Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 37

A Restatement: The Art of ‘Ground Zero’ (Part 14)
The decontamination of land and art I


Shuji Akagi – 20120220 Fukushima Prefectural Library 2 (2012), lightjet print, 31.5 x 42cm. Courtesy Arataniurano and Yamamoto Gendai.

Previously in this series, I penned a tribute to independent curator Takashi Azumaya, on his sad passing. A year later I was approached by Arataniurano and Yamamoto Gendai, two galleries with which Azumaya had been on close terms, and curated the recent exhibition “Art/Domestic: Temperature of the Future after Takashi Azumaya” for Azumaya, and for those of us he left behind. I’ve submitted an overview of the show for the catalog, so won’t repeat that here. The reason I am touching on the exhibition here regardless is that apropos “A Restatement: The Art of ‘Ground Zero’,” a title not used in this column for a while, it includes artists indispensable to any commentary on “post-3/11” Japan (ie, since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 2011).

In recent years, Azumaya had been nursing the idea of a “Temperature of the Time 2” show to serve as sequel to 1999’s “Art/Domestic: Temperature of the Time” exhibition at the Setagaya Art Museum that marked his debut as a curator, and had got as far as drawing up a simple plan. Unfortunately this never got to the point of naming the featured artists, however Azumaya did state clearly that they would be “domestic” and “contemporaneous.” In his later years Azumaya was closely involved in Korea’s Busan Biennale, being selected as commissioner for the 2010 Biennale, and fulfilling this challenging role in exemplary fashion, so the scale of his work as a curator was, conversely, moving toward the international. What prompted the seemingly retrograde career step of a show that appeared a deliberate return to his own roots? One can imagine any number of reasons, and now we will never know. However when it came to taking on this exhibition dedicated to Azumaya, it is this question I kept in mind first and foremost.

Pondering art that is domestic, that is, within Japan, and contemporaneous, I suppose it is impossible to ignore the impact of the Tohoku earthquake and nuclear accident: because even to omit this, for example, would require a certain conscious determination to do so. And on the contrary, even a cursory glance at Azumaya’s Twitter log finds him fulminating pessimistically about nuclear power on numerous occasions. Never a curator drawn to social issues, this indicates that the quake and nuclear power plant disaster were events of such extraordinary magnitude that even Azumaya could not ignore them.

Now, in 2013, as Japan’s path post-March 2011 becomes increasingly unclear, who will communicate the “temperature of the time” he was so keen to convey? I chose five artists to deliver that vision for a future without Azumaya, a vision that includes the “Madonna” series produced by Azumaya himself before he was a curator, as a student at Tokyo University of the Arts.


Takashi Azumaya – (I WILL BE)BORNE BY MADONNA (1992), Cibachrome print, 223 x 197.5 x 8.5cm. Photo by Keizo Kioku, courtesy Arataniurano and Yamamoto Gendai.

Here, I would like to touch on one of these five artists, Shuji Akagi. Obviously, one needs to be a little careful when describing Akagi as an “artist.” Sure, he majored in oil painting at Tsukuba University and currently teaches art at a public high school in Fukushima Prefecture. But still, he has had no involvement whatsoever in the world of contemporary art. Though continuing to paint after graduation, he had very few opportunities to show his paintings, his main works being exhibited in group shows of new work. In short, Akagi was someone with not even the remotest connection to the kind of “art” featured on the ART iT website. At least, that is, until the quake and tsunami.

It was on Twitter that Akagi’s activities first came to my attention. Learning of his existence one day via a tweet by writer Miri Yu, who follows him on Twitter, I discovered that Akagi resides “64km as the crow flies from TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station” (from his profile on the Twitter account @akagishuji). I then learned that he had been compiling a vast photographic record of day-to-day post-quake life in the city of Fukushima, severely contaminated by radioactive material from the nuclear plant, and getting those images out there accompanied by some highly original comments. The whole thing had a sobering, somewhat resigned air regarding the damage wrought by the nuclear accident, that could be taken as neither totally positive nor negative.

Among the Fukushima scenes captured by Akagi, some I found particularly compelling showed the grounds of the Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art undergoing decontamination. I myself have already discussed in some detail, in various forums, the plight of art museums following the earthquake (for example the quake-afflicted Rias Ark Museum of Art in Kesennuma). A similar book (Fukushima no bijutsukan de nani ga okotte ita no ka [What was happening at Fukushima art museums?], So Kurokawa, ed., SURE, 2012) has also been published that documents the internal challenges faced by curators at Fukushima’s museums under unprecedented conditions. Official blogs by curators had also touched, albeit only slightly, on the matter of decontamination. However none of this clarified specifically how the authorities went about decontaminating museums polluted by radioactive material. Personally I feel this kind of thing to be an historical resource worthy of systematic documenting and preservation, whether by the relevant authority or by curators, for the benefit of future generations, even at a cost to the taxpayer. The story of museums contaminated by radiation being decontaminated is hitherto unknown internationally as well. In his photos Akagi doggedly captured this sequence of events over a period of several days.

The Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art that is the subject of these photos shares a large grassed forecourt with the adjacent Fukushima Prefectural Library. A wonderful environment, but radioactive material rained down just as mercilessly on this wonderful lawn as anywhere else, ravaging it with a high dose of radiation. Because “decontamination” within Fukushima City started with public facilities such as schools and parks, the museum forecourt was decontaminated quite early on. The lawn has died off, nor can one sense the impact of snow, suggesting it was done in the early spring of 2012, about a year after the quake.


Both: February 20, 2012. Photos Shuji Akagi.

Akagi’s photographs show heavy machinery being used to roll up the lawn, evenly cutting away 5cm or so of topsoil and rolling it up like carpet as it peels off. This process is carried out across the whole of the large grounds, and the peeled-off topsoil piled up initially in one place. Looking at the pile, I was reminded of an American earthworks piece, or something by a Japanese Mono-ha artist. Even more so, being at an art museum. If someone told me it was a work of art, I might just about believe them. Leaving for another time the question of why the task of decontamination and a work of art might look similar, for now let us examine the steps involved in decontamination.

By rights, polluted soil thus gathered should, after collecting up, be sent to an interim storage facility for radioactive material, and stored provisionally in a way that blocks any external influences. There it waits to eventually be stored for a lengthy period at a final disposal site for radioactive material. However the reality is that in Japan, there is still no prospect of even an interim storage facility, let alone a final disposal site, being constructed.


March 2, 2012.


March 6, 2012.


March 9, 2012. All: Photos Shuji Akagi.

In saying this, dangerous, contaminated topsoil can hardly be left exposed on the ground either. There was no option but to gather it in one place, and cover it with blue tarpaulins. Obviously, it could not be left like that for an extended period, so a big trench was then dug on the grounds, the polluted soil buried there, barrier soil placed around, the dirt piled back on top, and a new lawn laid. Thus once the job is completed, there is no sign of what has been done.


March 18, 2012.


May 13, 2012. Both: Photos Shuji Akagi.

But at some point, contaminated soil stored underground has to be dug up again, and moved to an interim storage facility. But as already mentioned, no time frame whatsoever has been indicated for this. The land “on top” is already being utilized by residents as a public facility, as if nothing had happened there. One suspects Akagi was the only person to record this “museum decontamination” (performed very quickly, despite the lack of historical precedent) on an ongoing basis.

Still, one wonders, what exactly is his purpose in continuing to take all these photos, and tweeting at regular intervals? Is he trying to express something of his own? Or is it for a different reason altogether? Is he really an “artist”? My interest in Akagi – with whom I was not acquainted in the least – began here. (To be continued)

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

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