Mr. Mori is a tall, gentle-mannered gallerist with a discerning eye. He defines fine art as objects that appear between artists and physical objects or sceneries. The artists he represents are dynamic but some what humorous at the same time. We asked how him developed his perception towards art.

Moving from philosophy to fine art

-How did you become interested in art?

Art was something that was always in my life. The painter Aki Kuroda (based in Paris), who is actually my cousin, influenced me the most. He often took me to galleries and I heard him talking with Mr. Jinno (owner of Gallery HAM, Nagoya) about French philosophy. Even if I couldn’t fully understand their conversations, they appealed to me a lot.

Therefore, I majored philosophy at Osaka University which had a strong department in phenomenology, and became interested in Bergsonism. Phenomenology is a way of thinking to capture the world as clusters of images. You see the world since you exist and the world will not exist if you do not exist. It is a very ideological approach questioning what the world is and who we are.

Even though I studied philosophy, I preferred to have a physical object to think about, and not just think within my own mind. And it was art.

Art is an object but different from other everday objects. Art is something that stands out between people and objects. For example, if an artist stands in front of a scenery and draws, a painting appears between the scene and the artist. On the other hand, art can exist between the artists and the viewer too.

 

It is fun to talk with people as a gallerist

-There are many ways to work with art, as a curator or a critic for example, but why did you choose to become a gallerist?

What is good about contemporary art is that the artists are still alive. We know the artists in person and know how they created their works. I love talking with viewers, especially as the first person to show an artist’s work publicly, and telling them about the story behind the work. I enjoy the process of communicating with the collectors and handing the work to them.

I started to manage Aki Kuroda when I was pursuing my PhD, which was also when I worked part-timed in galleries. Being a gallerist was what I could imagine easily when I thought about working in the art world.

Engaging the viewer rather than convincing them

- What kind of art work do you like?

I prefer artists who have room to breathe in their works. For example, a dynamic paint stroke or sensitive technique that is full of energy is appealing to me.

Paramodel creates a plastic trail drawing that looks as if it continues forever. The installation appears to be under construction and keeps changing. They capture a city as a parking space where cars stop and go. If you see a city in the long term, buildings are dismolished and constructed just like a car moving in a parking space. I love their unfixed and fluctuating ideas.

Tamanoi creates works with stories behind them, but are not concrete stories. You can add or change a work’s story with your own imagination. He turns on a hidden switch in our minds.

I think it’s important that the work’s concept is not perfectly fixed by the artist since it gives the viewers a way to engage in the work. I know that a work with a concrete story behind it has a powerful message that seems convincing to the viewer. However, I think that will also distance it from the viewers. Engaging the viewer is more important than convincing them.

-What do you like about art?

It’s quite a simple answer, but art gives us a path to go somewhere we can’t go. It gives us different perspectives, leads us to unthinkable ideas which we couldn’t conceive before or turns on a switch inside of us

interviewed on October 6 2012, text by Rasa Tsuda

 

We have introduced Fuji’s work on Azito before but this time, I am happy to show his enormous number of toys brought to an exhibition space. As you can see in the photo above, they don’t look like toys anymore but like color palette. It was his solo show focusing on his long time project “Kaekko (= exchanging)” and how these toys could get together. When you continue anything for a quite long period, it will become an enormous power. He has proven that fact.

Change something not valued in the society, into a powerful one.

At the entrance of the exhibition behind the red dinosaur, black skinny dogs were lined staring at the visitors with its strong eyes. In Fuji’s earlier career, he met a black dog in Papua New Guinea. Despite the dog looked weak, it stood up against a wild hug and he was shocked by the dog’s transformation. It was energetic and even beautiful. Through this experience, he established his artistic concept of “transforming existences that not valued by society, into special ones”.

When I entered the exhibition space, a large dragon was facing at me with his shining eyes. This dragon was made of waste materials brought from the famous festival called “Nebuta” which is one of the largest festivals in Japan.

On the official Nebuta website, they explain about festival as below:

At the festival, more than 20 large lantern floats depicting human figures are paraded through city streets. These floats are called nebuta. Each float is accompanied by haneto dancers who dance wildly to ohayashi festival music, adding to the excitement of the summer night event.

The large Nebutas are discarded after the festival and Fuji decided to get one of them to change it to something. After negotiating with several groups who own a nebuta, he finally got one (picture above). It was a monument of Michizane Sugawara, a man who was smart enough to work for an emperor but relegated by the new leader. After his death, many ominous things happened and people said that the ghost of Sugawara has made things happen. And this nebuta was expressing his anger.

Understanding the story behind Sugarawa, Fuji transformed the nebuta into a dragon. It is like Sugawara changed himself to a dragon and went up to the heaven, healing his soul.

Enormous number of toys creating a dream like scenery.

The main part of the exhibition was this room.

Enormous number of toys are separated by types and color to create this amazing scenery. It is a dream land for kids and also for adults. Fuji created dinosaurs and birds by combining these toys and they were placed lively in this dream space. Without his idea, those toys could have already lost their lives as a waste material.

Then, how could he collect these toys? There is a long history behind it.

Back in the late 1990s, Fuji could not afford the community fee to dispose the house waste and started to place them at his home by sorting them by materials. One day, he hold an workshop for kids using those wastes.? He asked kids about what they want to do and they answered that they want to open a toy shop. Fuji had an idea to create a community through his activity and made this opportunity to realize it. He set up the shop as a place to exchange toys. If a kid didn’t bring a toy, then he/she can do a little job to get points and use it to get a toy. And this event was named “Kaekko” started in 2000.

Over the last 13 years, this “Kaekko” event has been held for more than 5000 times! And now, he has more than 50,000 toys collected at his place. This magical view was created with a long history. Fuji’s imagination changed a pile of toys into a dream land.

I am pretty much moved by the power of number and continuity. Collecting and managing 50,000 toys must not be an easy task. It is not a job required by anybody (of course) and just patience may be required. But going through all of it, Fuji gave us a great experience.

Doing something continuously may make a big leap in the end. It may not have to be collecting a physical objects but like writing down tiny ideas on a papaer. Continuity has a big potential to explode in the future. Fuji shows that it can happen.

Exhibition info
date: July 15 – September 9, 2012
venue: 3331 Arts Chiyoda, 1F Main Gallery
address: 6-11-14 Sotokanda Chiyoda-Ku Tokyo 101-0021
website:http://www.3331.jp/schedule/en/001589.html

text by Rasa Tsuda