Galerie Fons Welters - Amsterdam

Haisho No Tsuki

The video triptych Haisho No Tsuki (To see the Moon in Exile) by the artist Yasue Maetake (born in Japan, 1973) shows images that recall Shinto rituals, featuring herself in the leading role. For all their beauty, these rituals – originally intended to ward off natural spirits or to assuage the forces of nature – verge on the absurd. In one, for instance, we see Maetake, mostly dressed in a white robe, tied to a tree, studying the leaves with a large magnifying-glass, breaking off bits of bark or painting the white blossoms with black ink. Each shot depicts her involved in some task that appears to be entirely devoid of any purpose or usefulness, such as embroidering a coastline with black thread, while waves constantly advance and obliterate her work.

The title of the film Haisho No Tsuki is a quotation from a fourteenth-century Japanese treatise Tsurezuregusa (essays about idleness) by the writer and Buddhist monk Kenko, whose writings apply Buddhist ideals such as simplicity, modesty, naturalness and meditation to aspects of everyday life. For instance, Kenko proposes that the moon should be admired in all its phases, not only when it is full and clear, and that withered flowers are just as interesting as those in bloom.

Maetake’s work contrasts craftsmanship, most especially that of an artist, to the worship of nature. Aside from videos and performances, her oeuvre also consists of sculptures and installations, in which natural materials such as fish-scales and twigs are combined with digital images and non-organic materials such as nylon thread. This is her own original way of suggesting an opposition between nature and its appreciation − which has a tradition of its own – and the inevitability of culture.

[Laura van Grinsven]

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