araki

Araki Nobuyoshi
This is a month of excellent Japanese contemporary art. More than 50 pictures from the 60s to year 2000 by famous Japanese photographer Araki is going to be shown. Yes, he is famous, of his pictures with naked prostitutes, S and M bondage scenarios, fetishism and eroticism– that ‘s why the master is always subject to controversy: some may say he is the greatest artist in Japan, and some may think he is only a pornographer. For the former one, including Bjork, believes that there is something behind the ropes, exposed skin and smeared lipstick marks. As in the ‘Aura- fading ”mass production of photography suggests consumption, the product-like models and every meticulous detail in the pictures, suggests unrealism. When tearing off the erotica, there lies the Zen emptiness, and great sorrows.Just like another Japanese artist, if not a writer, Yukio Mishima, Araki, the choice exposing the richness of flesh is to conquer the richer emptiness– the materialists who are so attached to the flesh, are actually, nihilists. Keumsan Gallery (6436 6176 )

Sakurai Daizo

Tent Theatre of Sakurai Daizo
Graduated from Waseda University, Sakurai Daizo, Japanese experimental director and actor commenced his Tent theatre, that is, making stage performance inside temporarily–built tents, since the 70s, when social movements in Japan were active and radical. Tent theatres are actually a product of subversive theatre movement parallelling the political ones in Japan’s 60s and 70s. Tent theatre is not only a theatre form that links the surroundings and creates variables, randomness (Like being beaten buy the cops) and instability to the performance, but also a subversion and opposition to establishment and hierarchy, which are symbolized by traditional theatres.

Although Tent Theatres dissolved gradually in the 80s, yet there are still some directors like Sakurai who cast their concern on social issues, among his more than 30 plays, there are many social- conscious works, for instance, Screen Memory– a play based on a script of Japanese traditional story- telling in 12th –16th century revolving around two lepers. The play casts Sakurai’s acute criticism on Japanese government’s unreasonable seclusion policy of lepers. Sakurai’s discontent on capitalism and establishment can also be shown by his firm refusal to funding given by enterprises and government.

In 2007, Sakurai is going to bring his new stage performance, 变幻痂壳之城 (literally Changing Scar City in Beijing from September 14- 16 with a series of activities and lectures. Scar is a metaphor of capitalist societies, where capitals are created supposedly to eradicate poverty, yet it eventually worsens the problem. In a society like that, people, rich and poor, are deprived of their imaginations.

A talk given by the director Sakurai Daizo will take place in Peking University on September 7. On the other hand, in One Way Street Library, there will be a meeting with creators of the play on September 8 and an evaluation discussion on September 22.

http://tent-beijing.blog.sohu.com/entry/