Wednesday, May 10, 2006
REVIEW: Shintaro Miyake
Ni-Maru-Maru-Roku, in Doitsu
Shintaro Miyake
c/o Atle Gerhardsen
28.04 - 03.06.2006
(Photos taken with permission of the gallery)
This play soccer installation has New Japanese Pop Art's familiar
feeling of tetering on play and imminent catastrophe. The anime derived faces in the paintings, drawings, animation and costuming used in the performance/video are hysterical exaggerations of big headed soccer players all of which are in hysterics themselves!
There is a look of panic-stricken desperation in their eyes, like the players have to keep competing in World Cup entertainment for their country's pride while those watching the game in the stands or at home pinning their hopes on their country's team while trying to tune out a world that is increasingly a dangerous place, full of conflict and unrest.
The paranoia many people I suspect feel in "the back of our minds" after 9/11 is summed up perfectly with a little toy 747-Jet airplane flying over the installation.
"Oh no! where is the toy plane heading? Ist it freefalling? Is it going to crash into the stadium! Will there be another catastrophe? Will something like that happen at the REAL World Cup?"
The crying faces of the soccer players are faces of a public that are looking for a way to return to a time before suicide bombing attacks and the fear of their possiblity. I'm young to
know, but I'm willing to bet that this was how people were feeling during the cold war. When the threat of imminent nuclear war looms in the air no one on either team feels safe.Again this installation does the balancing act of paring our imminent doom with our imminent fun, the video is a truly silly game of soccer played between people in giant wearable puppet masks which are also hung on the gallery walls like Muppet hunting trophies. The video's humor lies in how seriously the giant-headed players are playing the game despite their ridiculous
appearance.
Miyake times this exhibition with the beginning of the World Cup Championship beginning in June. To his credit he balances playfullness and empathy with the fears and hopes many of us have about what could be a hot summer both on
and off the pitch.
# posted by Ryan : 5/10/2006 01:18:00 PM
