Friday, June 19, 2009

Family photos: Miwa Yanagi's installation of oversize photographs and giant picture frames in the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale MIWA YANAGI, YOSHIKO ISSHIKI OFFICE, SANSEI KIMURA

By ANDREW MAERKLE

Special to The Japan Times

Born in 1967, Kyoto-based photographer Miwa Yanagi burst onto the Japanese art scene in 1994 with "Elevator Girl" (1994-98), her photo series depicting groups of uniformed women languidly posing in empty shopping arcades. Since then, much of her work has reflected a theatrical aesthetic. For "My Grandmothers" (2000-09), Yanagi asked young women to imagine their lives 50 years in the future and then used elaborate sets and makeup to realize those visions. The black-and-white series "Fairy Tale" (2004-06) restaged scenes from folk stories such as Cinderella and Snow White with a macabre twist, highlighting the cannibalistic tension between the old witch and budding beauty archetypes that recur in such narratives.

Artist Miwa Yanagi, Japan's official representative at the Venice Biennale

Yanagi is currently representing Japan at the Venice Biennale, the exhibition often referred to as the "art Olympics." Her new installation, titled "Windswept Women: The Old Girls' Troupe," centers on a group of 4-meter tall black-and-white photographs of half-naked giantesses in mid-dance against desolate landscapes. Presented in giant keepsake-style photo-stands, the photographs are accompanied by a film of the women dancing on a sand dune and works from the "Fairy Tale" series. A circus-like black tent draping the Japan Pavilion underscores the itinerant life of Yanagi's imaginary troupe.

The Japan Times met with Yanagi during the Biennale preview to learn more about the work's production and her experience exhibiting in Venice.

Prior to Venice, your works have been mainly conventional photographic prints. Why was it important to work on such a monumental scale for the Japan Pavilion?

I've made large works before but this time the photo-stands were a crucial element of the project. Generally photo-stands are used for family portraits and are quite small. The "Windswept Women" represent an imaginary family, so the works on display can be thought of as family portraits. However, the extreme scale of the work accentuates the viewer's experience of the fiction, like a stage set.

Actually, the idea of family as performance has interested me since childhood. A family is usually conceptualized as a binding set of relations, but in reality it doesn't work that way. It can be quite temporary, with members gathering and then separating again. The tent is a transient home, and the photos and photo-stands — as part of a theatrical setting — are very immediate.

Can you describe the different characters of the "Windswept Women"?

There are five women, the youngest is a teenager and the eldest is in her 70s. The young woman has dangling, wizened breasts, and the old woman has firm breasts, so there's a physical reversal. The breasts, as a symbol of femininity, figure prominently in the dance that the women perform, although the dance itself does not have any particular meaning. Like gypsies, they are social outcasts, moving from one place to the next.

It was quite challenging to make the work because we had to create two sets of prosthetics for each model. The breasts used in the photo-shoots had to be firm so we could get a clean shot while the models posed for the camera, but it was important that the breasts in the film sway with the dancers' movements, and thus those had to be supple.

Is there a particular meaning to the representation of women in your photos?

Yes. I need to create images synced to myself. I don't think I could make a convincing photo of a man. My own family was comprised only of women.

I'm happy with people thinking of my work as feminist art, but I don't set out with that intent. If you are making art on the basis of an agenda, it will inevitably lose its power. My works develop from very personal concerns.

The original tent women from the "Fairy Tale" series are captivating. They are deranged, freakish monsters. And yet because they are monsters you could say they represent a sense of freedom.

Exactly. Monsters are anomalies on the edge of society, and that exemption from social constraints in a way mirrors the freedom of children and the elderly. So the tent women are a symbol of that.

What about the recurring images of grandmothers in your work?

Well, I like them. I was raised by three grandmothers. They were my grandmother, my great-grandmother and then my great-grandmother's younger sister in my home. But there's also the idea of the elderly woman as a marginalized figure in society. I have a lot of sympathy for that.

The grandmothers in your photos are very energetic.

They won't die. That's something I'm always thinking about: immortality. In fact, the peaches, oranges and pomegranates that ornament the "Windswept Women" photo-stand frames represent health and longevity in Chinese symbolism.

Did you do a lot of research in preparation for this work?

Actually, I don't do much planning in the beginning. An image comes into my head and then serves as a map for the rest of the project. In the case of "Fairy Tale," for example, the image of the tent woman came to me. Then I tried to figure out who she was, and decided she must be a traveling storyteller. And then the theme of contrasting old women and young girls emerged.

How do you feel as a representative of Japan at Venice?

I'm really not here representing Japan. Can you imagine those dangling breasts as an emblem of Japan? You can't even see the country name on the pavilion because of the tent. However, the artists who have previously exhibited at Venice all gave me one important piece of advice, which is to think of the biennale as a training ground and not the fulfillment of a career arc.

Do you have a sense of what projects you will pursue next?

Once Venice is over I'll be free again. I've been working intensely on this project so I just want to go home, read a book and reflect. I don't have any plans to continue "Windswept Women." It was a one-time project.

I'm glad I made the tent though. The word "pavilion" originally referred to a form of tent. The Japan Pavilion has been standing for 53 years; it's not going to move. It's a memorial to the architect Takamasa Yoshizaka. There's a conflict with the origins of the term and how the building now functions. So to transform this white memorial once more into a black tent has been very special for me.

A survey of Miwa Yanagi's photography, including prints from the "Windswept Women" series, opens on June 20 at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, and continues till Sept. 23. For more information, visit www.nmao.go.jp

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