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Tetsuro Degawa Director of the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka
Tanabe Chikuunsai IV began working on his installation at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka in December 2019, which took two weeks to complete. The finished giant piece was impactful, turning the space of the Museum’s entrance hall into something entirely different. Although the exhibition opened as scheduled, the Museum had to be closed temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Museum remained closed even past the scheduled exhibition closing date of April 12 and was finally re-opened on June 2. The installation by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV is the only piece from the exhibition that remained on display until September 27, providing visitors with a new aesthetic art experience. The exhibition began during the early stage of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Having survived over three months of temporary Museum closure before being shown to the public again, this work must have been appreciated in a new way by visitors whose perceptions would have been affected by the pandemic. After being placed at the entrance of the Museum and viewed for seven months, the installation did not simply become a mundane object but constantly provided new questions for contemplation. Perhaps this is because the installation, destined to be on display during a determined period, was also imbued with a sense of eternal presence at the same time. Even though I became familiar with this work, I could not help feeling that it took on a new appearance each time I saw it. For instance, the unclear future of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, or the manifestation of the intrinsic elements within this installation. Such elements derive from the micro-bamboo-strip structure and the overall organic form of the work. Being large in scale, it is impossible to see the work in its entirety at once and your eyes and consciousness are put to work as you perceive it from section to section. With the installation manifesting various forms, you get a sense of certain movements and the profundity of its presence.
This book aims to extract the movements one makes when viewing this installation and present it with objectivity through the perspective of a photographer as well as the sensibility of a book designer. The visual movements one makes as one becomes impressed by the installation and the attempts to clarify the existence within the profundity of the work are presented through photography to a certain extent. Through the photographs one may be able to reconstruct the experience of appreciating the installation in person. Sometimes one discovers through photography a different beauty that was completely ignored previously. The transiency of this otherworldly installation is embodied in the images of the installation. Through printing the images to keep a permanent record of the installation, the installation becomes a different work as it gains new audiences.
Like the perception of the photographer, the words uttered by those who have actually seen this installation also play a role in connecting the work with the photographs of it. They are contemporary words uttered when contemporarily viewing the work at the Museum. The work did not change in any way even through the COVID-19 pandemic, neither did the ambience in which the work was created. For many, even if they have witnessed the memories of the COVID-19 pandemic as a social phenomenon, the memories will wear away someday but the impact of the installation may forever remain in the minds of those who have seen it. In making a record of this installation by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, photographs as well as images captured using a drone and digitally created 3D images are included to allow the verification of the structural form of the installation through perspectives not possible when viewing the actual work. The camera lens makes it possible to go beyond the viewer’s perspective and obtain a bird’s-eye view of the gigantic work, while VR provides the possibility to display what it looks like inside the installation. An installation is normally a temporary piece of artwork, but through making a record of it using photography, videos, 3D rendering and other methods, a wide variety of records can be created. This is common practice in contemporary art today.
As a piece of work destined to momentary existence within limited space and time, an installation can further shine when more records that give it presence are made. In this case, the records themselves become artworks in their own right and are separately appreciated. For this reason, these records not only present the awareness of the appreciation of the installation as a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, but also bear testimony to the sharing of a precious moment, allowing one to confront the installation work from various perspectives.
Tanabe Chikuunsai IV often talked about the idea of recycling with focus on the recyclability of the materials used for his installations. Weaving this installation to shape using tiger stripe bamboo and without applying any adhesive allows the bamboo to be used for another work after the current work is dismantled. The bamboo strips can be reused over and over again, and this installation was also created using bamboo strips recycled from installations he had previously created around the world. One might say that this perspective on recycling materials is what saves Tanabe Chikuunsai IV’s installations from being evanescent. While the installation may embody the aestheticism of ichigo-ichi’e (treasuring each moment in life) in the Japanese Way of Tea, the recyclability of the material used on the other hand injects a sense of metempsychosis into the work. Even if the work remains only in the form of records such as photographs after it is dismantled, considering the actual bamboo strips as a material used to create previous installations are revived as a material for the next installation, one can sense the everlasting quality of each new work created through material recycling. This is different from typical temporary installations and it makes one take a moment to look at a present work as it connects the past and the future. Tanabe Chikiunsai IV’s installation has, without doubt, a myriad of expressions and suffices as an object of art appreciation as it is. In addition to that, if this installation can also evoke imageries of its past and future, then it would be right in saying that it is a transformation of the installations he has hitherto created around the world.
His installation entitled GATE showcased at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka was also imbued with a much deeper significance than simply being placed at the entrance of an exhibition space. This piece served as the ‘GATE‘ towards the future, with the present being the densest and most unshakable reality. Not only that, its form that connects the ceiling and the floor represents something that descends from heaven to earth or vice versa through a ‘GATE‘. The tube woven from tiger stripe bamboo serves as a passage through which the energies of life pass, with the structure being sustained by the spirit of the bamboo.
The fundamental structure of Tanabe Chikuunsai’s installations is created through basic weaving of straight bamboo strips. A closer look reveals the entire surface being composed of polygons created from a multitude of straight lines. The hexagons or polygons are defined by the bamboo strips and through them we get a glimpse of the inside and outside of the structure. One could say that the overall formation of his installations is reduced to simple polygons. Chikuunsai’s installation works are perceived within the context of reductionism amidst abstract plastic arts of twentieth-century modernism. In terms of form, the installation used only simple, straight bamboo strips as material and comprised woven, undulating surfaces. This reductionist plasticity creates an overall topological shape. Chikuunsai conveys through this work the dualisms of heaven and earth, present and future, interior and exterior, yin and yang, and light and shadow.
The feel and touch of craft making pertaining to the Japanese who normally work with natural materials are inherited through his work. The German architect, Bruno Taut wrote in his book published in Japan as Nihon no Geijutsu: Yōroppa-jin no Me de mita – Kōgei (The Art of Japan: seen through the European eyes – Crafts) that Japan’s sophisticated crafts such as ceramicware, goldsmithing, lacquer ware and bamboo crafts were not works by artisans in the European sense, but by artists, sometimes even more superior than the work of painters. He added that craftspeople relied on traditions and that, regardless of how talented they may be, it was necessary for them to accumulate wide experience in techniques should they wish to avoid even the smallest mistakes. He also mentioned that the current head of a craft-making family was someone who inherited the traditional genealogy by straddling the past and the present at the same time. Even among the various crafts bamboo craft produces three-dimensional forms where the texture of the work is produced by the natural material itself. The fundamental element in bamboo craft is weaving two or three-dimensional forms. A variety of weaving techniques allow for many possibilities and change the appearance of the work being woven, ranging from delicate to rough expressions.
Through many years of study and practice, Tanabe Chiuunsai IV not only is well versed in the variety of bamboo weaving techniques, he has also taken on daring challenges in recent years where he pushes the possibilities of bamboo craft to its limits. By deviating from the original framework of craft making, his gigantic installations have, while keeping Japanese sensitivities, become clearly established within the various art histories of the world. His bamboo art may have begun as Japanese craft, but it has become artistic work with presence that transcends Japan’s unique sensibilities.
Rather than attempting to represent an abstract world, his installations are based on abstract forms comprised simply of lines and colours. The coulours we see, however, are not actually applied onto the material; he uses only tiger stripe bamboo that grows exclusively in certain regions of Shikoku for his installations.
The tiger stripe pattern on this type of bamboo is both irregular and abstract, two elements that also happen to be sought after in modern art. In the beginning, abstract painting was a way of expression whose aim it was to create the effect of pure light seemingly swaying through the use of colours. For instance, in the case of Turner, his boats do not look like boats but extremely abstract shapes which allude to nothing concrete. The bamboo Chikuunsai uses also lacks this concreteness and has what one may consider as an abstract form. In addition to that, his works are reduced to the simple elements of polygons created from bamboo strips. For his installations, he eliminates all sophisticated techniques used in traditional Japanese bamboo craft and creates them through basic hexagon-pattern weaving. This basic, primitive way of weaving employed after first having fully acquired all the techniques of bamboo craft making is, in a sense, a way of expression valid as modern art.
Tanabe Chikuunsai IV creates his installations first by frequenting the installation site to sketch out his ideas, much like how architects work. For his installations he carefully prepares strips of tiger stripe bamboo cut to ten parts in widths of 6 mm, 7 mm and 8 mm and of various lengths. The installation GATE he made for the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka was created using tiger stripe bamboo strips he had been reusing since 2011 as well as strips he newly created in 2019—it required some 10,000 bamboo strips.
The process involved in weaving a colander-like tube on one side, while creating several parts that bent to a ‘U’ shape. These were then joined together, before being combined with other larger parts to create the final shape. This was then followed by final details adjustments. The entire installation took about two weeks to complete.
In bamboo craft the artisan must weave the entire piece using their own hands throughout the whole process. It is no wonder that they would be inspired to create something artistic as they work with the sense of touch in their fingertips all the way to the end. When one witnesses Chikuunsai’s creation process, one would think that the process is something of an artistic undertaking. He almost looks like an ascetic monk, or it looks like he is performing music as he single-mindedly weaves away. He is conscious of the fact that his installation-making process is an artistic undertaking, and he seems to let himself go along with the process of creating and dismantling an installation, before creating and dismantling another.
In creating his installations, he moves away from traditional decorative bamboo craft to create pure forms devoid of all designs and patterns, as well as any elements that may allude his work to some concrete implement. His installations are given subtle undulating and curving surfaces, creating an overall smooth form as he takes on the challenge of creating works as large as his techniques would allow.
Having been working on installations with his apprentices, occasionally he would allow the public to see them at work as he shares his vision of the installations and creates them with his apprentices. There is power in each and every one of his disciples as an artist and it is that power that allows them to accurately comprehend Chikuunsai’s instructions and to work together. As a result, they are able to create such large installations with uniformity together.
Tanabe Chikuunsai IV’s installations reflect Japan’s traditional bamboo craft within the context of modern times. They are not simply transient works—they are also imbued with an everlasting quality.