Some Thought about South and West
In early 2010, I was invited to Osaka, Japan, to be part of a series of lectures, exhibitions and workshops of artist books organized by NPO Osaka Arts-Aporia. I took 40 books on the airplane with me, especially early, 1970s titles from the early days of Franklin Furnace and socially engaged works from Laurie Anderson’s United States to Lawrence Weiner’s Plowmans Lunch. OAA had put me up in a residential hotel in mid-town Osaka, each apartment with a refrigerator, sink and stove so guests could cook for themselves. Another artist who was invited by Miho, Haruka and Kukiko, the organizers, was Rossella Matamoros.
I was invited to display artist books and do a lecture in the library, as well as in a local bookstore entitled Calo. Rossella was asked to bring a giant book with felt pages she had created, as well as run a workshop entitled "book art picnic." This event was so successful, that OAA started a workshop to study the artist book which I heard in late 2011 is now in its second season!
Since we were on the other side of the planet, both Rossella and I decided to stay for two weeks so we could do some day trips. One of the most memorable was to visit the Ashiya museum, where curator Atsuko Tanaka showed us the museum’s collection of Gutai movement material. Later in the same day, we visited Shozo Shimamoto, a gregarious artist who was a founding member of the post-World War II Gutai group of Japanese abstract expressionist painters and prototypical performance artists. In his now out-of-print book Assemblages, Environments & Happenings (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966), artist-author Allan Kaprow wrote admiringly of the Gutai artists' pioneering experiments, which merged art-making techniques with performance. In the 1980s, Shimamoto founded a kind of artists' club called AU, based in the town of Nishinomiya on the edge of Osaka. Although he was in his 80s, it was clear AU remained a kind of clubhouse for artists. I found a piece of correspondence from Paul McMahon, an artist I knew from New York, in one of his scrap books.
Rossella had gone to graduate school outside of Osaka, and consequently was more deeply plugged into Japanese culture than I was. Osaka has been the capital for bunraku, traditional Japanese puppet theater, for many centuries. The popularity of the theater form had grown in the city during the Edo Period when bunraku (like kabuki) was a rare kind of art entertainment for the common people, rather than the nobility. The National Bunraku Theater in Osaka is one of the few places to view this fascinating artform today. English programs and earphones were available, and performances were being held in January, so she took me! There was an exhibition of costumes in the lobby, and printed programs to help guide us through the traditional stories which played to a packed house. It was a revelation!
Indeed, in her 2001 work, “After Japan,” Rossella combines books, paintings and performance into an installation which references ancient kabuki music and theater, as well as, through angular motions and silent screams, modern butoh performance. “After 9/11” elaborates her visual vocabulary through drawings mounted on uprights that reminded me of Armenian grave markers. Although the drawings are presented sequentially as are the pages of a book, the viewer’s random approach allows each to gather meaning incrementally and individually. In a performance installation entitled “They did not understand…We did not understand…Are they going to understand?” we are confronted by a masked figure who removes her mask, then removes another layer of rubber cement skin under the mask on which are painted severe eyebrows—again referencing the stern masks used in kabuki theater. Finally, in a 2009 work, “Fluidity,” we see a drawing made in the tradition of the Japanese scroll, here rolled out on the floor and walked upon with live music playing. While it firmly occupies Western contemporary art practice, suffice it to say that Japanese cultural tradition has suffused Rossella’s work!
I admire Rossella Matamoros as a person and as an artist. Honestly, I spent more time in her apartment in Osaka than I did in my own, because I enjoyed our dining and socializing so much. Her giant book is an amazing piece of social sculpture for which the audience is free to haul the 1” thick felt pages over in an aerobic, athletic movement. Rossella herself performed heroically to get the book back to Costa Rica, jamming it through airport security scanners across three continents. I will be her friend forever!
Martha Wilson, Artist & Franklin Furnace Founding Director.
NYC, 2012
In early 2010, I was invited to Osaka, Japan, to be part of a series of lectures, exhibitions and workshops of artist books organized by NPO Osaka Arts-Aporia. I took 40 books on the airplane with me, especially early, 1970s titles from the early days of Franklin Furnace and socially engaged works from Laurie Anderson’s United States to Lawrence Weiner’s Plowmans Lunch. OAA had put me up in a residential hotel in mid-town Osaka, each apartment with a refrigerator, sink and stove so guests could cook for themselves. Another artist who was invited by Miho, Haruka and Kukiko, the organizers, was Rossella Matamoros.
I was invited to display artist books and do a lecture in the library, as well as in a local bookstore entitled Calo. Rossella was asked to bring a giant book with felt pages she had created, as well as run a workshop entitled "book art picnic." This event was so successful, that OAA started a workshop to study the artist book which I heard in late 2011 is now in its second season!
Since we were on the other side of the planet, both Rossella and I decided to stay for two weeks so we could do some day trips. One of the most memorable was to visit the Ashiya museum, where curator Atsuko Tanaka showed us the museum’s collection of Gutai movement material. Later in the same day, we visited Shozo Shimamoto, a gregarious artist who was a founding member of the post-World War II Gutai group of Japanese abstract expressionist painters and prototypical performance artists. In his now out-of-print book Assemblages, Environments & Happenings (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966), artist-author Allan Kaprow wrote admiringly of the Gutai artists' pioneering experiments, which merged art-making techniques with performance. In the 1980s, Shimamoto founded a kind of artists' club called AU, based in the town of Nishinomiya on the edge of Osaka. Although he was in his 80s, it was clear AU remained a kind of clubhouse for artists. I found a piece of correspondence from Paul McMahon, an artist I knew from New York, in one of his scrap books.
Rossella had gone to graduate school outside of Osaka, and consequently was more deeply plugged into Japanese culture than I was. Osaka has been the capital for bunraku, traditional Japanese puppet theater, for many centuries. The popularity of the theater form had grown in the city during the Edo Period when bunraku (like kabuki) was a rare kind of art entertainment for the common people, rather than the nobility. The National Bunraku Theater in Osaka is one of the few places to view this fascinating artform today. English programs and earphones were available, and performances were being held in January, so she took me! There was an exhibition of costumes in the lobby, and printed programs to help guide us through the traditional stories which played to a packed house. It was a revelation!
Indeed, in her 2001 work, “After Japan,” Rossella combines books, paintings and performance into an installation which references ancient kabuki music and theater, as well as, through angular motions and silent screams, modern butoh performance. “After 9/11” elaborates her visual vocabulary through drawings mounted on uprights that reminded me of Armenian grave markers. Although the drawings are presented sequentially as are the pages of a book, the viewer’s random approach allows each to gather meaning incrementally and individually. In a performance installation entitled “They did not understand…We did not understand…Are they going to understand?” we are confronted by a masked figure who removes her mask, then removes another layer of rubber cement skin under the mask on which are painted severe eyebrows—again referencing the stern masks used in kabuki theater. Finally, in a 2009 work, “Fluidity,” we see a drawing made in the tradition of the Japanese scroll, here rolled out on the floor and walked upon with live music playing. While it firmly occupies Western contemporary art practice, suffice it to say that Japanese cultural tradition has suffused Rossella’s work!
I admire Rossella Matamoros as a person and as an artist. Honestly, I spent more time in her apartment in Osaka than I did in my own, because I enjoyed our dining and socializing so much. Her giant book is an amazing piece of social sculpture for which the audience is free to haul the 1” thick felt pages over in an aerobic, athletic movement. Rossella herself performed heroically to get the book back to Costa Rica, jamming it through airport security scanners across three continents. I will be her friend forever!
Martha Wilson, Artist & Franklin Furnace Founding Director.
NYC, 2012