Takashi TOKUNAGA
Voice in Jomon era go through human's gene. The world of Takashi Tokunaga on Art.
I absorbed Takashi Tokunaga performance at the opening ceremony of his private exhibition held in Shinohkubo,Tokyo.At that time,we were surrounded by a great number of his work of "faces" at night. In the field of Arts, the world "Performance" has many meaning but one meaning since the 70s related to the expression of art through action. Performance can be defined it as action extracted and enlarged out of many aspects of art. It would be clearer when you compare it with the conceptual art, which isfocused on an infornative aspect of art to convey artist's concept to people.
Tokunaga relies on a more expanded interpretation of "performance" than how it was interpreted in the 60s when I experienced many historical events and happenings.
I would like to write only about my view of his performance because there is no use describing it objectively.
I absorbed Takashi Tokunaga performance at the opening ceremony of his private exhibition held in Shinohkubo,Tokyo.At that time,we were surrounded by a great number of his work of "faces" at night. In the field of Arts, the world "Performance" has many meaning but one meaning since the 70s related to the expression of art through action. Performance can be defined it as action extracted and enlarged out of many aspects of art. It would be clearer when you compare it with the conceptual art, which isfocused on an infornative aspect of art to convey artist's concept to people.
Tokunaga relies on a more expanded interpretation of "performance" than how it was interpreted in the 60s when I experienced many historical events and happenings.
I would like to write only about my view of his performance because there is no use describing it objectively.
I see the same characteristics both in his painting and his performance. His performance is like an action painting. He act out his performance on newspapers, spread on the floor. His dance on the newspapers, which materialize his concepts expressed through his own body. The dancing is mixed with the sound of a saxophone playing without a score. In the space on which he performance, he wears a tie and a business suit and draws on newspapers something from our daily lives. It is emphasized by black-ink (sumi) in his abstract action. His performance shows that something usual becomes unusual or that an unusual action becomes usual. I can glance his concept of his creation in those alternative actions.
In the 40, 50s in America when the artist aimed at transcending the self-expression, people criticized abstract art was contradictory. But abstract expressionism is deeply connected with human ego or personal shmerz (agony), so abstract art is an expression of human inner space. In contrast to this, individual ideas are never expressed in daily necessities like newspapers, when he removes suchcontradiction, his movements inevitably become passionate. He wrapes the dancer, who transforms emotion into dance, with toilet paper. At the same time his passionate action mingled with the music. His concept is expanded on purpose and and concluded like this.
Takashi tokunaga has connected painting with performances and presented his works since the beginning of the 90s.
In the 40, 50s in America when the artist aimed at transcending the self-expression, people criticized abstract art was contradictory. But abstract expressionism is deeply connected with human ego or personal shmerz (agony), so abstract art is an expression of human inner space. In contrast to this, individual ideas are never expressed in daily necessities like newspapers, when he removes suchcontradiction, his movements inevitably become passionate. He wrapes the dancer, who transforms emotion into dance, with toilet paper. At the same time his passionate action mingled with the music. His concept is expanded on purpose and and concluded like this.
Takashi tokunaga has connected painting with performances and presented his works since the beginning of the 90s.
He has performed with the photographer Eisaburo Hara, who is one of my friends, in Kyushu. He has given a live performance mingled with sounds with Valtinhode Anastacio and Katuharu Shoji. He has collaborated with the illustrator Seitaro Kuroda, and exhibited hisaction paintings in le place de Pompidou in Paris.
Therefore, physical performance seems to be a very important means which he expresses his creatively. The exhibition of action paintings is so unusual. Many artists tried in in America after the World War II. Ihave already indicated, action painting is focused on the action that happens when artists draw paintings. Action painting can be interpreted the automatism that combines with the sources of the energy of cration. The definite difference between America actionpaintngs and Takashi Tokunaga's is difference between their "Sources".
Tokunagahas been drawing on one motif for the past ten years : the sequence of faces. His works have been titled "The performance for peace". "The Relief of 108 Faces in Jomon era", "My Original Scenery", "FACE & PEACE-No More Hiroshima", and others. Though these works strongly relate to society and history, their themes are neither social nor historical.
Therefore, physical performance seems to be a very important means which he expresses his creatively. The exhibition of action paintings is so unusual. Many artists tried in in America after the World War II. Ihave already indicated, action painting is focused on the action that happens when artists draw paintings. Action painting can be interpreted the automatism that combines with the sources of the energy of cration. The definite difference between America actionpaintngs and Takashi Tokunaga's is difference between their "Sources".
Tokunagahas been drawing on one motif for the past ten years : the sequence of faces. His works have been titled "The performance for peace". "The Relief of 108 Faces in Jomon era", "My Original Scenery", "FACE & PEACE-No More Hiroshima", and others. Though these works strongly relate to society and history, their themes are neither social nor historical.
In has more to do with a sense of the shamanism formed as a common illusion among people watching his performance in the process of which he tries to make "an invisible inner world" easy to see.
there is an orgiastic element in the illusion because people can exchange their own original scenery and the god created by them beyoud the daily life and festival space is created.
This is a definite difference between actions painters in America and Takashi Tokunaga. He was born Tanegashima and studied landscape architecture at university.
He is wandering on this planet filled with unclear and dioxin crises at the end of the 20th century.
He is moved by remote memories of lives and percussion of human's gene.I guess that he might be protesting againt the present security including flowers which people call the trend gardening as an apostle of animism,as a descendant of people in Jomon era and as common illusion of human and lives. I sometiome feel a gasp of a wild flower in the faces the artist drew
Yoshie Yoshida (Art commentator)
there is an orgiastic element in the illusion because people can exchange their own original scenery and the god created by them beyoud the daily life and festival space is created.
This is a definite difference between actions painters in America and Takashi Tokunaga. He was born Tanegashima and studied landscape architecture at university.
He is wandering on this planet filled with unclear and dioxin crises at the end of the 20th century.
He is moved by remote memories of lives and percussion of human's gene.I guess that he might be protesting againt the present security including flowers which people call the trend gardening as an apostle of animism,as a descendant of people in Jomon era and as common illusion of human and lives. I sometiome feel a gasp of a wild flower in the faces the artist drew
Yoshie Yoshida (Art commentator)