The Arts in New York City

One definition of culture characterizes it as the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behavior of a particular nation or people. Truthfully, it is a fallacy to attempt to create any single term to express such complex and subjective concepts as a collective. However, we do it for the purpose of standardization. Is this the right road to take, or do we risk the danger of oversimplification? Through various mediums, including paintings, photographs and installations, the exhibition, ‘Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York,” explores the ideological components of both Japanese and American culture and attempts to distinguish between their divisive and harmonious features.
The first piece you encounter is Body Waves by Nubuho Nagasawa. This installation consists of a lawn chair made of a synthetic, almost fiber-optic material, as well as an oversized hourglass, and an umbilical cord. When you sit in the chair, you hear waves crashing, the sound pattern somehow generated by your movement. The hourglass is meant to depict the passage of time, and the artificial material combined with natural sounds seems to represent a perhaps serene coexistence of technology and the environment. The umbilical cord can represent both the conception of life and the imminent separation of mother and child. This piece proved to be a sign of things to come in its exploration of duality and singularity through time and other dimensions.
In A Euro Lover by Aya Uekawa a woman with traditional Japanese features is shown, clad in European garments. This seems to imply a blending and even merging of Japanese and European cultures. There is an almost underlying theme that this is an evolution or positive and natural progression. Noriko Shinohara seems to have a very different impression of cultural fusion, judging by his drawings of a character called “Cutie.” This name seems almost mockingly American. On one side of the drawings Cutie is depicted to have many pressures, complexes and fears in stereotypical American culture, including peer pressure. Captions are written on the drawings to narrate the situations. There is almost no setting and there is a general lack of detail. The strokes seem almost angry and forced. On the obverse, however, a calmer, traditional Japanese culture is depicted using the same character and much less words if any. The character here wears a kimono and is shown in nature-oriented scenery. The strokes are more delicate, almost lyrical. We then transition from blatant cultural references to more, singular, and abstract concepts.
“Loss.” Hiroshi Sunairi explores this theme in his installation consisting of sculptures depicting a dismembered white elephant. The white elephant is said to have “benevolent connotations in Buddhist iconography.” The captions speak of the September eleventh attacks on the World Trade Center, suggesting not only a loss of life but of peace and good will. Furthermore, the presentation shows the discordant implications of such actions on a society. Despite the massive physical damage, the psychological effects were, without a doubt, significant.
Globalization, cultural fusion, and the resistance and acceptance of the growing themes, live on in today’s society. It is only through the exploration of their evolution that we can hope to understand, and adapt to their societal implications and perhaps bridge the gap between nations.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Ravendra Persaud, WRITING ASSIGNMENTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.