4th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale opens Live & Let Live: Creators of Tomorrow Theme

Written by Marco Goldschmied Sunday, 19 February 2012 21:43

FUKUOKA CITY, JAPAN - The Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (the Fukuoka Triennale) is a large-scale international exhibition held under a different theme every three years to feature the most up-to-date art tendencies/practices in 21 countries/ region in Asia, making the best use of resources accumulated through the continuous research and art exchange programme in the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. In this exhibition, organizers present paintings, sculptures, installation and video works, workshops, performance and collaborative art-making by inviting artists from across Asia to Fukuoka. The Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale aims to create a space of art exchange involving the people in Fukuoka.

Commemorating the inauguration of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, the 1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale 1999, under the theme of “Communication: Channels for Hope” focused on the possibility of connecting people of different cultures and communities through art. The 2nd Fukuoka Triennale 2002 highlighted handmade works which employ indigenous local material under the theme “Imagined Workshop”. The 3rd Fukuoka Triennale 2005 featured artworks of young generation influenced by popular culture under the theme “Parallel Realities Asian Art Now”. By dynamically presenting cutting-edge ideas and works from Asia, these triennales were all well received both within and outside Japan.

In the 4th Fukuoka Triennale, organizers carefully select the most promising artists in Asia as in past triennales. At the same time, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, the Triennale will also look back on the development of Asian art in the past decade by featuring artists who have actively participated in the international art scenes. Furthermore, taking advantage of the urban space where the museum is located, artworks will be displayed outside extending beyond the museum to intervene other public spaces (shopping malls, park etc). The Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale also aims to create a wider and diversified space of exchange by jointly organizing events with the city government, and collaborating plan with local organizations, universities and NPOs.

LIVE and LET LIVE: Creators of Tomorrow
The Japanese title, Kyo-sai-sei is a combination of two words, “kyosei” (symbiosis, coexistence, co-living) and “saisei”(revival, reconstruction, regenetation, rebirth). “Kyosei” stands for a situation in which humans and different kinds of living beings have a stable relation with each other. In addition to the coexisting relation in the nature, the meaning of “kyosei” here includes a symbiotic relation between self and other, individual and collective, the rich and the poor, majority and minority, center and periphery, metropolis and villages, city and nature, as well as political, economical and social relations among different generations or cultures. These relations often cause conflicts or produce a winner only in one side. In this exhibition, however, we would like to explore the symbiotic relation in which sustainable development and creation can be continued by making appropriate profit for the both sides. This is because it is almost impossible that such harmonious and mutual-aid symbiotic relation among humans, other living beings and nature can be seen in its primitive state, in this contemporary societies where the individual, community or country fight about vested rights and desire for the limited natural resources and market.

In Asian countries, economic development and globalization in which enormous amount of capital, labor, and information rapidly circulate beyond boundaries of nations and cultures in the past ten years, increasingly expanding the gap between the rich and those who are defeated in or even cannot join market competition. Furthermore, even in the country marking the economic power, the worldwide economic recession that has emerged since autumn 2008 plunged laborers of all generation into dire predicament where they feel anxiety even about living tomorrow. Omnipresent market fundamentalism and foisted consumerism cause less sense of responsibility and ethic as citizen, and is depriving children and youngsters of hope and future.

Under these circumstances, it is necessary that troubled companies and local governments, declining towns or villages, shattered schools are revitalized or reconstructed. Furthermore, it is human rights of living and responsibility for other people, nature and history that should be recovered. It should not be like a replay of the same digital content, mere regeneration of lost or wounded parts of living beings and objects, or resuscitation from dying state, but should be a creative “rebirth” which can fill our mind with hope for future, based on experimental methods and innovative ideas.

In the era of despair, stagnation, and crisis, “tomorrow” would not come by itself. We have to create “tomorrow” by our own efforts. To have “tomorrow” through survival, we should not rely on unreasonable fundraising, conventional methods, or outdated ideals, but should start to “utilize” existing objects and ideas, such as surrounding materials and spaces, other people’s experience and wisdom, existing urban system and ecological systems of nature.

These endeavors can be made not only by professional artists, but also by creators who generate objects, systems and ideas in cultural and social activities, and all people who make an effort to “create tomorrow” for existence of the individual, reconstruction of organizations and communities.

The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum opened on the 6th march 1999 as a museum for collecting and exhibiting Asian modern and contemporary art. There is no other collection of this quality and quantity in the world with over 1,700 works (as of March 2004) covering various aspects drawn from 21 Asian countries and regions.

In the Asia Gallery, the streams of Asian modern and contemporary art are introduced through the collection and temporary exhibitions with specific themes. The exhibits are changed from time to time in order to introduce the richness, diverse expressions and the fresh impact of Asian art. Visit : http://faam.city.fukuoka.lg.jp/eng/home.html

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