Shiriagari Kotobuki’s Unsolicited Proposals: No. 6

Exhibition of Manga

This issue’s proposal is an exhibition concept complete with all the bells and whistles, primed and ready for use by any worthy art museum. Recently the likes of manga and anime have been elevated to the status of ‘cool’ and become the focus of some huge exhibitions – albeit partly perhaps purely to pull the punters – but one can’t help feeling that there is still a subtle distance between these bastions of pop culture, and art. To confirm if this is in fact the case, I thought it might be the right moment to come up with a proposal that deliberately and determinedly prods manga and anime off the pedestal they’ve been occupying so cozily in recent years.

The first room would have Gundam-like figures, animated robots and such, carved in marble and displayed proudly for all the world like Michelangelo’s David. Pretty cool, huh? Then in the next room: soft toys, costumes and the like of vaguely familiar cartoon characters, blood-spattered and running amok in a nightmarish massacre scene. Pretty revolting, huh? Then you could have the likes of a grumpy middle-aged bloke in just his undies, constructed as this ponderous iron man that shoots steam out of his head when angry; or ‘non-motion’ animations; or a script covering a whole wall that everyone could help color in; or some lame four-frame cartoon made into a ridiculously cool video…in any case, the possibilities are endless.

Let’s face it: the whole notion of displaying manga attractively and suddenly calling it art is just plain weird. The important thing is to work out, what will become of the manga spirit in an art museum? An exhibition unafraid of being nothing like art, prepared to create a new “art-tainment” sort of genre, that admits “we wouldn’t dare call this art” yet confidently projects a strange and incomprehensible fascination: that’s the kind of exhibition I’d like to put together. Is there some place willing to give it a go?

Exhibition proposal

Title
Exhibition of Manga

Synopsis
? Rather than elevating manga to the status of cool, attempt to knock it completely off its pedestal
? Instead of making anything and everything art, think about the relationship between art and entertainment

Exhibits (dimensions, materials, etc)
Sculptures, large sheet of paper, animations, videos, moving iron robot (that blows steam)
Budget
100 million yen (Actually no idea, so…whatever)

Venue
Any art museum: the more serious, the better.

Originally printed in ART iT No.23 Spring/Summer 2008

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