*Please note in advance that this article contains details of the art project “NAKAMA de ART.” Also, there is no single, imposed way to view an artwork. What you feel on-site with your own senses is the true essence of enjoying art. Please treat this article as no more than a reference.
NAKAMA de ART
I visited the opening day of “NAKAMA de ART,” a project organized by Shingo Katori, whose activity as an artist has been attracting attention. The venue is on the first floor of the Imperial Hotel Plaza.
“NAKAMA de ART” came about from Shingo Katori’s desire to connect with 13 up-and-coming artists. Each of the artists coordinated a diverse array of works for display. A cafe is also set up inside the gallery, where original T-shirts collaging the artists’ works are being sold.
Opening Party
The “opening party” was held without any public announcement of the event—including Shingo Katori’s appearance—partly because of the small size of the venue. Planning it like an ordinary solo exhibition by a fine artist at a gallery makes sense given the project’s aims, and it can be called a wonderful approach.
Because the project is designed to provide opportunities to young artists and support their careers, having Shingo Katori himself, at the opening moment, forge connections between these artists and the visitors serves to draw wider attention to the art itself.
The SNS accounts of the participating artists appear to be attracting a very different audience from before. Fans who once followed SMAP, and now follow their new venture, seem to be finding, through this project, a gateway into contemporary art—that generalist female audience is now stepping into it.
Shingo Katori’s Work
Leaving discussion of the young artists’ works for later, Shingo Katori’s own work is “Weak Strength,” a large-scale piece measuring as much as 6 meters. Using acrylics and spray paints, and at times striking the canvas directly with his own hands, he has produced a colorful, powerful work.
Inside the venue, you can watch a video showing the process of making this work, which he completed in about five days.
The meaning of this work’s title, “Weak Strength,” is closely tied to the next work I will introduce.
Art All the Way In — Anju
The title “NAKAMA de ART” contains, quite literally, the meaning “art all the way in” (naka made āto). “Anju,” a collaboration with the architect Shinya Kojima, is installed at the center of the venue, and visitors can step inside it to enjoy the art.
If you place the earlier “Weak Strength” and “Anju” within the same field of view, you can sense the synchronistic relationship between them, as in the photograph below.
*The image above lets you slide to compare the difference in lighting.
Individually weak, soft, small, light materials come together and, once bound, generate a strong space. Traditional hard architecture, once built, cannot easily change—that “heaviness” was a defining trait. Even though our lifestyles shift day by day, the vessels supporting those lives had no flexibility whatsoever.
“Anju” was inspired by disaster hoods that share the same concept of “protecting with soft cloth.” Rather than using hard, unchangeable materials like brick, it is composed of soft, mobile materials, so that as each layer is stacked upward, the hood’s form transforms with a certain beautiful regularity.
— Excerpt from the caption
[“Anju” Staff]
Executive Producer / Ken Akaishi (Nouvelle Vague)
Design Cooperation / Soichiro Kaneko, Shiori Saito (both Nouvelle Vague), Chihiro Isono (3D modeling)
Structural Design / Ejiri Structural Engineers
Lighting Design / Soichiro Kaneko (Nouvelle Vague)
Construction / Nouvelle Vague
Photography / Keishin Horikoshi / SS
The 13 Young Artists
The 13 participating artists this time are all young. They do not seem to be personally acquainted with or connected to Shingo Katori; rather, curator Koharu Kawakatsu played a major role in shaping this lineup.
The project has assembled a diverse and wide-ranging roster of participating artists. Tracing the contours of Shingo Katori’s work “Weak Strength,” it seems to send the message that by gathering these emerging artists—who are only beginning to grow—together we can create a strong future.
Art with Companions
Apart from “naka made āto” (art all the way in), the work embodying the action of “NAKAMA de ART” — “art with companions” (nakama de āto) — was drawn directly onto the floor.
Each individual personality collides with and yet overlaps and fuses with the others.
The 13 artists and Shingo Katori built relationships as companions through their works, and as we, the visitors, took them in, it felt as though a single great connection reaching into the future was being born.
