The Impossibility of art

Rei Naito came into sudden prominence in the art world in Japan during the late eighties with her installations Under the Distance the Root of the Light is Flat (1989) and une place sur la Terre (1991). These works consisted of various delicate and fragile parts made of pieces of glass, thin wire, bamboo sticks, cotton, seeds of cosmos, etc., placed in a large tent. Some of the components were so delicate that the artist had to use pincettes to install the piece. The inside of the tent was dimly lit with bare light bulbs; viewed from outside it looked as if it were a dome made of soft material. At any one time only was person was allowed to enter the tent for viewing the work. By setting such a condition on the spectator, the artist made it possible to experience the tent as a mysterious, yet intimate space impregnated with poetic associations.

Figure 1.

Rei Naito during her “movement” on December 19, 1996, in Potential Aspects of Life. Photo: Mark Diker, courtesy D’Amelio Terras Gallery, New York.

Those familiar with such earlier Naito works as these may find her new work Potential Aspects of Life to appear to be quite a departure; she appears to have moved from the creation of a space of introspection to the creation of potential through the act or movement of the artist. Potential Aspects of Life could be considered as an exhibition of the artist’s movements. Naito positions a glass partition in the gallery space, places small objects made of flannel within the confined area, and with subtle yet concentrated movements engages these various elements and thus creates the work in space. The exhibition begins with her movements, continues with the objects left in the space quietly reminding us of her actions, and ends with a closing contemplative movement in which the artist returns the objects to their original position of rest. Naito, through her precise movements, discloses the essential meanings of Potential Aspects of Life.

Another important feature of her work is her way of addressing the issue of the “Anonymity of Art.” As a critique of the existing system of art and its notion of “Art History” and the place of “Artists,” she attempts to draw our attention to the “namelessness” of creation where the act of creation or the things being created are in an embryonic state of being transcending words or description. For Naito this “namelessness” is a stage or a process of expression so directly connected to the birth of creation that it is at once empirical—yet very ephemeral. This “namelessness-of-being” is a word given to describe the intrinsic nature of innumerable acts of creation. The only words Naito used during the “movement” in Potential Aspects of Life were “the result of being in peril.” This phrase was not spoken; rather, she uttered these words in Japanese by pronouncing each phonetic sound in such a way that it seemed as if it were being whispered and shouted at the same time. For her this was an act of affirmation of an extremely basic impulse and act of creation by human beings for which the politics of contemporary art (with its perpetuated hype of one “ism” or another) is irrelevant. The silent shout of the phrase is a genuine act of pursuing this “namelessness” and the gratuitous acts of creation which tap into the very basic energy of life.

For those of us living in the period of rapid transition at the end of the twentieth century, danger is not something which can be measured or weighed by something unseen. In order for us to gain “positive aspects of life,” to continue our vision of the Potential Aspects of Life in the face of invisible danger, we need to repeat this creation of “nameless” art in “nameless” being. Rei Naito, with her total devotion, will definitely continue to develop and sharpen her vision of “Potential Aspects of Life.”