Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 40

A love parade under the guise of a demo – Ellie (Chim↑Pom)’s “LOVE IS OVER”


Invitaion to LOVE IS OVER (2014), postcard, stamp, horse blood, seal. Design: Hidenori Yoshioka. Photo: Kenji Morita.

News that Ellie, the sole female member of Chim↑Pom, was holding a wedding reception reached me via a New Year’s greeting card, and so in the small hours of the morning one lucky day in January 2014, with the effects of the New Year still lingering, I made my way to the Furin Kaikan in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho. This New Year’s greeting card was original in that it resembled a piece of mail art with a photo of a ring finger amputated at the base with an engagement ring still attached and a stamp affixed with blood extracted from a horse. So early in the New Year, such an inauspicious notification, so inappropriate for the new start in life of a man and a woman who love each other, so typical of Chim↑Pom. On the reverse was printed the text of an application to hold a demonstration that had been submitted in advance to the Metropolitan Police Department, while in one corner was the vermillion joint seal of the group’s members. I had a hunch that something was going to happen.

Titled “LOVE IS OVER,” the wedding reception took place in what used to be a cabaret filling an entire floor of the Furin Kaikan in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho – hired exclusively for the occasion – and turned into an all-night extravaganza. Artworks by Chim↑Pom dotted the venue, there was a gorgeous champagne tower and some dodgy entertainment, while from the art world Makoto Aida, the group’s master-figure of sorts, added a touch of glamour by singing dressed as a semi-naked Miyuki Nakajima. Around the time Naohiro Ukawa finished his lecture on “What marriage is,” I realized it was already completely light outside.


Photo: Kenji Morita.


Photo: Andrey Bold.

But it was after this that the real party began. Wearing a “magnificent” wedding dress made from translucent white rubbish bags, Ellie took the podium and made an appeal, signaling with a flourish the commencement of the “main part” of the reception. As hinted by the New Year’s greeting card, this involved the happy couple marching together with the multitude of guests who had gathered for the blessing along a route that stretched from nearby Okubo Park, which the Metropolitan Police Department had been advised would be the place of assembly, to the version of Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture installed in front of Shinjuku I-LAND Tower in Nishi-Shinjuku, near where the demonstration was due to disperse.


Photo: Kishin Shinoyama.

Naturally, the police had anticipated some kind of political group behavior. They had to ensure personnel were on hand to direct the traffic in bustling Shinjuku. If people ran amuck there could possibly be arrests. Here, however, there was not a single political message. There were only (pre-message) celebrations expressing “Congratulations” and “LOVE!” Despite this, however, because for the purposes of the application the format was above all a demonstration, the participants all held banners or placards of their own choosing and shouted out as they marched down the street under the watchful eye of the police. That’s right, it was an outdoor wedding celebration parade under the guise of a demonstration for the purposes of expressing political views.


Photo: Leslie Kee.

Naohiro Ukawa stated as much in his lecture immediately before the march, noting that of the countless wedding receptions held around the world, those of Imperial and Royal families are regarded as the pinnacle. Because their ceremonies are not only family affairs but also have public significance, the announcements are not restricted to indoors, and ultimately the only option is to parade through the streets in order to notify the citizenry. Because those involved are VIPs, however, a certain level of danger also accompanies such events. For this reason, whether it is the Japanese Imperial family or the British Royal family, careful attention is paid to wedding parades in the streets and the police have to keep a strict watch over the surrounding area. Wedding parties that use public roads, require the presence of the police and are covered by the mass media are the most expensive in the world, an unattainable goal for the common people.

Chim↑Pom succeeded in implementing this classy ceremony without spending a cent by going through the procedure of a demonstration application, which is an opportunity for anybody to utilize public roads. As well, they arranged things so that only the bride and groom and Kishin Shinoyama, the photographer who photographed the proceedings in full from start to finish, headed to Okubo Park, the “meeting place” where the police officers on escort duty were waiting, while the other participants gradually joined them along the route.

As a result, the trio of Ellie in her wedding dress, her groom in his immaculate white morning attire and Kishin Shinoyama, who was busy photographing proceedings in his trademark “gekisha” (agitated shots) style, were vastly outnumbered by the large formation of policemen on escort duty all the way from Shin-Okubo through Kabukicho to the big intersection near where the road passes under the Yamanote line; they calmly appeared in Shinjuku in front of the large overpass surrounded by a prodigious guard of honor. At the intersection, the police stopped vehicles irrespective of the traffic lights, clearing the way for the parade to proceed. One can only imagine what the police thought as, in front of the line of halted vehicles, the bride and groom, who had no political message whatsoever, hugged and kissed right in the middle of the intersection, which was open to an extent never seen in broad daylight.


Photo: Kishin Shinoyama.

Shortly after, with the couple’s heartfelt vow of love as their sign, one by one the well-wishers waiting on the sidewalk joined the procession. Before long the column of people was transformed into a scene more recognizable as a demonstration. But their chanting was limited to calls of “LOVE” and “Congratulations!” Noticing something out of the ordinary about this scene, passersby halted in their tracks and one after another aimed their mobile phones in our direction. In other words, scenes of “LOVE” were communicated widely to large numbers of the general public via public telecommunication. And the final destination of this group of people chanting “LOVE” was none other than a sculptural work titled LOVE.

Here, the kind of transformation of public space and homage to art history only Chim↑Pom are capable of had again produced the desired effect. Actually reaching Indiana’s LOVE without incident was itself a difficult goal that turned into a trial involving negotiations with the police. Normally a piece of public sculpture that rarely attracts attention on account of its having become a normal part of the landscape, LOVE became a vehicle that served as a goal for each of the participants as they thought afresh about what “LOVE” means. In the unlikely event that people had been arrested, this “LOVE” would probably have been interrupted. Indiana’s LOVE was transformed from a landmark standing in a public place into a symbol of this very process that people felt compelled to join forces in realizing one way or another.

One could say that this method of directly working upon public space and public sculpture in a bold manner in order to draw out the latent potential contained within them is typical of the methods used by Chim↑Pom, as seen in such works as Making the sky of Hiroshima PIKA! (2008), which involved skywriting the word “Pika” (onomatopoeia for the flash of the atomic bomb) above the A-bomb Dome in Hiroshima, an act that caused a stir, and LEVEL 7 feat. Myth of Tomorrow (2011), for which they attached a panel suggestive of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident to Taro Okamoto’s mural Myth of Tomorrow, which is installed in Shibuya station.


Photo: Kishin Shinoyama.

Another thing that must not be forgotten is that the phrase “LOVE IS OVER” follows in the footsteps of WAR IS OVER, the expansive public art venture once undertaken under the joint names of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Moreover, prior to this John and Yoko carried out a series of “politics = love” performances, with marriage itself as the motif, in which they took hotel rooms in the Netherlands and Canada during their honeymoon and invited the world’s press in to interview them while dressed in white pajamas in an attempt to send a message of peace to the world. In this sense, Chim↑Pom’s LOVE IS OVER is significant in that it further develops the context of John and Yoko’s public art, extending it into the 21st century. Come to think of it, wasn’t the way the bride and groom were dressed from head to toe in white also reminiscent of John and Yoko? What’s more, the person who recorded on camera the happy couple’s love parade was none other than Kishin Shinoyama, who shot the cover photo used on John and Yoko’s famous album Double Fantasy. In the sense that they are an appropriation of Double Fantasy, Shinoyama’s photos capturing the transformation of the intersection in front of the giant overpass in Shinjuku into a wedding reception venue using police force at no expense, and of the bride and groom kissing in the middle of this intersection, could be regarded as a “Triple Fantasy.” It goes without saying that shortly after this, Indiana’s LOVE was completely “occupied” by the same people who realized this love parade.


Photo: Kishin Shinoyama.

Be that as it may, why the title “LOVE IS OVER”? Well, this, too, depends on how you read it. For Chim↑Pom, “LOVE IS OVER” by no means signals the end of “something.” Far from this being the case, it means “love overcomes” or “love is cool,” or to put it another way “love is never over.” Granted this is my own selfish interpretation, but isn’t love immoderate or over the top to begin with? Indeed, what else could Chim↑Pom’s motivation be in realizing the impossible by staging a free wedding parade on public roads with a police escort other than “over-the-top love”?

All photos courtesy Mujin-to Production and Chim↑Pom .

Scenes from the event are included in the photo book Ellie wa itsumo kimochi warui (May 2014, Asahi Press) produced by Chim↑Pom.

Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 1-6

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