JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ART

mariko mori

Kuni Sugiura: Although we are generations apart, we both are

Japanese women artists using photography who studied abroad and
live and work in New York now. Why did you leave Japan?
Mariko Mori: Not much freedom there. I was looking for freedom
freedom to express myself on the outside and as a whole. Japan
is a unified society which does not allow for individualism. It
was difficult for me. I was relieved when I went to London to
study because of the opportunity for individualism there. In
Japan people try not to behave outside of common standards. You
are constantly reminded not to step out of line. I did not
accept that. Even as a child, I knew that it was not that way in
foreign countries. I was compelled to escape as soon as
possible.
Sugiura: So after you studied in London, you came to New York to
study some more and now you have decided to live here.
Mori: New York is terrific. It is like the museum of the world.
As we visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and go to the Asian,
European and Egyptian rooms, the city itself is progressing in
terms of its cultural forms. If we want to learn about a
particular culture, usually we would have to go to that country.
But in New York, we can have some contact with those communities
daily, so that it seems a very evolved society. I can be a
Japanese, or a New Yorker or even a "transcended" person
regardless of race, gender, sexuality, etc.
Sugiura: When I came to New York in the late 1960s, the SoHo
scene was starting. I used to go to SoHo from where I lived on

the Upper West Side and I would see famous artists walking
around, shopping. Art seemed to be juxtaposed with everyday life
and not situated in a higher, rarefied space.
Mori: What is happening [in art] in New York is compared with
the collective mentality in this society. In London the culture
and social conditions are influenced. In both places time and
culture are closely related. In Japan there is a situation where
its culture exists apart. But they try to create art, music,
etc. in a different context that does not reflect reality. But
recently, work connected within its own context has been
appearing in Japanese society. Confidence is appearing in
contemporary culture. Japanese architecture and fashion are
recognized respectively worldwide.
Sugiura: I recently got to know about the Gutai group of the
1950s and the Mono-ha school of the 1970s art that is compared
to abstract expressionism, conceptualism, arte povera and
process art here. When they were created, these works were not
to be seen or communicated much outside of Japan. Maybe because
Japan was not powerful economically and it is not generally
recognized in the same cultural sphere as America and Europe.
But since World War II there were always small but persistent
contemporary art movements using traditional esthetics and this
recent art could be considered as the extension of these
movements. You and I have opportunities to know the situation
and background in Japan and we are also are familiar with
methods and technique. Since we studied in the West we have a
chance to communicate with audiences here, which artists were
trying to do in Japan for a long time. We owe this to people who
support and encourage us.
I saw two exhibitions of yours in New York. There were
photographs of you playing different types of women against
backgrounds of Tokyo. Are they comments about Japanese society?
Mori: Yes, especially Tea Ceremony and Love Hotel.
Sugiura: Did you show them in Japan? What were the reactions to
them?
Mori: Some of them were published in a magazine there. Some
people said "No more uniforms for students," etc. Yet when I was
at some company, a woman employee (O.L. in Japanese means Office
Lady) not only served tea, but she knelt too. There are

opportunities for women, but employers take girls for granted.

Girls and employers both start from resignation not humbleness
but abandonment. Most of the girls have desire for material
wealth but not for higher ambitions. But girls are actually
career women who are super women who must work harder than men
and also take care of husbands and do all the housework.
Sugiura: It is also surprising to me that your photographs are
about teenage not adult fantasies. The subjects and focus
are new and fresh from Japan. Recently I saw works dealing with
teen fantasies, memories and confessions done by other artists
such as Wolfgang Tillmans, AC2K, Sean Landers, Larry Clark, etc.
Mori: When I went back to Japan after a long stay here, I
thought that the youth culture was most energetic. Up to then,
culture consisted of western simulations and fakes imported from
abroad. I was absorbed and stimulated and they were original and
so powerful. When I was in London, I wanted to forget the fact
that I was Japanese and wanted to express myself as an
individual and singular entity. But since I moved to New York,
there are so many ethnic groups and different cultures here that
many people were curious about where I came from. I was reminded
of my Japanese-ness and felt that I could not escape from it.
And I was raised in that environment.
Sugiura: In your work, you use images of yourself.
Mori: That originates from when I was a fashion model, at around
age sixteen. Often I designed my own cloths and made them myself
(I studied at a fashion college) and I asked a photographer to
take a photograph of myself wearing the cloths that I made. Some
way my work is the extension of those experiences. Further back
into my childhood, my father loved to take photographs of me.
When I was nine I made my own costumes for a school play and I
experienced becoming different characters. I loved to document
myself as different images and I think my work evolved after
this favorite activity. The photographs I exhibited in New York
juxtaposed reality and fantasy. There was everyday life and
fantasy was dismantling that reality. After this series I am now
thinking of work which would remove me from the experience of
everyday living.
Sugiura: What are you working on now?
Mori: My work is heading toward more public performance and

fantasy. I am making an Enlightenment Capsule for the audience

to meditate inside virtual reality in which people can
experience ancient ideas from the East. In Mandala it says to
have big passions, not small ones. In Buddhism to be human is
egoistic and it is told that one must repress desire. But
Mandala affirms human desire. Small passion is for the self but
big passion is for society or for other people. But I'm not
interested in using ancient things; rather I want to connect
them with contemporary life through the technology we have now.
On the surface it appears high tech but looking into it one
feels the genesis of traditional matters.
Sugiura: I agree with what you are doing. I like to think of my
photograms as primary photography similar to the early inventors
in the nineteenth century who struggled to document the image on
paper. I secretly hope that I can grasp their excitement and joy
through making photograms. I was intuitively attracted to
photograms but they connect with oriental art and esthetics too.
Because by eliminating the camera there is no perspective from
the camera lens and one can create space by a chemical process
that is similar to the staining of Sumi ink. Also, photograms
document objects as shadows on photographic paper in which
real-metaphoric relations can be compared to Wabi-Sabi esthetics
involving ideas of transience, time and nature. I was
exploring photography and discovered photograms. Learning
western techniques and ideas has lead me back into searching for
Japanese esthetics and culture. This happens to many artists who
go to other countries and find themselves reconnecting to the
things and ideas they thought they had left behind.
Mori: I respect some excellent aspects of Eastern culture. For
example, elegance permeates a form or object by its suppression,
in contrast to the more obviously gorgeous elegance of the West.
Lifestyles in non-western cultures are mingled with others, even
in Japan. The Western world is getting acquainted with eastern
philosophy. Of course, there are already the examples of Paul
Gauguin in Tahiti and the Orientalism of the Impressionists. In
cosmopolitan cities both cultures coexist now. We can have some
language to make a balance for both worlds. And in contemporary
art, expressions are changing to include many choices of media,
not only painting, photography, photography as conceptual art,
video, architectural sculpture, sculpture using costume or
fashion. We are freer now to express in art. I like to express
using new methods. Art is a common vocabulary among developed

countries.

Text: Copyright, Journal of Contemporary Art, Inc. and the

authors.