Yeah, thank you very much for the kind introduction.
When sign I met for the first time a few days ago, we realised that we have one thing in common, so we both moved to Japan in 1986.
I think Sy already had his compound, his artistic identity. He wanted to go out, leave China and go out into the into the larger art world.
I was at the very beginning of my education, going to Japanese kindergarten, so quite different contexts.
But we both had to familiarise ourselves with the Japanese language.
And I think that the Japanese culture and Japanese art has basically influenced our lives quite a lot.
Today, I would like to just focus on two wax that we have in the exhibition two small scale works, but very strong, beautiful works.
I think the two gunpowder drawings number eight, twenty five and number eight twenty seven from nineteen eighty eight.
So just there were created two years after, so I had moved to Japan.
They're very dynamic, abstract composition compositions consisting of a dense,
dark brown black centre that seems to be organically spreading, growing basically to continue almost outside of of the borders of the work.
Circular forms and burned holes in the middle kind of almost contrast with the more transparent and soft shadow like features on the site.
The centre conveys a strong sense of explosive, destructive power,
which is complemented by the general impression of the parts of the work that are closer to the to the edges of the drawing.
I think they convey a kind of organic feel. They look almost poetic and they somewhat remind me of something organic like it could be a plant,
or this one almost looks a bit like a sea urchin, I say. The work suggests that they are a trace, an index of an event in the past.
And even if we didn't know the title that features gunpowder in it,
I think the works nevertheless would convey a very kind of explosive, destructive feeling.
On the one hand, while also conveying a kind of melancholic beauty of morality on the other.
So as I mentioned, these works were made two years after I had moved to Japan to Tokyo.
As you all know, by now, he had started making gunpowder drawings in 1984 and after coming to Japan,
he gradually moved away from paint and turned to painting purely with gunpowder.
He first made explosions on canvas, and then, as in these gunpowder drawings, he also used Japanese handmade paper.
And I asked myself how I got hold of gunpowder in Japan at the time, because in the 80s in China,
although the process of getting exhibitions of experimental art was really difficult to get them approved, there was a long bureaucratic process.
But it wasn't as difficult to get hold of gunpowder where it was in Japan.
Of course, it was more difficult to get hold of gunpowder and block with it.
But through a friend, I met the director of the August fireworks factory in Tokyo, who made it possible for him to use gunpowder.
And so these two works in our exhibition are part of a whole series of experimental abstract drawings which were all made at the fireworks factory.
This is a much earlier block where he was still using colourful paint together with a gunpowder.
This is another work from from the series from 1988.
So those works and those early works in Japan really focus on the material of gunpowder and also the material of paper and form.
And when Takumi Archive, young art critic came to one of his first solo exhibitions,
he said that he had discovered the little fan of China, apparently.
And I thought, this is quite quite an interesting comparison.
And I started to think about parallels and differences between his works and the works of the so-called mono ha artists.
So in the 1980s and David already mentioned earlier.
So I think when people now think about art in the 1980s and early 1990s in Japan,
you often think about people who are kind of starting to use a manga like language
and the kind of cute language that people like Takashi or Yoshitomo Nara.
But there were also these artists who were already producing works and started to become kind of active in the late 1960s and 1970s,
which were the mono artists of the School of Things.
There were really focussing on the essence of materials, and they were interested in the in the encounter of different materials in works of art.
So Korean Japanese artist Lee was involved in this artistic movement.
He basically became the spokesman of the heart.
And in the 1980s and 1990s early 1990s, he was exhibited quite widely and internationally,
with raw and often industrial materials such as steel, iron ore, waste oil and found natural objects such as, for example, stones.
Works by unknown artists are centred on the essential character and presence of their materials and their interconnections,
using a reduced form of language that convey a strong aesthetic of materiality and form that kind of minimal
works seek to show the spirit of the material that is used and its unique energy and its kind of tourist.
And in that sense, the most beautiful possible way.
And I know that. So I met Leo Fun and I'm sure other artists as well.
And a quotation by say about the spirit of gunpowder reminded me of traditional
calligraphy on the one hand and the approach by artists such as Lee Siegel and Window.
On the other. I quote say, my sensibilities and that of the material make up the painting's sensuality.
Conducting tests on canvas allows the gunpowder to naturally express its sensibility, its capacity for creation.
The results of such a straightforward manifestation of sensibility can be quite enchanting.
But I cannot and do not stop there.
A painting created with gunpowder is seared with my own sensibilities and attempts to capture the core of our time.
I hope that gunpowder can free the spirit of an elevated dimension.
This newly liberated world is determined by the painter's integrity and spiritual attainment.
Gunpowder not only manifests different energies, it is energy.
Each walk is complimented within a short time frame.
In those moments, my sensibilities clash and become fused with the materials, natural characteristics.
The surrounding environment. The painter's movements.
State of mind, mind planned or unpremeditated or currencies at the instant of combustion, which creates multidimensional space time.
A state of chaos linking nature. The universe and an intangible world are ultimately imprinted on the two dimensional canvas.
And I'm just showing you various mono artists works in the in the background.
And I kind of thought in a in a in a way. Of course, their main difference is and as I said, the artist already had his artistic language.
So I'm not suggesting that all this was a direct influence on his work.
But I think there were there was this feeling, maybe in the ear that might have been inspirational in one way or the other.
And the way that, for example, inside the gunpowder drawings, the gunpowder encounters the handmade paper is is an important part of the work.
Just like in video work to iron plates and to natural stones encounter each other to create a work.
So he uses the material of gunpowder in a highly concentrated artistic process.
Similarly, Lee's or Horiguchi Noriyuki Art are rooted in discipline,
meditation and respect for the material rather than any expressive gestural actions.
Lee has stated that his work is accompanied by prayer and reflection,
as is the case with sporting performances, scientific experiment or life in a monastery.
This is because creation is an encounter, a cold and an answer.
End of quote. And of course, there are also parallels. If you just look at the the use of unusual industrial material in this case, for example,
when we look at how drug which is what he's using waste oil, which is usually associated with with something dirty with something dangerous.
Gunpowder is also associated with something explosive with something dangerous.
But the artists take advantage of this particular characteristic of the material to turn it into
something different and to convey a strong sense of beauty that's that's linked to mortality.
Shortly after making the gunpowder drawings, so I began to attend the University of Scuba for two years and worked with Tatsuo Assistants,
the artist over Tatsuo, which is work since the 1960s,
had been concerned with the often hidden and yet crucial relationship between disparate entities such as between man and nature,
or between the visible and the invisible, the past or future and the present.
He had explored these dynamics in a diversity of media and materials ranging
from early happenings to merit sculptures and environmental installations.
According to Kawaguchi quote, art is something that doesn't merely express a private world,
but must in some way function universally and shed light on the condition of being human.
In other words, his practise is about something much greater than self-expression,
comparable to the work of many other artists and also comparable to sites like Kawaguchi,
as art seeks to communicate collective truths while reducing subjective emotion.
And so I said that he was influenced by Kawaguchi commitment to this really laborious creative processes,
and I think this interest in the in the universe is also something that they have in common.
And yes, this is a work about the Cosmos work, where you can see a colour which is interest in the in the stars and in the universe,
and into the kind of wider connexion of the of the Earth. And of course, if we think about the 1980s and 90s,
there were also European artists that were exhibited widely in Tokyo here at work by flower that was shown at the Sabre Museum from 1985 to 1986.
Going back to the gun about gunpowder drawing, I quote the artist again when I'm painting from choosing different types of gunpowder to the
amounts used or deciding how they are deployed to make lines or how the stencils are cut,
even the weight of the stones or their placement on the canvas.
All of these choices reveal contradictions between my dictatorial will as a creator and my attempts to liberate the materials.
There is a sense of gratification and release that I enjoy with every explosion,
but I'm also anxious about the tension between the gunpowder and myself.
Democracy and autocracy. There is no such perfect dialectical relationship in art.
And I thought that was a very it's a very interesting statement which applies to many works of art.
We've already heard that when I was living in Japan, he also became interested in Stephen Hawking's work, for example,
a book that was sold widely at the time and that inspired his interest or influenced his interest into into the universe.
Soon after creating the gunpowder drawings that we have in our exhibition. So he began his iconic series Projects for Extraterrestrials,
which aimed at connecting the seen and unseen worlds and bridging communications amongst men, nature and the cosmos.
So I also realised his first large scale explosion event Human About Project for Extraterrestrials,
number one at the 1989 Tamar River for the outdoor art exhibition So in the in the suburbs of Tokyo.
And here we actually see a work which is currently on display in a gallery in London.
At the Oliver Mahlangu gallery, they have to show up. Well, it's basically about how different works are.
We're about kind of the index fickle nature of different works of art.
And it's a nice coincidence that this is shown there right at the moment.
So in the early 1990s, size work was exhibited more and more.
And then you had this he was included in this exhibition in France, an excellent performance which we already heard about since the month of Yeah,
which was the first time that that Western curators and art critics encountered his work.
In 1993. So I relocated to Iraq, Fukushima on the northeastern coast of Japan, setting up a residence within the city's fishing community.
You worked with local volunteers there to create a large, explosive event,
and he told me that he's going back to Japan but regularly, still about three times a year.
And then in a little bit later, his work was featured in an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Art in Japan today, 1985 to 1995.
And then following this, the Asian Cultural Council invited him to come to New York.
And basically, ever since then, he has. He has been living in New York.
He was here. We see a photo again of the Hiroshima event in Hiroshima, so size moved to the United States,
initiated a shift in his every year as he started to work more consistently with political themes and cultural subject matter,
communicating with the viewer through his works of art.
However, the material of gunpowder remains his main material, and I believe that despite their spectacular nature of his more recent works,
the essence and the spirit of this material, and the way that this material encounters its environment,
be this paper, a canvas or the sky remain at the core of his work.
The early years in Japan probably strengthened strengthened his respect for materials,
and this interest in the essence of material, I believe remains influential precise practise today.
Thank you.