Atsushi Onoe

Dear Okubo-san,

Hello, how have you been?

  I saw you were in Japan for a while during the summer break.  I hope you had a lovely holiday there.  I did not go anywhere for my holiday, so I stayed in Basel doing nothing for a week.  I kept reading books I always stuck on my desk, under the sweltering weather by the Rhein.  One of my bosses didn’t believe that I didn’t go anywhere since I had proper tanned skin.

  I almost wanted to say it’s such a pleasure to communicate with you for the first time after our last correspondence, right before the COVID-19 outbreak.  Yet, we worked together on the group show under the Utsumi sensei’s pictorial lab last spring.  Which I’m so grateful that I, or we, had you there.  In any case, I’m thrilled to have exchanges with you.

  As I mentioned briefly on Messenger, I’d eventually like to share this conversation with the public, if not published.  And I want it to be reciprocal as well.  The last time was rather one-sided, namely my side, since I had initiated it for the group show I joined.  We had a “deadline”, and we did not dig into detail so much, I feel.  And you named this interaction “communication art”, so it only makes sense that this contributes to your practice in art as well.  Having said that, it’s obvious, at least between us, that your rage of knowledge is astronomically wider than mine, and I’m gonna have to count on what you talk about at some point.  Yet I hope I’m better than myself from the previous conversation we had five years ago.

  One last thing before we get into multi-monologues, I’d have to apologise for starting this in English out of the blue.  I bet you didn’t see this coming…  As I mentioned, I believe it’s meaningful that our multi-monologues are read widely; hence, communicating in English was the first thing I thought of.  As much as the topic we discussed was international or universal, we also have to see what people think outside of Japan.  I’ve come to realise recently that the conversation we had and the essays I put on the booklet I sold at the gallery looked broad yet exclusive in a certain sense.  So, I’d like to grasp this opportunity to open our discussion much more comprehensively for the sake of the “universality” we discussed.

  Which is why now I’m giving a heads-up about what’s coming out of our long, long conversation for potential readers, if there are any.

  Enough foreplay, we can start from what we previously discussed, and hopefully, we can also touch on the surface of our background.  I must say it is such a pain to summarise what we communicated, but I spare no effort to do so.

  Our exchange started around the time we managed to “flee” Japan: I started to work in Zürich as an intern while you started your study in painting in San Francisco.  So, the central discourse was always based on our respective experiences about living abroad as an architect or an artist.  I believe getting out of Japan was the only thing left for us to cross over multiple fields because, whatever the technicality is, we both study/practice painting or architecture, being “here and there”.  This, I believe, is our common ground.

  From earlier on, we went straight to multi-disciplinarity and stressed that practising it was the most effective way to get away with drowning in a melting pot.  It’s fair to say that diversity nowadays is not the attitude we all appreciate any more.  Societies are diverse on so many levels today, especially in America.  As you shared your fear of being nobody there, diversity is one of the social standards, and what biologically/culturally you are is not so important.  Getting viral in a specific situation for a split second at best to be a popular artist or architect.  No one really talks about it, but this is what everyone understands and fears.  Now, the fear towards diversity has been bouncing back on racism, for example.  This counter-intuitive movement against universality or modernism has been knocking about for half a century and seems to be hitting rock bottom.  Some say we are lost and stuck in this chaos; however, diversity has never been thought through because it was an intuitive counteraction against universality.  I think it is fair to act on it because universality has been taken as the heroism that potentially washes out individuality.  It was the shift in societies based on human nature in one way or another.  Which is why diversity in societies was merely counter-intuitive and also why we could go back to where universality has been cancelled.

  The spinal core of our exchange was about how we could evoke the deception of diversity and universality through our practice in art and architecture.  Which led us to the topic on the necessity of contingency.

  The diversity and universality that humanity has experienced so far are simply dualities; the latter is a counteraction against the former, and vice versa.  It is very much of an example in modern philosophy: the object has to be “for us”, as Hegel puts it.  Consciousness or acknowledgement requires yourself, namely the subject, and the object.  Quentin Meillassoux sums up the idea; “- which means that we cannot know anything that would be beyond our relation to the world.” This notion is still somewhat plausible because we live in a society that “works” only on that condition.  Which, obviously, has been collapsing, just like we are on an unstoppable train.  We know something’s wrong, but we cannot just stop.

  Although, it’s not that no one has ever tried to get out of this comfort zone.  You’d know if you look at post-modern times.  I think it’s allowed to mention Isozaki in this regard since he is, in a way, our role model.  He was the first and probably the only architect who genuinely tried to invade the boundaries between architecture and art.  He engaged with artists of the time and learned how architects could survive in the chaos of the 20^th century.  Architects would have evaporated because of the heat from the bureaucracy, the technocraticism or the global capitalism.  What he learned from artists and practised in architecture was relatively hawkish: If there are two subjects coming from opposite sides of the pole, deny both sides and shake up the framework of the conflict itself.  Technically speaking, this was also a counteraction against the existing sphere; however, this was, at least, to question the duality established in modern times.  It was epic for architects worldwide, and it cheered them up to be bolder.  “One’s extremeness” was an excellent excuse for being anti-establishment.  This series of events Isozaki contributed to helped Japanese architects practice architecture, and subsequently, they established their reputation abroad (I benefit from it to a certain level, haha).

  As much as it was encouraging for young architects at the time, they stopped thinking further: Being extreme was to get an excuse to stand out amongst other architects.  Kengo Kuma mentions this specific topic: “Isozaki’s methodology encouraged young Japanese architects and turned them into artists.  At the same time, it also had a great influence on the field of architecture all over the world.  –  Once they got characters as artists, they benefited from the global capitalism and rendered themselves into star architects jumping around the world.”  I can’t be sure if Kuma positively wrote this, but whatever Isozaki practised was, I believe, taken wrong and worn out in consumer society.  This suggests that the idea of questioning the dualities themselves went sideways, being distracted by their heroism and Consumerism.

  If we are to borrow what Isozaki pursued, we’d question the framework of universality and diversity.  There, you mentioned that you’d like to see what awaits beyond this duality.  That would require much more than what Isozaki influenced the world because it requires you or us to work on reconciliation between universality and diversity rather than question the duality.  I believe this was the scene that you found in San Fransisco.

  The other thing we explored was what it means to be “here and there.”  Although it is not so special to move around the cities or countries nowadays, travelling around the world is still such a privilege.  You could say the same thing about pursuing several art forms as well.  Even though you, Okubo-san, technically do not practise architecture anymore, a sense of space or depth on canvas is your interest in pictorial works.  You did not mention much about how your study in architecture influenced your pictorial works or sculpture, so I’d also like to dig into this.

  Since five years ago, we moved the base outside Japan and started engaging in multiple art forms more intensively.  You yourself are in the department of sculpture at the moment and exploring your pursuit.  While I just started my career as an architect and started to showcase my pictorial work more often than before.  Here, I stress again that it is not only the place but also the art form that we jump around.  It doesn’t matter whether you have them as your occupation or not.  The reciprocal movement between each art form is the key to overcome the dualism I mentioned.

  As you touched on your experience in San Fransisco, you introduced the notion of “Trans Culture.”  It is to allow one’s multi-disciplinarity in oneself.  Having parents from different countries/races and growing up in a third country make it extremely hard to identify yourself.  Yet, it is the artists’ very pride in San Fransisco.  This sort of mentality may not be the case in Europe: as we sometimes call people in Europe “Europeans”, they are racially quite close to each other, and they may not see or appreciate this cross-over as Americans do.  One thing is that it is pretty standard for them to be in that encounter, and the other thing is that the diversity of race is not so extreme as in America.  Unfortunately, neither of us has ever been in this particular situation in terms of background.  At least for myself, it is hard to outgrow what it’s like.  Although I grew up in Mexico, I’ve always been connected to Japan.  This childhood of mine does have a substantial impact on me today; however, it was more like the best holiday of my life.

  I believe “Trans Culture” highlights and possibly penetrates the wall that our backs are against.  Diversity has always been praised and appreciated because of internationalisation.  It is to claim that we humans are all equal anywhere on this planet, regardless of race or language.  It is to be inclusive.  However, as much as it is about humanity on a global scale, it ends up in a political and social agenda.  It is sucked into those systems because it is a movement with a collectiveness that requires a certain union to fight for their rights abroad.  So, it pretty much depends on tolerance in society, whether the minorities would have a right they claim.  Even if they manage to have an agreement with society, their diversity in themselves will remain questionable.  Here, we must inspect what diversity is because it has now become a mere counter-movement against the far-right authoritarian regime from a hundred years ago.

  “Trans Culture” seems to be the result of diversity; however, it is more of an alternative to what we are up against.  The diversity we’ve fancied only exists with groups, while “Trans Culture” evolves in individuals.  It does not require any comparison to others and allows people’s incoherency in their race or culture.

  Nevertheless, the idea of “Trans Culture” is still limited.  You’d have to have parents from different races and grow up in a third country to put yourself in that condition.  It will not be customary for everyone on the earth.  It’s the luck of the draw.  The only condition Okubo-san and I can relate to “Trans Culture” is when it comes to creative fields.  As I’ve already stated, dealing with multiple art forms makes us unique or, rather, free from the deception of diversity.  Now, you consider yourself a painter and a sculptor, as long as I can see in your bio on your website.  I call myself a painter and an architect.  Apparently, it is still hard for many people to grasp the idea of working in multiple spheres.  Of course, people would say, “That’s amazing.  You must be talented.”  Then the next thing I get asked is, “But what is your actual occupation?”  I do not have a go or mock them, but this kind of conversation highlights that having multiple creative “identities” is hard to outgrow.  Having said that, it is still ambiguous for me to explain this sphere of engaging with art.  I named this state of mind “Trans Activity”, and you mentioned this: “What is already written into society as individual codes, like ‘architecture’ or ‘painting’, is rewritten into something else through the cross-over of individual activities.  In this way, the macro rules are updated while jumping around seemingly incoherently”.  We’ve talked a lot about the state of Trans” during our discussion, and I think we sort of agreed that this argument is quite dodgy.  I feel this topic was not thoroughly investigated, so I’d like another chance to dig deeper into this.  Which probably ends up in a wobbly conclusion…

  You also expressed yourself about what you were doing through your practice back in Japan and San Fransisco.  I don’t mean to be rude here, but I spare some effort to write what you describe so that you can tell what has now changed from then.  And hopefully, I can respond to you about my side.

  I’ve quickly gone through what we put on the table five years ago, and now I’d like to see more things in detail this time (Believe me, dearest readers, this is an extremely short introduction for what we’ve discussed.)  I personally do not like to prepare a bullet-pointed list of topics for the discussion; however, we must prepare at least one topic to start talking about.  As Bordlliard says, “We can’t begin with nothing because, logically, nothingness is the culmination of something.”  So, let’s see if our discussion leads to nothing.

  We can start with what we’ve seen for the last five years since we’ve witnessed a lot of devastating moments, such as the pandemic or wars between Ukraine and Russia.  On a personal level, I had a chance to study in Mendrisio,  and I started to work as an architect in Basel.  While you finished your bachelor’s studies in San Francisco and moved to Colombus, Ohio, to study sculpture.  A lot has changed on both ends, and I am curious to hear how it has been affecting your work or yourself.  I’m aware it’s a pretty banal beginning, but I think it’s good to start with something concrete.  Then, we can see how the conversation goes from that point forward. 

  I was the one who wanted to do this again, but I honestly didn’t know how to start.  Forgive me for the dodgy opening of this conversation, but I very much look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,

Atsushi