the second floor. 

 

Like the surface of water or a mirror, the image in a holograph changes depending on how the viewer looks at it or how the light hits it, which seemed at first to be the reason that Matsui included the work in this exhibition. But after reading the following text about the work from the time it was first shown, I realized just how appropriate it was for this exhibition:

 

The Himalayas have always been there.

They have known how we work for a very long time,

and as they take a breath 

and say, “Oh, here we go again,”

life and death are repeatedly endlessly.

I will probably never go to the Himalayas. 

The Himalayas are very famous 

and I don’t even remember when I first heard the name.

The “Himalayas” have been inside me from the start.

That’s why they seem close but far, far but close.

It’s a place that even the postman can’t go,

a place that you yearn for as if you have been there in the past

with a yearning that makes you want to leave gravity and the earth behind.

Yet, there is a sense of warmth attached to the earth and its gravity.

Filled with agony, filled with joy.

 

–– from Keiji Nakamura and Chie Matsui, We Never Went Out on a Date, trans. Christopher Stephens (Chie Matsui / Roba-Film, 2005), pp. 22-23.

 

The phrase “close but far, far but close” suggests the sense of distance and alienation that we feel when we realize that although we see something real when we recall a certain image, it is not something we can touch with our hands. And in time, the person remembering the image will die and join the person they are remembering, and as Matsui says, “…life and death are repeatedly endlessly.” In other words, this is not an image of death standing behind every life, covering everything eternally. It is an image of the temporal flow of transmigration, in which death does not follow on directly from life, but is akin to a ball of wool, gently revolving several times. As a result, it sometimes seems to move back and forth, and cross at a nearby place.

 

With this in mind, “close but far, far but close” suggests not the sense of distance between two people who shared the same time, one remembering and the other dead, but a sense of eternal distance that cannot be contained in the conceivable span of a single life. It is as if something that seems very close, something that is right over there, has arrived after passing through a distant time and space. 

 

In that sense, Himalaya is a preexisting work that belongs in Yurinso. I would like to take a look at another passage by Matsui – the caption that appears in the final scene of HEIDI 54 “Purusha”:

 

The image

seems to be there, 

but it is an unreachable person,

without cause or name,

beyond the sea

 

With this final phrase, Matsui again suggests a spatial distance rather than a temporal one. 

 

Though it is common to focus on temporal breaks, the Yurinso Villa is also a deftly constructed example of spatial proximity and interruption. One particularly symbolic place is the tatami-mat verandah, drenched in sunlight, where we arrive after visiting the Western-style room. Here, as we look out at the open garden designed by the Ogawas, we can hear the sound of HEIDI 54 “Purusha” being shown on the other side of the shoji screen. Our vision is obstructed by this single paper screen, forcing us to rely on our hearing alone – in other words, the space is constructed in a slightly twisted way.

 

While casually interweaving the concrete spatial images of the Himalayas and the sea, Chie Matsui invites us to visit a world that is close but far, far but close.

 

©Hideyuki Yanagisawa