"... but there is nothing abstract about art going unseen that is still resolutely there: just as carefully preserved, hung with the same meticulous precision, thoughtfully interpreted by unread wall text, and in the dark, behind locked doors. And yet, 'Painting Edo,' the ambitious jewel of an exhibition currently on view for no one at the Harvard Art Museum, is perhaps arguably experiencing its most historically authentic moment in the strangeness of ours. Because to fully understand the significance of the Edo Period in Japan, which lasted from around 1600 to 1868, is to place yourself in a country that flourished even as it was closed off to the rest of the world. Japan was famously isolated during this period, save for some Dutch trade, and the most enduring legacy of this seclusion is a diverse and elegant body of art that evolved as a result of this fervid inward gaze."
You can see the unseeable exhibition through a series of videos, here. I'll embed one:
I've long observed the topic I call "Seen and Unseen." That link goes to all the posts I've tagged that way. I love the phrase "on view for no one." It seems more profound than "not on view." The idea that it is "on view" seems to survive, and this "no one" seems like a spiritual entity that does move through the galleries, gazing at the artwork.
The article ends: "These objects that keenly observe, create, and reflect their world comprise an exhibition about isolation that can’t help but gain new meaning in our current world." That is, our reaction to covid. "Perhaps we can take some solace by imagining what’s taking place inside those darkened galleries—scrolls stretching, fans in conversation, butterflies dancing between buds, flourishing even in our absence."
If that's all just too damned twee, here's a quick explanation of the history of Japan, and it's much more video-as-video than the video I embedded above.
If you watched that, I'm pretty sure you were entertained, but I hope you thought about whether it's a story "about isolation that can’t help but gain new meaning in our current world."
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5 comments:
Joe writes:
Is it in the Schrödinger museum?
There is a huge (and I mean massive) museum in Tokyo that has the entire history of Japan under its roof. It is fascinating to see history from another country's perspective.
You can view the exhibits in chronological order. When you get to the late 1930s, there is a placard that says, '...and then World War II happened.'
I almost laughed out loud. So passive. 'Hey Ozuki-san, why is WWII happening?' 'I don't know, Hashimoto-san, but I sure wish it would stop!'
Temujin writes:
Beautiful post with interesting and humorous videos. Loved the 'History of Japan'. I'm not sure that this exhibit gains anymore by not being seen. If no one knows it's there, it's as if it's sitting on walls in the Feinberg's home where we would never have seen it anyway. And some might have read about it, or known about it from an art class they had somewhere, or a magazine article they read one day, and may have been inspired to read or see more about it, such as I have been now, after reading this post about a magazine article about the exhibit.
But I don't see the exhibit gaining new meaning in our covid world of today. Perhaps if I lived in a more closed up state, I would. These are weird times indeed, but even with restrictions running from full to few, we all still have access to the world today, something that was not available to the Japanese when they were closed. Being 'closed' today means that we cannot go to the gym. Our society is hardly closed off. We may not be able to attend an art exhibit, or a ballgame, but we can still view both of them, as well as a soccer game in Madrid, or an art exhibit in Amsterdam- from our own home.
Temujin
(grandfather of Kublai Khan, who twice tried to invade Japan and was denied both times by typhoons. Not a happy family memory.)
K writes:
Heard melodies are sweet, those unheard are sweeter still, said Keats But Is this exhibit greater because no one sees it. or is it non-existent? A painting exists as an object whether it is looked at or not but does the Art of the Fugue "exist" when it is music notations in a book? Or it is a DVD but no one in the world is playing it? If it "exists" under those conditions then how does it exist when someone actually listens to it and appreciates it in a concert. And how does this loop back on our understanding of painting? Does a painting exist as art if no one sees it - if it's cherished but in an exhibit no one sees as if it were back in the Japan that made it where no one but an emperor saw it. For I'm sure the curators are sneaking in. But suppose they weren't. Does art exist without the human gaze? Is it art if no one looks at it? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears does it make a sound. Etienne Gilson, a Thomist philosopher, wrote a whole book, 299 pages on painting that began by asking about the kind of being of different forms of art, starting with the old tree falls conundrum. It's a book I like to struggle with occasionally.
He concludes that painting is an incomplete universe of its own (not a copy of this one) in which the greatest painters have passed their own existence striving to realize a goal which is almost formless until it forms - as if evolution in nature had a mind, "if the forms of nature possessed an awareness of their own becoming."
In the end, to Gilson, looking at the works of a painter is like travelling or reading a travel adventure such as The Heart of Darkness. Or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But it might be a horror adventure like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
"Nor should one be afraid to embark on the somewhat strange adventures to which we are invited by some of these masterpieces. It is only too possible that some of them will remain for us like those secret domains of which, in dreams, we vainly try to find the key."
Joe writes:
"The history of Japan video has interesting content, but the style is so fucking annoying. The guy spends his time trying to be super cool and ironic, and the sound effects are distracting. And he talks way too fucking fast. Kind of a waste as I was so turned off I turned it off."
I'll say:
That guy IS super cool. And the sound effects are brilliant and hilarious.
Michael writes:
"The Japanese traded with China and Korea during the Edo period. Western trade was forbidden, as a corrupting influence, ( with a notable Dutch exception ).
"Parochialism rules history."
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