New New New Normal

Namae Myoji, Layla Yamamoto, Souya Handa

Venue: Gallery MoMo Projects (Tokyo)

Dates: 5 Sep. - 3 Oct. 2020

Curated by Souya Handa

More Info: https://www.gallery-momo.com/new-new-normal-roppongi

Introduction: About the Exhibition

　The year 2020 has been hit by the disaster of COVID-19. Amid rapid social change, many new words and phrases have been introduced and coined, such as "Social Distancing," "With Coronavirus," "After Coronavirus," “Tokyo Alert,” and so on. The term "New Normal" is also one of the new words that came in with the surge of COVID-19.

　The term "New Normal'' became generalized after the global financial crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007. It means that social changes are not superficial but structural and that the normal which comes after the crisis is different from the pre-crisis normal, i.e., a "new normal.”

The term "New Normal'' implies that we should "accept the new norm that comes this way.” In other words, this change connotes passive meaning. However, change is not always passive, and active change is always sought after. For example, this past June, the deadline for the government's numerical target to increase the percentage of women in management positions to 30% was postponed from 2020 to 2030. The reason for this postponement was that it was "practically impossible" to achieve, but this lack of change is the result of passively waiting for change.

　For our society to move forward, we need to identify issues by comparing our ideal image of society with the current situation and try to seek ideal solutions. Then, we should examine whether the issues have been solved and whether there are any flaws in the solution methods or  not, and based on that reflection, repeatedly find and solve issues caused by the current societal situation.(*1) In this exhibition New New New Normal, the three artists present artworks getting to the crux of the issues of Japanese society and bring them to the surface, thereby encouraging the first step in this cycle of active change.

“West High, East Low" and "Patriarchy”

　There are two keywords for understanding this exhibition: "West High, East Low" and "Patriarchy.“ "West High, East Low" is originally a meteorological term used to describe an atmospheric pressure system with high pressure in the west and low pressure in the east in Japanese. However, it is sometimes used to refer to Western culture as superior and Eastern culture as inferior. The term "patriarchy" means a male-centered social system in which the father is the head of the family with power, which is succeeded to the eldest son in a family. The concentration of power in the hands of men also reinforces male-dominated values in society.

　Interestingly, these two values often intersect in Japan. For example, it has been common that men dressed in Western clothes and women in Japanese clothes at social gatherings (the Emperor and Empress at a garden party is a typical example) since the acceptance of Western civilization in the Meiji era. A patriarchal male is superior and a female is inferior, and the civilized Western culture is considered superior and the native culture is inferior, and this creates intersection of two different hierarchies.

　Considering the two keywords, I would like to explain each artist's artwork from a curatorial perspective of this exhibition.

Namae Myoji

　In this exhibition, Namae Myoji presents OUR BODIES, an installation work that resembles a museum store. The work depicts the museum store as a transit point for product distribution, as well as the process through which products become available to consumers. OUR BODIES displays posters, postcards, mugs, tote bags, and other goods based on the images of Edouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass, Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World, and Henri Matisse's Dance I with added clothing elements. These goods are also available to purchase. As the Guerrilla Girls questioned, "Does a woman have to be naked to enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art?” there are few female artists in the art scene; however, there are many nude female figures painted by male artists (a 1989 Guerrilla Girls work points out that 85% of the nudes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Modern Art Department are female, even though less than 5% of the artists are women). This is not because the female body has universal beauty, but is perhaps the result of the fact that historically men have been the main creators and evaluators, and that women and the female body have been objectified by them. Myoji attempts to reclaim "our bodies" for women from this pre-modern value system.(*2)

　Interestingly, Myoji's focus is on the museum store, a place where artworks are commodified. In museum stores, the authority of art is transformed into goods and disseminated to the masses, but the values of objectification of women, which are internalized in the authority, are also disseminated in this series of flows. Although Myoji does not mention it, the fact that the works treated as "original sources" are Western paintings also seems to be a key. The imperialist policies of the Western powers in the modern era have instilled in many non-Western countries, including Japan, a sense of values —— “West High, East Low.” This has also affected the standards for evaluating culture and art. Art has its authority, but when it comes to Western art, it functions as a double authority in Japan. A museum store is a place where the values contained in such dual authority trickle down in the free market under capitalism.

　Myoji has taken this mechanism in reverse, and by running her museum store, she is able to distribute her works that defy the objectification of women. Not only can visitors purchase those goods directly at the exhibition space, but she has also opened an online store in conjunction with the exhibition to promote the commodification of her works. Myoji's attempt to run a museum store as a work of art is a way of countering the power behind capitalism with the same capitalist mechanism.

Layla Yamamoto

　Layla Yamamoto is an artist who focuses on issues rooted in the social structure and the history of Japan. In this exhibition, her artworks highlight not only a woman's physical burden of "being pregnant" but also its historical meaning and social intolerance of contemporary Japan.

　Yamamoto has been drawing images of children as a projection of herself since high school, but as women of her generation married, became pregnant, and gave birth, she began to consider the societal implication of reproduction. While a traditional life path such as "falling in love, getting married, and becoming a mother" is typically believed to represent a woman's pleasure, there are also "actual voices" concerning the physical burdens of pregnancy and delivery, as well as the loss of women's careers. This enormous disparity between the idealized image of pregnant women and the reality that they experience is the beginning point for her creation of artworks for this exhibition.

　Analyzing Yamamoto's works reveals three perspectives: "the pregnant body," "the social roles assigned to pregnant women," and "the pregnant autonomy." All of these are unnoticed in our society.

　Regardless of how low the maternal death rate in Japan is, delivery still poses physical risks that kill 30 to 40 individuals in Japan each year.(*3) Stretch marks, which are fissures in the dermis (also known as "flesh cracks") caused by the rapid growth of an abdomen during pregnancy, are one such physical burden that might be visible on the pregnant woman's body. However, they are rarely seen in pregnant women's maternity photos. The visual idealization of the pregnant woman's body has resulted in such a vast disparity from reality that it is impossible for anyone to notice its existence unless they have experienced delivery firsthand or have been near to the experience. Things against oppressors, in which the phrase "MY BODY, MY FEAR" is painted, and the series of works with quotes from Margaret Atwood on an abdomen with stretch marks, are all works that make this unseen physical burden visible.

　"The social roles assigned to pregnant women" refers to "what type of existence pregnant women are viewed as by society.” The phrase "The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production," which is painted in My womb as his reproduction system and The myth of the maternal body, is quoted from Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto. In the patriarchal society, the female body is indeed a mechanism to inherit the father's genes and keep the family maintained, as a Japanese politician once described women as "birth-giving machines."(*4) In a society where women's roles are defined as tools for family maintenance, it is natural that women are not expected to expand their careers while pregnant or delivering babies, nor are they expected to occupy leadership positions.

　In light of these two perspectives, Yamamoto does not take an anti-natalist stance, instead focusing on "pregnant autonomy" and being close to pregnant women and women as a whole. Yamamoto's phrase "MY BODY, MY FEAR" conveys the message that no matter how sacred a mother is regarded as a "holy mother" in society, women do not have to identify themselves with an image of a holy mother, and it is totally fine to be honest about their hardships (not only physical but also social). Pregnancy is not something that women must accept for the sake of the family; rather, it is something that women may choose for themselves, and even if they do choose to get pregnant, the opportunity for self-fulfillment through career expansion should not be lost. Yamamoto's work encourages women to make more autonomous decisions. The social values based on liberalism also originate from the West, and the fact that the female figure in Things against oppressors is white (indicating that in Japan, where the West is high and the East is low, the idealized human figure is white) implies that progressive conceptions in society always come from the West. This demonstrates that Yamamoto, who was educated in the United States, accurately portrays Japanese society.

Souya Handa

　Souya Handa is an artist who mainly takes a critical view of the relationship between science, technology, and society, based on the concept that "social innovation cannot occur without thoughts.” He also considers the science and technology industry, which supported Japan's period of rapid economic growth, as one of Japan's identities, and often uses industrial products as his medium. In this exhibition, Handa encourages the Japanese to update their sense of identity.

　Japan is an Asian country, and the Yamato people, who make up over 95% of the Japanese population, are a yellow race. In 2020, along with COVID-19, the "Black Lives Matter" movement (BLM), starting in the United States from 2013, swept across the globe. On the Internet and TV, it seems that most Japanese people's opinions are negative towards BLM or even supportive of the side of white people.(*5) This is even though Japanese people are also subject to discrimination when they enter a white country. In other instances, even when people in the West mistake Japanese for Chinese or Korean, they believe that “once others realize they are Japanese, they will not be discriminated against.”

　Japan's non-Asian consciousness and the Japanese people's sense of whiteness are deeply rooted in history. During the Meiji era (1868-1912), with the slogan of "de-Asianization," people began to have a sense of becoming a part of Europe rather than Asia. The fact that Japan was heavily influenced by American culture after the war, and that it succeeded in achieving economic growth faster than any other Asian country, becoming the world's second-largest economic country after the United States, most likely played a role in the formation of this identity, as did its awareness that Japan was different from the "inferior" Asia. Furthermore, we must remember the negative history of being regarded as honorary Aryans in Germany, a former ally, and as honorary whites in South Africa during the war.

　Handa's work serves as a mirror for Japanese individuals with "honorary white consciousness" to reexamine their own identity. The names of three East Asian countries are lined up on a mirror in EAST ASIAN to demonstrate the futility of discriminating against countries with similar appearances, and their longings, textual definitions, and realities of Japanese people are interwoven and presented on a dull mirror in Ceci n'est pas, allowing viewers to reexamine their distorted identities.

　Another reason why Japanese people do not see themselves to be discriminated against is that the majority of them belong to the Yamato ethnic group. If you are a Yamato ethnically male who is heterosexual, you will be the vast majority in Japanese society, where patriarchal norms still exist, and you will have practically no opportunity to face discrimination. Polytheism and White Male Cosplay Set question how Japanese people, who are in the majority and are unlikely to face discrimination, instinctively absorb a sense of inferiority to Western culture, worship it wholeheartedly, and want to identify themselves with it. White Male Cosplay Set, in particular, portrays the reality that Japanese men wear Western-style clothing as formal attire, as a result of the intersection of the aforementioned "West High, East Low" and patriarchal system.

　Handa's theme, however, is not that we should "know our position as Asians and behave accordingly." EAST ASIAN, for example, demonstrates to non-East Asian viewers that East Asia is not a single region, but rather a collection of various cultures and history. Japan may be able to make a fresh start as a country that capitalizes on its strength by rediscovering itself as an Asian and appreciating its Asian culture, as well as by rebuilding its identity.

Conclusion: Clothing and Identity

　To conclude my commentary on this exhibition, I would like to point out that all three artists are concerned with "clothes.” Clothes are the outermost part of ourselves, and a large part of how we are seen by others. Therefore, selecting what to dress entails deciding what kind of image you want others to have of you.

　COVID-19 is causing a lot of uncertainty, but it also has the potential to bring about societal reconstruction. Instead of just attempting to return to our normal life, we should seize this opportunity to decide what kind of "New Normal" we want to be and make it a reality. The three "New" presented in this exhibition by the three artists are also the forms of themselves that they are attempting to choose.

Curator

Souya Handa

(*1)

Ideologies shape ideal visions of society, and the gap between those ideals and reality exposes social issues. For example, a remark such as "men should be masculine, while women should be femininity" may be taken for granted by conservatives, yet it may be criticized by liberals. With that said, we must always examine the notion of what society should be defined as ideal in order to intrinsically share societal issues.

(*2)

Myoji, on the other hand, includes an ambiguous attitude toward feminism in her drawing series, which is on this exhibition. Such thoughts are reflected in her drawing that appears to suture the cut wounds caused by suffragettes in Velázquez's Venus at her Mirror.

(*3)

The Vital Statistics in Japan by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare shows there were 33 maternal deaths in 2017.

(*4)

Family tree based on exploitation of female bodies which depicts a family tree with animal dolls for little girls on a wedding dress with a pregnant body, implies that marriage is an entrance to a patriarchal society. 

(*5)

According to my friend, the internet reaction in China was similar to this, indicating that this phenomenon may not be unique to Japan.