Kyoto Art for Tomorrow 2021
“Kyoto Art for Tomorrow 2021” is an exhibition introducing emerging young artists engaged in creating new art in Kyoto.
Held at the Museum of Kyoto, it presents works by talented young artists selected by a jury from among candidates nominated by experts including art universities, galleries, and museum curators.
While the main venue for “Kyoto Art for Tomorrow 2021” is on the 4th floor of the main building of the Museum of Kyoto, Tadasu Takamine’s “118 Joya no Kane (New Year’s Bells)” was presented as a special exhibit on the 1st floor of the Annex Hall.
Tadasu Takamine “118 Joya no Kane”
Tadasu Takamine’s “118 Joya no Kane” is an experiential installation work.
Visitors wait for their turn in a waiting room partitioned by curtains so that the work is hidden from view. While waiting, sounds leak through from the previous participant’s experience.
The following contains “spoilers” that touch on details of the work.
While waiting, I read the statement posted on the wall. 118 is the number of “lies” former Prime Minister Abe is said to have told in the Diet.
Upon entering, a single chair had been placed in the large space of the Annex Hall.
When you sit down on the chair, a staff member brings over a black bag and prompts you to choose one of the iron balls inside.
From among three small iron balls inside, you choose one by your own will and hand it to the staff.
Through this act of the participant confirming the choice themselves — as in a magic trick — a relationship with the work is formed.
The silver ball is dropped into the pipe, and only the sound of it accelerating through the tube reverberates through the space.
Only the sound circling round and round around the chair where I sat resounded. It was a very loud sound.
The spread and speed of the sound felt as though it overlaid the way former Prime Minister Abe’s small lies gradually grew and spread.
Even as I thought the circling iron ball was nearing its end, the sound of the rolling ball would not stop.
It exceeded the number of pipe loops I could see and just kept rolling on.
At this point, the viewer realizes that “the sound of the endlessly rolling iron ball is a fake — it was merely audio played through a speaker.”
Finally, from within the horn-shaped speaker came the sound of former Prime Minister Abe’s false Diet answers, and at the same moment as the New Year’s bell rang, the iron ball dropped toward me. In a complete reversal of the speed conveyed by the audio, the iron ball came tottering and dully at me, as though clinging to me.
Although the title mentions “Joya no Kane (New Year’s Bell),” when I paired it with the final staging, it also sounded like the gong used in comedy programs. The accelerating iron ball sound was terrifying, and the final punchline was comedic — a viewing experience with real depth.
Framed around former Prime Minister Abe, the work incorporates staging that draws a wry smile at the end — while also feeling like it questions us, who may have unwittingly accepted lies and fakes.
