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Noritoshi Hirakawa |
The Baukunst Galerie presents on Wednesday and Thursday, the 30th and 31st of August 2006 at 9 p.m. a world premiere of the performance “Four two One” of Noritoshi Hirakawa. The artist-film produced in that context will be exhibited within the scope of the installation until the 20th of September 2006. Beside the performance an accompanying photographic edition was created – a portraiture of the leading actress who contemporaneously exposes and eludes her body to the views of the spectator.
Noritoshi Hirakawa, born in Fukuoka (Japan) in 1960, lives and works in New York since 1993. His works were already shown in several solo- and group-exhibitions worldwide – among others at P.S.1 in New York, 45th Venice Biennale, Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Kunsthalle Wien, Shoto Museum in Tokyo, Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, SESC in Sao Paulo (BRA), Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Deitch Projects in New York, Kunsthalle Zürich in Zurich, Yokohama Museum of Art and at last at the ZKM in Karlsruhe (D).
The artist makes photographs, videos and installations and directs dances and performances. Using these media he explores elements of the social structure that are well-recognised but rarely addressed. The main themes of his works are sex and death and the immanent desires and drives. They can only be completely recognised against the background of the moral standards and taboos of the Japanese society.
In the series “S” (1997) he captures with his camera the perspective suicides had as their last glance, for example the overwhelming view from a bridge into the deepness. This way the spectator emphasises with the ambivalent feelings between the impressive moment and the need for release of the conflict. Thus Hirakawa, who does not strictly differ life from death as a Buddhist, reveals the spectator the tension between the life- and the death-drive (eros and thanatos) and puts the moral denunciation into question.
The works which deal with sexual identity and eroticism operate in a similar way. In the series “Reason of Life” (1998) Hirakawa instructed young women to take a picture with automatic release of the view underneath their skirts in public space. The cultural distrust against the dominance of the male view is contrasted with the power of female eroticism. The acting women themselves seem to be enthusiastic voyeurs of their own bodies.
At a signboard in “Garden of Nirvana” (1997) Hirakawa asks the female visitors of the installation to donate their worn panties and put them on the metal racks in the exhibition room. The unavoidable confrontation with the women’s body odour makes the visitor aware of the cultural negation of natural body odour by hygiene in the Western society. In Japan however fetishism in context of worn, female underwear is a widespread social phenomenon.
Hence Noritoshi Hirakawa’s works are always a result of personal, psychological and social studies. Restrictive moral standards and taboos are revealed and subverted in order to bring them to mind of the spectator.
In the performance “Four two One” the artist also deals with a social taboo: the subconscious desires between father and daughter. Beneath the surface of daily communication the story steps into a subconscious level as a dialogue of existential impact. The inner conflict of the leading actress is dramatically staged by the appearance of her “spirit” embodied by a masked and naked female dancer. By filtering the sexual intercourse between the leading actress and her boyfriend with a camera, Hirakawa allows the audience to approach to the subject from a ‘safe’ distance. Gestures and facial expressions are accompanied with the improvisations of a female violinist. The psychological drama culminates into Shakespearean dimensions when the desire beyond the moral standards of society bonds father and daughter to each other as a tragic, unconscious destiny. Their desperate trials to find an adequate quantity of their desire, clarifies the difficulty of human existence.
Every single moment of daily life, there are certain elements of our actions and ideas we do not want to share with someone else. Noritoshi Hirakawa opposes with liberating directness the homogenising dictates of our culture to a complex portrayal of personal desires and psychological needs.
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