Asakusa Entertainments
September 22–24, 2018
Coloured Bondage
September 1–24, 2018
The Art of Not Being Governed (Quite So Much) is a public address and film screening event with supporting visual references by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Hans Haacke, Yayoi Kusama, Minouk Lim, Yoshua Okón, Jacolby Satterwhite, Hito Steyerl, and Ming Wong. The presentation is curated by Asakusa as an adaptation of the lecture “What is Critique?” (1978) by Michel Foucault.
The critical attitude challenges rationality, and formulates ethical virtues that articulate normative guidelines. Relearning from Michel Foucault and his proposition “how not to be governed,” this ambient event and the overarching programme evokes the voice of this visionary thinker, and through citing works by listed artists, brings together an analysis of debates on institutional critique, outsider art, decolonizing practices and queer histories. Following Foucault’s evolving enterprise of thoughts and “the critical attitude as virtue in general,” the event considers the intertextuality of knowledge and power, and how art functions within this parameter. Drawing parallel narratives to the histories of local media, entertainment culture, political stagnation and government conservatism, the programme seeks to identify and foster artistic strategies of critique for cultural production today.
Specially featured in the event programme are two new projects produced through an invitation by Asakusa art space. The first work assesses the environmental crisis which has strategically functioned in the expansion of global governance. Yoshua Okón’s (b. 1970, Mexico City) nature documentary glides along the face of an artificial island, suggesting how ever-growing scale of wastage fuels the current frameworks of neoliberal economies. Minouk Lim (b. 1968, Daejeon) traces the adaptation of the German folk song O Tannenbaum to the communist Red Flag Song, and how it became a vessel for otherwise conflicting ideologies. A rally performance will be assembled around Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, intended to unite the “ghosts” of discordant communities and temporalities. Lim as well as Ming Wong (b. 1971, Singapore) will contribute with presentations the day of the event. Wong, known for appropriation of popular culture and cinematic decoding of heteronormative scripts, will visit Asakusa for production research on The Nikkatsu Roman Porno (1971–1988)—an infamous series of Japanese soft porn films.
Other contributions of existing works by the artists further articulate a matrix of concerns which become agents for and against governance. Pointing toward the influence of corporate interests in cultural industries and calling specific institutions into questions, Hans Haacke (b. 1936, Cologne) and Hito Steyerl (b. 1966, Munich) provide a tactful framework to lead the discussion: what is critique in art? Queer archaeology, as termed by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz (working together in Berlin since 2007), delves into the composite of fluid, contextual, and intersectional identities. Alternatively, Yayoi Kusama’s (b. 1929, Matsumoto) multidisciplinary works draw inspiration from lifelong neurosis, hallucinations, and her singular identity—a paradox of confinement and liberation by the management of her own clinical “insanity.”
Shown concurrently at Asaksua is the exhibition by Jacolby Satterwhite (b. 1986, Columbia, SC), which unleashes the subconscious and the extravagance of digital Surrealism. Using thousands of drawings left behind by his schizophrenic mother, Satterwhite stitches together the virtual and the real: his mother’s inventions and his politicised body merge through 3D animation. Coloured Bondage: Jacolby Satterwhite & Danshoku showcases his most recent video projection and a panoramic picture scroll of the 14th century danshoku (homosexuality). The endless love-seeking in a relationship of obedience becomes a euphemism for nostalgia in his utopian pornography, and directs us to psychological anxiety for excess desire. Within his undulating imagination between the personal and the political, we voyage through vital moments of his queer life.
Exhibition
Coloured Bondage: Jacolby Satterwhite & Danshoku
September 1–24
Public event
The Art of Not Being Governed (Quite So Much)
September 22*
Guest speakers: Minouk Lim, Ming Wong
Contributing artists: Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Hans Haacke, Yayoi Kusama, Minouk Lim, Yoshua Okón, Jacolby Satterwhite, Hito Steyerl, and Ming Wong.
*Screenings continue September 22-24
Performance
Minouk Lim: O Tannenbaum
September 30
Supported by: Arts Council Tokyo, The Asahi Shimbun Foundation, FONCA
Special thanks: Jaime Marie Davis, Daisuke Miyatsu, Ota Fine Arts, SPon!
Director: Koichiro Osaka
Project manager: Mariko Mikami
Research assistant: Sanghae Kwon
ASAKUSA is a 40-square-meter exhibition venue for contemporary art programmes committed to advancing curatorial collaboration and practices.
