1996 Sutra

By Takashi Kitakoji
Review on Hiroshi Kariya "1996 Sutra" Exhibition

BT7/97 Page 152, 1997

at Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo

​

　It was an outlyingly muggy day. An unpleasant sweat that blows out some time still even if it is shaken by the subway or it walks in the town. In short, the climate as if to deprive people of their willingness to work and the work of their thoughts. 

​

　In the space where Hiroshi Kariya's new work is exhibited, the stesath of tokyo on that day spreads with even more greatness and fills the surroundings. Cement and white chalk are scattered on the floor, and blackboards assembled with waste wood are placed on bandaged  easel or joined like arms protruding from walls, abandoning the concept of "size", which is probably the standard regardless of the object. 

　Notice the fact that, unlike previous works, the blackboard stops claiming façade reminiscent of epitaphs and tablets. It is possible to interrupt the repetition of the impression that a certain religious solemnity envelops the exhibition space by arranging the corpse in front of the blackboard which is tied to the front. And to imagine. 

​

　If a person with no preliminary knowledge visits the gallery in the afternoon on a differently muggy day, he will not be able to read the letters "the now is", which covers the blackboard as usual, and will probably understand that they are unknown foreign languages on vague grounds of the cut-out of a 1996 newspaper article on the back of the chalkboard - the disasters in Bosnia, Rwanda, and elsewhere. 

​

　So why is this blackboard appearing here?

   If I would ask him "Is this Sarajevo ruin here?",

   I assume that he would not say yes to it.

　Then, the ruins placed here are speech-loss. 

　「What is here is one thing: that is everything.....

      nothing exists apart from that」(quote: H. Kariya)

　Artist who lives a place called Brooklyn.

Accumulation and dispersion of a large amount of information and stories from around the world. From there, to launch a ruin as a "description of the world" and to commemorate something lost. 

​

   And us. 

​

   We face the "Description of the world" by Kariya's hand while memorizing the sultry heat with our skin. 

​

　"Art preserves what it is,

   and it is the only thing in the world

   that is preserved"

   ...Gilles Deleuze & Pierre-Félix Guattari

​

Takashi Kitakoji 

on Hiroshi Kariya

"1996 Sutra" Exhibition

Bijutu Techo 7/97 Page 152

at Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo, 1997