revision COMPLETE scheduled for publication
Yasunori Kawamatsu
Yasunori Kawamatsu An artist' statement Yasunori Kawamatsu keep becoming Yasunori Kawamatsu. What's the beautiful things?
If Beautiful-things happened in my perception, I can say that my mind have Beautiful-things. If subject have Beautiful origin, What's the [Subject]? and what's [not Subject]? in this case, Subject is myself. What's the
Video work [WOMEN IN THE HALITE] 2010
It is like a sculpture that get construction by keeping. Being myself,,, keep certain and make relation of me to me by Typing my name.
I guess,,, Beautiful be happening by being myself Yasunori Kawamatsu
An interview with
Yasunori Kawamatsu Yasunori Kawamatsu' art is marked by a strong effort to destabilize the cinematographic language : most of his films are not conceived using metaphoric approach, but adopting a performative research. Yasunori, how did you get started in filmmaking? I was making Painting. It is an abstract Painting, the kind of common abstract work one can see everywhere. In this type of work, the focus is not only on what is represented, the conversion process at play is also important. In my case, the way I drew a line or the color distribution conveys meaning. In other words, it is a language. A method of Painting based on a language. I've already used this language before, it is based on causal relationship between the faculty to designate and recognition. More than this, I'm particularly interested in grammar, which is very similar to the syntax used in programming. It is a mechanism which allows you to see clearly, to understand, when correct descriptions are used. Japanese culture has developed, since ancient times, specific methods of relating to context. This is particularly apparent in the wabi-sabi aesthetics, found in haiku poetry, the tea ceremony or flower arrangements. I approach linguistic questions in the same way, seeking to express a painting's meaning by establishing a contextual reference. As in the history of painting, where pictured representation has shifted planes, I seek to shift meaning to a different plane. Paintings convey a characteristic sense of space. It is an illusion, a physical experience similar to some kinds of dreams. Film conveys a characteristic sense of time, related to change. When we perceive things, one could say that change is really the basis of this perception, we are actually acknowledging change. Perception of differences are naturally
Yasunori Kawamatsu
included this process. In ancient Japanese culture, this is specificity is embodied in the concept of mono no aware, sometimes described as a sensitivity to ephemera and the transience of things. In this meaning of illusion, one generates a situation which can be equally apprehended with different meanings, or where the same words can be understood in different ways. We experiences images where the symbolic referent is fragmented, compressed, displaced, as a form of accumulation of connections in meaning. Increasingly used as a basis of creation, this form of graphic representation which can read as a dreamlike recollection might also possess a capacity to act directly on the individual, quite similar to that of Christian paintings. For this year' s Videoofocus edition we have
Installation view [danae/square sphere] 2014 at Patriothall gallery, Edinburgh
Installation view [differance] 2013 at gallery si:jac, Seoul
selected your work titled "Differance". How did you come up with the idea for video? 'Differance' is an image of a person typing their own name into a mock keyboard made of plaster of paris. It is a visual representation of the disparity that arises in repetition, and at the same time expresses the flat object that is language, leaping out into three-dimensional form. This resembles the way in an individual human being is first bestowed with a name, and then goes on to gradually acquire identity. There is an old Japanese proverb which states that 'The name reveals the form'. This proverb captures the idea that an individual's personality gradually comes to resemble their name. That is how much Japanese people believed in the significance of possessing words (names). Just as people see and experience things in different ways, there are a variety of ways in which this image can be perceived. One of the foundations of my work is the idea that 'there are no intrinsically beautiful objects. However, beautiful things come into being'. Because everybody experiences things in different ways, perhaps it is not the target of the image that is the issue. As long as this is the case, we can understand the target's perception as taking place on various levels. In other words, this is the idea that beauty exists inherently in the very core of the thing itself. Video work [differance] 2012
As mentioned previously, in Japan there is a strong connection between names and existence. It was felt in old times that by depicting actions by which the subject ('self') connects to the name they have always possessed, we may be able to bring out the beauty inherent in the subject. People wanted to create the illusion of meaning through 'names' and the 'self' that they give rise to. I am depicting the process by which 'name' and 'self' - those two things which we so strongly believed to be the same - gradually drift apart as we leap out from the flat, two-dimensional world of characters into the three-dimensional world of identity. Running in reverse to this process is the way in which fingerprints gradually come into being. They are treated as two-dimensional imprints in the same way as words. two-dimensions/characters (name) → threedimensions/concepts ('self') → two-
dimensions/fingerprints (pattern). A story in which we ultimately return to a two-dimensional surface - but a different one to the one we started out from. This work also contains sound, that is, the sound of typing. One interesting point here is that when we type, for example, the letter 'k', the keyboard does not make the sound of 'k'. Furthermore, we cannot express the sound of 'k'. Nonetheless, it is, without doubt, 'k'. That is just how ambiguous a situation we find ourselves in. How, exactly, do the names which we are bestowed with from birth influence our lives? Should we call this influence molding, or constraint? That is something we can only seek to find out for ourselves.
I present this work as a visual representation of that thought, and hope that it will become a cause of reflection for the viewer. We have been really impressed by the painterly-materic qualities of your video: a suggestion to connect cinema to the sense of touch. Could you introduce our readers to this peculiar aspect of Differance? Our fascination with images stems in a large part from their expressive power and the particular standpoint which they hold in relation to time and space. However, they are often thought of as lacking substance. It is said that this is because they lack immediacy (relationship to the 'here and now'). As we go about our lives, we are, at all times, in connection with air. However, we do cannot feel the air which is constantly around us, nor
can we see it. It seems that the ability to sense air is something which we have done away with in order to be able to carry on existing. I believe that by reconnecting with that lost sense, I can propose a new way of experiencing the world. In the same ways that babies, who do not have access to the realm of language, touch things in order to be able to grasp their essence, I believe that the sense of touch is necessary in order to re-obtain words. That does not mean 'immediacy', but seems rather to be the source for pulling out our experience of the world. And that means closely depicting the situation on the surface. Reflecting on the intrinsic interest of the raw materials is one way of adding character to expression. The main material used in 'differance' is plaster, a material which is widely used in carving. Plaster reacts to water by emitting
Video work [differance] 2012
heat, before tightening and hardening. This process bears a similarity to the relationship between words and cognizance. Words fix our existence in place, and allow us to see regularity in the world. Starting off from a crumbly, unstable powder state, after combining with water, the plaster gives off heat, hardens and coils around the fingers. This process forms the link between flat and three-dimensional, and surely heralds the start of a new tale following on from the end of the story of identity and fingerprinting. It is just as if our very existence were emitting heat and transforming into an intrinsic being.
And white is a very strange existence. Surface has been suggested that the state close to zero as possible. I behave as if there is no surface is ensured. When all is visualized, it becomes the same as that no. May be a trade-off at all I would have been collected in the same way it. We have been really impressed by your early work titled "WOMEN IN THE HALITE" marked by a simple and at the same time masterly cinematography. Could you introduce our readers to this amazing short film?
In your work frames are often domined by a strong presence of white. Why?
I think that it is fair to say that this is a key concept of expression that I decided with this piece of work. Firstly, I need to say work's concept.
The color has a meaning unique cultural respectively. White will be seen a lot of that you have a sacred meaning even in the world. The same is true in Japan. It has been speculated whether not the cultural background of the age materials such as salt was valuable as one. That feeling has also affects the current.
“This work quoted Novel of [Women in the Dunes](written by Kobo Abe) . This story about Men who was caught by women. She lives in Dune. Women forced to Men to rake out sand. such a sand as women, such a women as sand. She(sand) robbed his something, before he knows. His mind which swung for a while is absorbed smoothly by the woman. He will
Video work [differance] 2012
Video work [danae/square sphere] 2014
penetrate routine work, and will discover the meaning of his life on dune, at the same time. ‘Rake out sand’ is meanless. but I felt this is symbol about psyche of Japan. That is the occurrence of a meaning which from a meaningless act, and pleasure of alive. The man must be found out something from there (meaningless). I wished to express this beauty. It dispels believing the importance of an act simultaneously.”
Its the same as the number 0. There is nothing, and yet we can see there is nothing. The fact that we can see nothing is in itself a big contradiction, and it makes evident the existence of a strong spiritual knowledge ( ). This piece of work tries to make all of that into a visible format, and show the extent to which our spiritual knowledge influences and controls us. This piece of work shows three women linked by salt. A long time ago, salt was used as currency. The three women are giving salt to the person on the left. At the same time, they are receiving salt from the person to their right. In other words they are moving, but they are maintaining the equilibrium.
I am fascinated by memories of being nothing. It is Emptiness in Jpapanese. It exists, but it doesn't exist. This is a big contradiction.
Video work [differance] 2012
They exist, but they don't. And then there is the main piece. Two separate concepts are becoming one. The images show the two concepts losing any disparities. They are different, yet they aren't. In these ways, we must discover the concept of life. We find that your art is rich of references. Can you tell us your biggest influences in art and how they have affected your work? if I consider just one thing in this case. I must choise art work of Michael Craig Martin. It's only a cup of water. But there is everything. we can believe that something included in there.
It s taught me that important to believe for everything. Thanks for sharing your time and thoughts, Yasunori. What's next for Yasunori Kawamatsu ? Are there any film projects on the horizon? More and more I am developing an interest in Language. In my recent work I created "danae/ square sphere" using Greek Mythology's Danae as a motif. Firstly, it is this work's concept.
Language is generally the most suitable medium for our awareness. Even so, just as we process them, we lose them. Doesn't that suggest that our consciousness has something like a mechanism for grammar? What if we have a common rhythm in our information structure that is ancillary (different from index and context)? In other words, it turns out that there is no problem with expression. It's a really simple idea and means that the world is rewritten into something different. My next plan, from October through November is to do an artist-in-residence that invited by La Napoule Art foundation in France at château La Napoule. There, I will create Kafka's "Castle" as a motif. With that story as the feature, the main character goes without achieving his goals no matter how he tries and is written into a state of affairs that are mocking him. Using that as the meaning of illusion, I intend "Detour from the Subject" to be my next work. Like a coffee siphon, it is going from the starting point and returning back to it again as in the recounting of a dream. When you return to the beginning, it's not the same. Yet it is also not different. Language have the power to convey this situation and that, as far as we're concerned, is the lead in to words as the introduction to an image which is useful. This is the meaning going from here on out as well.
This work attempts to make a square sphere, as a metaphor for visual notion of intersection. It s a simple idea and action, melting square ice onto a sphere plaster. Square sphere is strange word and subject, because a square sphere is impossible to find in this world. It is only a word or concept, but one can find it in my work. It is like the myth Danaë in greek mythology; impossible, beautiful, but nothing”
Yasunori Kawamatsu born to 1984 in Gumma Prefecture in Japan. He was graduate from the design course of Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics in 2006. He was started Artist career that part in a performance at Kunsthall of Dusseldorf in 2008, and he joined group exhibition in the Gumma Museum of Modern Art/JP in 2009, Edinburgh Art Festival 2010, Takasaki city museum/JP in 2012, also China-Japan contemporary art exhibition at 53 Art Museum in china 2014. He invited from La Napoule Art foundation on residency program at Cannes Fall 2014. contact@kawamatsuyasunori.com
This work reveals a special circumstance that is held by the words. It means that the things that cannot be shown will be expressed verbally. It is a really interesting piece.
www.kawamatsuyasunori.com dabada project www.kawamatsuyasunori.com/dabada.html