Hiroshi Kariya's solo exhibition, "In Memory of 1992", was simply striking. The exhibit spaces were found on the first and third floors. On the first floor was "18 Wraps". Eighteen bodies made of trash bag, transparent plastic sheet, canvas, paint cloth, and cardboard, filled with discarded object, and plaster debris with photo trash are lay there. The bodies wrapped with string and attached to them was a number of small blackboards on which English text was roughly chalked. One naturally presumes that there must be some important messages for people and society. On the third floor is "415 Palestinians". Different sizes of blackboards with text occupy every wall. There are scandalous words like "killing", and pieces of newspapers are pasted on some of the boards. Many of them deal with murders, riots and wars. This sinful conduct seems to have been sealed inside the form of the text by the artist's intense power. The space is filled with sheer silence, but there seem to be countless unheard screams-scream of silence. These reflects the sinful activities that electrify the space. Hiroshi Kariya subtitles this exhibition "Journalistic Paintings Sculptures". Why is it journalistic? He writes down phrases taken from newspapers and magazines. The words were conceived from the desire to convey the truth, so his works are 'journalistic' paintings and sculptures. He wants to convey, in the form of art, the deep anger and sorrow that are felt somewhere in the world every day. The idea that underlies Kariya's works is truly unique and, in a sense, complex. "The theme of my work is writing (recording), its process and its image. The theme of this work is living (engraving), its process and its image." The act of writing (recording) refers to copying the sutras in Buddhism. He calls his work 'sutra'. "'Sutra' means in Sanskrit thread or string, and it means that are used to bind papers written with teaching of life." Copying the sutras is a memorial service for the dead and offering of prayer or wishes. While its purpose is to pass on the sutra from generation to generation, it is more meaningful in making the mind of the copier and his surrounding environment more peaceful. That the conduct of copying is more important than the result of the copied text itself, seems contradictory to us. Here, writing is living and act becomes s prayer. Looking from the Buddhist world view, all the incidents in the world are closely related to each individual by fate. All things in nature and material are connected through chains of cause and effect. Any activity, including violence, wars, or atrocities are linked with individual desires. Everyone shares responsibility for all the events in the world. They should be regarded as the result of 'karma' and were generated by each individual's desire. I believe this is the world view, a view of life and ethics that does not exist in the West. Kariya offers his spiritual prayer to world events in this context. Behind this philosophy is Asian monism that goes beyond the dualism of matter and spirit, of us and them. In this world, individual 'spirit' and phenomena are inseparable. The world is based on the integration of time and space. However, in the world of matter, everything happens at this point in time. Kariya contributes "One Piece Lotus Sutra" as an expression of living here now. He has been keeping a journal ever since he moved to the U.S. in 1977. The sutra expands its limitless circles as it repeats: "the now is the now is the now is the now is the ..." Since 1977, he has been making various sutra pieces. Thy have different names according to materials that the sutras are written on. "Drifted Wood Sutra", "Tree Ring Sutra", "Stone Sutra", "Circling Sutra", "Memorial Service to Waste Sutra", "Seed Sutra", "The Prayer Sutra", "Breath Off On Sutra", etc, "Seed Sutra" for example, is a "sutra written on handful of beans once a day". Another of Kariya's sutras is "Blackboard Sutra", in which he writes down or cuts out phrases from newspapers and magazines and pastes them on blackboards. His work is created out of his daily routine rather than from a more deliberate intent. Literally, the action comes before the result. All the materials used in his works are waste, and used in new works after use, or used for different purposes. This expresses a cycle of 'material' or 'life' between the material world and the non-material world, and death and resurrection. At the same time, the waste placed in the exhibit space is literally 'dead' in the present material world, and shows that today's 'death' creates a horrible scene. Kariya's work stands at the point where various phenomena generated in the 'present' world are expressed through matter and words. In Memory of 1992", the eighteen bodies are labelled Somali, Somalia, 3 Turks, Temple, Country Called Kurdistan, Russia is Russia, Angola, El Salvador, Cambodia, Wraps, Bosnia, Homeless, Radiation, Wasting Away, Asia AIDS, Mother. "Mother" represents Kariya's mother, who passed away that year, and his personal experience with 'death'. This work shows the 'death' that takes place in the world. (A switched-on TV near his mother is a reference to daily continuity, from today to tomorrow ...) Each text is a quote from a newspaper article about human bodies. "3 Turks" was conceived after he read an article about three Turks killed by Neo Nazis. His solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Philadelphia in 1990 was about the circulation of substances that use waste, and showed that time is both eternal and only exists now. He utilized the waste generated from Ilya Kabakov's solo exhibition, which was previously at the same site. It was a typical installation, one that implemented the idea of the circulation of substances. The wall that was installed for Kabakov was torn down, and Kariya reused the wood and the plaster board. When tearing it down, Kariya drew crisscross lines on the wall and wrote text and numbers in each block. He reinstalled the wall in big chunks, and laid the boards side by side according to size. Moreover, eight hundred small plaster pieces were numbered and stamped, then ICA sold them for 1 person limited $1 each with only current $1 bill only. The profits were used to cover the cost of Kabakov's wall materials. The following installation was created next to "Re-Member (Kabakov's Wall)" by reusing the Kabakov's wall. In "Spring of 8,000 Years, Autumn of 8,000 Years", pieces of wood from the waste were arranged in six horizontal rows, and a number of scrolls spread to various lengths were placed on the floor. ("Is the now..." sutra is written on each wooden piece and scroll. The sutras on the scrolls were written while the artist was on the way to wash paints off the brushes he used for writing sutra on the wooden pieces.) The various sutra pieces, including 'Drifted Wood Sutra' and 'Tree Ring Sutra' were written on drifted wood and tree slabs. Another sutra text started from the center of a round rock and spiraled back to the center of the reverse side. A hole pierced the center of the rock to emphasize the flow. Other sutras were written on everything from small containers like ink bottles, light bulbs, postcards, and bones. Also displayed in circles were one hundred small pieces of limestone, each covered with sutra, and 'Seed Sutra', a hundred handfuls of about one hundred beans covered with sutra, top and bottom. One characteristic of Kariya's work is its air of magic and ritual. Characters that through their undulating fitness and obsession almost look like Arabic script, are possessed with the magic that ideographs can have. Objects found in daily life, once imbued with writing, seem to go beyond the 'material' dimension and possess a special feeling of both materiality and non-materiality. His way of placing materials in a room with a clear plan seems to follow the rituals of various ethnic groups, including native Americans. The placement of each object is based on Kariya's intentions. In trying to describe all the meanings, one realizes that Kariya's works are so vast that they can be captured only with an enormous amount of explanation. But only Kariya himself is to be loaded with the meaning of all his actions. Kariya's work is an action complete in itself with its own complete meaning, so in that sense it may tear down the basic assertion of western aesthetics, presentation of an expression and its receipt. Kariya's art suggests a new possibility for art, in which specific meaning or expression is not only delivered to a recipient, but the existence of the work and viewer's act of receiving the work as it is, make the art come into being. The installation at Mito is basically an extension of his past activities but further expanded with greater expressivity. The installation consists of various elements which will be called "Gate of Bandage and Gauze", "Frag of Bandaids", "Wall of the World", "Wall of Red Cross", "Stretcher", "Hundred Body Wraps", "Flower, Candle and Chalk Titles", "collapsed Girl and Vulture Waiting", "Wall of Bosnia", "Wall of UN", "Wall of Sand Bags", "Window of Turks", "Wall of Protest", "Class Room with Labyrinth", "Desk and Chair Under Repair", "Wall of Graffiti". There will also be blackboards with various writings, bodies wrapped in cloth, bloody gauze with some bandaids, images of stretcher and Red Cross mark, plates covered with written protests, sticks, cloths and sandbags, images of empty warehouses in the UN's peace keeping operations and messages of mourning expressed with flowers and chalk text. Viewers will surely be impressed by these layers of objects and images. The final room of the exhibition is called "Classroom with Labyrinth", with desks and chairs placed in a maze pattern to obstruct one's way. This room is also striking. There are blackboards covered with newspaper clippings that bear words like "religion", "environmental law", "nation", "ethnicity", "race", politics", city water", "education", "food" and "poverty". The desk drawers contain Time, Life, the National Geographic, the New York Times, Asashi Shimbun, a world Atlas, social science and natural science books, and books on religion. In one of the desks is a switched-on flashlight that lights used batteries. The four walls are covered with graffiti in various languages. There is a landscape tripod-scope with a telescope placed near the entrance, through which one can see the pasted newspaper cutout on the blackboards. It reads 'future'. Kariya's works do not present a world situation that is looked at 'objectively'. Instead he strives to grasp the world as a whole, including his existence. This would bring about a new viewpoint, one that is not found in the art works of the West. This kind of viewpoint, I believe, will be important in building the future world. Kariya's works present a consistent perspective of the 'future', which we all have to face sooner or later. Quiet but assertive, his works have a rare quality that shakes us to the roots of our being. The most typical example of sharing problems is Kariya's work. He believes that any world event is connected him by karma. It is Asian monism of matter and spirit that is imbedded in his work instead of the Western dualism of subject and object. Yasushi Kurabayashi, 1994, Catalog Essay "Open System" Art Tower Mito, page 67, 68, 69

Planting the seed of an idea in the here and now By Miki Miyatake Nishizawa on Hiroshi Kariya’s “Empty”exhibition at Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo The Japan Times/ Saturday, May 11, 1996/ page 15 “The now is the now is the now is the now is the...” Hiroshi Kariya continues to write this phrase daily. Handwritten with a calligraphy brush, it looks like a Buddhist sutra. In Buddhist thought, the idea of “the now” signifies that living beings should live each single moment of “now”. A string of “now and now and now...” constitutes the whole history of the universe. Kariya writes “the now is sutra” on both sides of a dried bean, going through about 100 beans every night before going to bed. He keeps the finished beans in plastic bags with notes of his daily thoughts. For him, it is similar to meditation, a practice of being present in the now. For Kariya, creating art is not separate from his daily chores. Taking each breath could be an exercise of art, and living itself is art. Three days before the opening day of his current exhibition at Mizuma Art Gallery in Aoyama, Tokyo, he started writing in chalk “the now is the now is the...” in spiral from the center of the concrete floor. The periphery of the circle is lined with pieces of limestone from Michigan bearing the words “the now is...” written in a spiral of tiny letters. The writing, which starts from the center of one side of a stone, makes its way clockwise, coiling to the other side of the stone. The beginning and the end of the writing are connected by Kariya piercing a hole in the middle of the stone. The idea that “there is no beginning and no end” signifies eternity, while at the same time it has a limit as one object. Going clockwise follows Buddhist custom-a pilgrimage circuit of Buddhist temples in one area is supposed to be done clockwise. The loop without the end seems to be symbolic of reincarnation and the universe where everything is rotating in transformational stages repeating life and death. “The now is sutra” is engraved on a thick candle placed at the north point of the circle of the text on the floor as well as on glass bowl containing water placed at the south end. Fire melts the candle and water evaporates from the bowl, and “this transformation fuses with the space at present,” says Kariya. The whole piece visually presents the universe in miniature with an incantation-like spiral text in the middle. Kariya’s practice of writing on dried beans in January and February 1992 is recorded in two booklets entitled “One day one piece one grasp seed sutra.” On each page, a fourline stanza written by Kariya is printed with the number of beans he scribbled that day along with date and place. Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., his poem was first in English: One piece of Brahma Day One Piece of ‘the now is’ One Piece of 8,640,000,000 years One Grasp of 104 pieces (January 18, 1992, Studio, Brooklyn, N.Y.) His interest and concern expressed in his poems shifted from the conflicts in various parts of the world to a more personal one as he traveled to his hometown Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture to see his mother, ill with cancer. The poems he wrote during his stay in Japan frequently contain kanji characters meaning “pain, mother, me, breathe, dream, explain, morning, fear.” Kariya’s love for his mother and his suffering over her pain permeate the poems. His writing the seed sutra every night for her recovery and also a means to soothe his feelings. What Kariya does looks simple, but the visual and spiritual impact of his writings are striking. The magical power of incantation is present, and his ritualistic manner of creation is convincing. Barefoot, with his hair tied in a pony tail and writing “the now is sutra” on the floor, Kariya may remind us of a lordless samurai living with a Zen priest’s peaceful state of mind. He appears undisturbed by the overwhelming pace of the outer world. It is interesting to see Kariya’s Japanese identity, his gracious attitude and power preserved even after living in New York for close to 20 years. He is very much in touch with himself, and it is obvious that his art work comes from the core of his being. As long as he lives, he will use his hands and mark the path of his life. By Miki Miyatake on Hiroshi Kariya’s “Empty” exhibition at Mizuma Art Gallery (J), Tokyo The Japan Times/ Saturday, May 11, 1996/ page 15 ©1996-2007 Hiroshi Kariya & Miki Miyatake Nishizawa

Upon exiting the ATM Workshop, return to Room #6 of the Contemporary Art Gallery, where you must pass under the "Bandage Gate." This leads you to the works of Hiroshi Kariya, a production artist residing in New York since 1977. The current exhibition shows his "Installation 1993," intended as a record of world events in 1993. For the work, Kariya has used material from the reports of everyday news, including newspapers and magazines. He has labeled such a format as "reportage pictures" and "reportage sculpture." These works treat the lives of human beings as their main theme, as well as the record of the traces those leave. photo: Saiki Taku Colupsed girl and Vulture waited Colupsed girl; made of bread from 5 different continent (style). They hunged from the ceiling with fishing thread. Vulture; made of plaster wrapped with trash bag, facing girl. They situated on the chalkboard of each entitled: Food, Killing, food, killing, connected each other. Kariya calls his works "sutra" Indeed, ever since 1997, he has repeatedly attached the words "is the now" to materials he collects every day, just as if he were copying sutras in the fashion of Buddhist monks. These include a broad variety of items such as wood floating on the Hudson River, waste material from construction sites, and stones that Kariya has been picking up piece by piece each day. 100 wraps Various daily object wraped with canvas cloth, or linen. photo: Saiki Taku In his "Wall of the World (Bosnia Ripped Apart)" installation, Kariya has hung a great many blackboards along the wall. The boards are made of masonite, a common construction material. Having written the words "is the now" a countless number of times on the boards, Kariya has termed this work his "blackboard sutra." The printed words pasted onto the boards are headlines from newspaper stories, and the articles themselves are pasted ontothe back. Each board has been cut to match the size of each article, resulting in different sizes. The articles are arranged in chronological order from left to right along the wall, beginning in January 1993 and ending in December 1993. Here and there, several blackboards are missing, leaving cloth hanging in their place. These are the stories about Bosnia, and have been moved to the brown-colored "Wall of Bosnia" that lies further back. Torn Bosnia (Wall of absence) This wall work has a relationship with Mizuma Art Gallery installation; Wall of absence . photo: Saiki Taku The hanging of boards on a wall is reminiscent of the Japanese custom of hanging "ema" votive placards at shrines, and represent wishes or prayers. Lying along the floor is Kariya's work, "That Which Wraps One Hundred Bodies." As the title indicates, there are one hundred bodies, alluding to corpses. A blackboard has been attached to each of the bodies, and an obituary has been pasted on each board. A requiem sutra has also been written upon each of the boards. In Kariya's "Stretcher," a photograph has been attached of a nurse in Sarajevo carrying a bloodstained stretcher. In his "Girl and Vulture," Kariya has brought together a photograph of a vulture waiting for the death of a girl on the verge of starvation, along with a blackboard with stories about famine, etc. Kariya's "Red Cross Wall" and "United Nations Wall" works are made from materials thrown away from the Hidetoshi NAGASAWA Exhibition held recently. Looking through the hole cut through the first work, one can read the words, Red cross Wall (left), UN Wall Re-assemble of the discarded wall materials from previous installation Hidetoshi Nagasawa's devided wall materials. Work is related to Kariya's 1990 ICA Philadelphia Installation: Memory / Ilya Kabakov's Wall "STOP THE BLOODY MURDER." The hole in the second work, then, appears to be a hole punched into a silhouette of the Pacific Ocean. His "Desert Wall" comprises blackboards with photographs of flabbergasted people staring at a flood of the Mississippi River, and a flood in India. Turk's Wall In his "Turkish Wall," Kariya has highlighted an article about five Turkish people burned to death. Inscribed on the wall is the word "Hass," which means "hate" in German. Protest Wall The "Protest Wall" contains news photographs of a broad spectrum of protests: an anti-abortion march in Washington, D.C.; Bucharest residents opposed to the economic policies of their government, and demanding funds for AIDS research; citizens calling for an investigation into the Sagawa Express scandal in Japan; Buddhists in Cambodia praying for peace; Americans clamoring to save Bosnia; people anxious about their future. Walking into Room #7 of the Gallery, we see another of Kariya's works, "Classroom with a Maze." Near the front of the room is a surveying instrument with a telescope. The desks and chairs have been arranged in a way to prevent easy passage as a maze, so to speak. On the blackboards have been pasted photograph files, clippings from such magazines as "Time," "Life," and "National Geographic," and from such newspapers as the New York Times and the Asahi Shimbun. In addition, Kariya has pasted material from books about society, science, and religion, as well as world maps. The desks and chairs used by Kariya for this work were borrowed from Mito City, and had originally come from a school that was closed down. Classroom with a Maze photo: Saiki Taku At the end, please take a look through the surveying telescope. You should be able to read something. (on Installation at Art Tower Mito) By Seiichi Watanabe Translated by Paul T. Narum