Interview with Artist Makoto Fujimura

I N T E RV I EW
An Interview with
Artist Makoto Fujimura
Jennifer L. Geddes
You use an ancient Japanese technique, Nihonga, in your painting. Could you describe
it? Why have you chosen to paint in this ancient style?
I studied in Japan (my roots are there, but I was born in Boston) from 1986–1992 under
the curriculum of Nihonga. I received my MFA in Nihonga at Tokyo National
University, and I was the first foreign-born student to be selected to their post-MFA doctoral-level program. The Nihonga technique, which has evolved over 1500 years of
Japanese art, uses natural materials such as pulverized azurite, malachite, gold, and silver
on handmade, heavy rag paper. The materials are mixed with animal skin glue as a medium. I was immediately drawn to these materials. I had previously painted in oil and
watercolor, but wanted to work on a large scale using a water-based medium and paper.
The minerals, when layered in the correct manner, can refract, as each individual granule
acts as a prism, so the surface traps light. This subtle, quiet way of capturing light
intrigued me. I see in the very process of painting a parable of life: how our lives, too,
need to be refractive of light as people created in God’s image. How often do we experience grace in the midst of trial (as our lives are being “pulverized” to reveal inner beauty)?
“Zero Summer,” gold and mineral pigment on Kumohada paper, 89 x 66 inches
Artist Makoto Fujimura is a member of the National Council of the Arts, the founder of
The International Arts Movement, and the youngest artist ever to have a piece acquired by
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. His paintings combine abstract expressionism
with the traditional Japanese art of Nihonga, integrating modern and traditional painting
styles with his interest in questions about the nature of human existence and the divine.
Public collections containing his work include The Saint Louis Museum, Museum of
Contemporary Art in Tokyo, and the Time Warner/AOL/CNN building in Hong Kong.
His works can be viewed at: <www.makotofujimura.com>.
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THE HEDGEHOG REVIEW / SUMMER 04
Some people argue that the arts are becoming increasingly irrelevant to individuals.
How do you see your role as an artist in contemporary American culture? How do
most artists understand their role? How does this compare to the role of the artist in
contemporary Japan?
As a National Council Member (a Presidential appointment for six years), I have been
working closely with the current chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA),
Dana Gioia, to make NEA funding benefit all Americans. In this role, I am keenly aware
of the schism between the artist and society. I often find myself caught in the crossfire of
the culture wars. Dana calls the NEA “the Poland of the culture wars,” meaning that
everyone wants to fight their wars on your turf, but no one cares about the people who
live there. Both the left and the right fight their ideological battles on the turf of the arts,
but very few, I find, care for artists or the value of creativity in society.
On the one hand, we have a country that is reading literature and poetry less and less (see
the NEA’s study “Reading at Risk”1), and on the other, we have an increased interest in
creativity. Richard Florida, in The Rise of the Creative Class, highlights creativity as a vital
element in the development of the new economy.2 And yet, we are investing less and less
in arts education. I find the language of the culture wars to be unhelpful in understanding the challenges we face today. I see more benefit in seeing our responsibilities as a challenge of stewardship.
Artists have a responsibility to society, too. Some in the arts would abuse their power of
expression to manipulate the media (and society) by cheap shock value. I am not saying
that artists cannot shock, and I am more sympathetic than not to the artist’s freedom to
challenge the status quo. I have, in the past, written to defend Andres Serrano’s works as his
honest depiction of depravity. His “morgue” exhibit, shown at the Cathedral of Saint John
the Divine at Lent season in 2002, was a profoundly beautiful and humbling experience.
But I also call on him and other “culture war” artists to rise above the silly bickering that
further fragments the language of the arts. I do believe that the basis of democracy is freedom of expression; but this needs to be balanced with the responsibility of such a gift, and
we need to “consider others above ourselves.” The arts can provide a shalom space in the
shouting and killing that goes on every day. Sen no Rikyu, a 16th-century tea master of
Japan, exemplified this by creating his teahouses in a country rife with civil wars and strife.
The Japanese have, traditionally, embraced creativity as part of their stewardship of
nature. They do understand that responsibility to serve society by innovating to incarnate
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1
National Endowment for the Arts, Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, Research Division
Report #46 (June 2004).
2
Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and
Everyday Life (New York: Perseus, 2002).
“January Hour – Epiphany,” mineral pigment on paper, 76.4 x 102.8 inches
beauty in everyday objects. Today, unfortunately, the importation of modern Western
assumptions have created a schism between generations there, too, and the arts have suffered, carrying little of their tradition and wisdom of the past. I have hope, however, that
the Japanese contribution in all areas of the arts can have a profound mediating effect on
the language of expression worldwide.
Should art have a social function or utility—or should it exist as something set apart
from such concerns? What trends do you see developing in the contemporary art world
and how are they related to broader cultural shifts?
The various categories of the arts have become much more integrated, and the boundary
lines between video, the visual, sound, fashion, design, and architecture have blurred in
recent years. I see this as a positive development. I also see extraordinary (and fearsome)
developments in design as they deal more and more with design and art that defines
humanity, and doesn’t just serve a function.
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THE HEDGEHOG REVIEW / SUMMER 04
I went to see the Matthew Barney exhibit at the Guggenheim and found myself grieving
at the level of crass egotism exhibited. No doubt he is an influential figure in our art
expression, as well as innovative, using Hugo Boss money to develop new ways of expressing his “post-human” ideas. But ultimately, what he is trying to do, to quote Nancy
Spector, the curator of the exhibit, is “to contest the laws of differentiation” and “thus to
challenge the very word of God.”3 I found his assumptions and the hype surrounding the
exhibit to be rather self-destructive.
At the same time, there was a small exhibit of Kasmir Malevich at the side gallery of the
Guggenheim. Malevich, whom I see as a window into the soul of modern art, captures
the resonance and transcendence of his time. His abstract paintings were intended to be
modern icon images. Alfred Barr, the founder of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA),
smuggled these paintings out of Russia and hung them at the MOMA. They influenced
countless artists, including Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. Contrasted with Barney’s
effort to undermine the creative possibilities of a world created by the Creator, Malevich
honors them by his Orthodox, humble vision. This was literally the “still point of the
turning [Guggenheim] world.” Malevich’s works created dynamism out of the
window/icon space that Barney’s works, even with their wild energy, could not attain.
Malevich’s works are far more powerful, and dangerous, than Barney’s attempts to alter
reality. Artists today have a choice to follow the techno self-expression of Barney, or the
transformative, incarnational vision of Malevich. These divergent paths seem to be present in our everyday lives as well.
Ours is a culture easily swayed by facile explanations and cunning manipulation.
Malevich portrays a face of the world, and a city, lasting beyond such superficiality. The
end product of Barney’s work—where it ends up in this exhibit—is in pigeon excrement.
There is no engagement there with the eternal, to be sure.
Going back again to the “Reading at Risk” study, over the last ten years, there’s been a
steep decline in people reading literature and poetry. What’s interesting about this study
is that there’s a direct correlation between reading and engagement with the world. People
who read are more likely to attend cultural events, and more surprisingly, people who
read are more likely to attend sports events! It is distressing that our children are less and
less able to be engaged in the world, nature, and art. We are developing a nation of consumers, but have not done much to encourage creativity and nurture our souls.
Fascination with facile works like Matthew Barney’s or The Da Vinci Code may indicate
our culture’s propensity towards the debasement of truth. Technology is not being used
to enhance our engagement with the world, but as a kind of pornography, where we twist
some of God’s most important gifts and turn them into facile, and disengaged idols.
3
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Nancy Spector, “Only the Perverse Fantasy Can Still Save Us,” Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle (New
York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2002) 2–91.
I N T E RV I E W
In the days to come, the most important resource that we possess will be our creativity
to engage with the world. It is, again, a question of stewardship of our gifts. Dana makes
the point that our current education system is designed to develop people for the nineteenth century, but not for the 21st century. We are not doing a good job of equipping
our children to lead in the creativity and entrepreneurship that will be needed in the
days to come.
How have developments in technology, the media, and the corporate world affected
the art world? What role does or should beauty play in the arts? In contemporary culture? In our daily lives? In your art?
Beauty draws us out of ourselves and invites us to engage with the world. Beauty causes
us to see the world, as it were, for the first time. But working with extremely beautiful
mineral pigments, I have also found that beauty can alienate us as well as give us joy.
Our hearts are not able to withstand the weight of true beauty.
Suzi Gablik refers to Sandro Chia’s description of the art world as “a suburb of hell.”4
Art is now subjugated to the level of a commodity that is bought and sold, and artists are
seen as mere instruments of greed. In a suburb of hell, one may be afraid to see something truly beautiful because it exposes our ache within and calls us to a better world.
We are afraid of true beauty. So the elements of beauty are often prostituted into banal
sentimentalism and sold for temporary pleasure.
To experience beauty we need to listen beyond the destructive winds of the world and
the incessant chatter. Artists can create true and lasting dialogue and can mediate between
dividing shores of hostility. Art can create a place of peacemaking. This is what I seek in
my work.
4
Suzi Gablik, “The Nature of Beauty in Contemporary Art,” New Renaissance 8.1 (1998), available at
<http://www.ru.org/81gablik.html>.
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