CCJ is thrilled to partner with researcher Shuhei Hosoya who will introduce filmed actions of Yutaka Matsuzawa and related artists’ Free Commune events over May through July. A truly unique opportunity to view these documentations, we are proud to offer access to this important material in support of future reevaluations of artists and their works.
Each program will be available for viewing on CCJ’s viewing platform for CCJ members.
The Value and Potential of Films Documenting Conceptual Art
Shūhei Hosoya
The exhibition Yutaka Matsuzawa: The 100th Anniversary of His Birth (February 2 – March 21, 2022) was held in the brand-new galleries of the Nagano Prefectural Art Museum, reopened after renovations. The exhibition began by tracing Matsuzawa’s youth, when he aspired to become an architect, and continued with his symbolist poetry, explorations of color through drawing, works shown at the Yomiuri Independent exhibition, and eventually his development of Conceptual Art involving words and the body and a reproduction of Psi Room, his studio and space for mental activity. The exhibition was an innovative endeavor to explore the world of Yutaka Matsuzawa from multiple perspectives on the centennial of his birth. Concurrently, a Yutaka Matsuzawa: The 100th Anniversary of His Birth event was staged by volunteers in the town of Shimosuwa, Nagano Prefecture, where Matsuzawa spent nearly his entire life. The diversity and breadth of Matsuzawa’s art was transmitted from his hometown to the world.
The Matsuzawa Yutaka: The 100th Anniversary of His Birth exhibitions were in part attempts to carefully interpret and demystify Matsuzawa and his work, which had become mythologized due to their cryptic nature. These recent reevaluations of Matsuzawa’s career were undertaken with the cooperation of the Yutaka Matsuzawa Psi Room Foundation, which manages his works and materials. The works were also exhibited overseas as part of Radicalism in the Wilderness: Japanese Artists in the Global 1960s (March 8 – June 9, 2019), organized by the Japan Society. These re-evaluations are expected to spark further discoveries and re-evaluations in the future.
It is well known that in 1964 Matsuzawa received the revelation “Vanish all the objects,” and subsequently decided to start creating conceptual art. He later organized the Nirvana: For Final Art exhibition (August 12-14, 1970) at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art in collaboration with Jun Mizugami, Toshiyuki Sunohara and others, and this was one of his early implementations of the commune model. Matsuzawa and the artists in his circle staged a series of events and projects: the Invitation to Final Art exhibition, the “On-e” event (a gathering of friends, music, performance, film, meditation etc.) and Yamashiki (“mountain ritual”) at Sensui-iri Meditation Platform, and World Uprising. This was not a commune in which people thought, believed and acted as one under the leadership of a guru, but rather, as former participant Kōdō Tanaka recalls, was like a nebula in which each member was their own stellar nucleus and they continued to move around freely.[1] In his Nirvana Manifesto, Matsuzawa himself referred to this kind of collective as a Nuclear Movement Coalition, and advocated the model of a Free Commune.
The filmed actions presented here are documentations of one of these Free Commune events, the first edition of World Uprising. This was an international mail art project initiated by Matsuzawa, in which participants were asked to record their ideas and actions in writing, in photographs, on film, on tape and so forth and send them to Matsuzawa’s Void/Imaginary Situation Research Center. There were 19 participants: Yutaka Matsuzawa, Toshiyuki Sunohara, Kōdō Tanaka, Kiichi Kobayashi, Kunimasa Kuriyama, Sanzō Tanaka, Hiroshi Kawatsu, Rui Sekidō, Taii Ashizawa, Hideaki Suzuki, Makio Hasegawa, Ikuo Shukusawa, Shōji Kaneko, Takio Ikeda, Taku Furusawa, Jun Mizugami, Douglas Huebler, Daniel Buren, and Lawrence Weiner.[2] World Uprising was a highly conceptual action, in which each participant expressed ideas through words and body and transmitted them to the Void / Imaginary Situation Research Center through the mail, with the final result of the World Uprising event being a record collecting these mailings. For Matsuzawa and his collaborator Mizugami, the collected records as a whole constituted an artwork, and Matsuzawa launched an archive project called DCCA (Data Center of Contemporary Art). Documentations in various media have been preserved to this day as relics of this conceptual art project. At the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, research on documentations including DCCA are underway through the research project A Study of the Post-1968 Art Community: Based on the Yutaka Matsuzawa Archives (JSPS Grants-in-aid for Scientific Research JP18K00200) with Hideki Kikkawa as principal researcher.
The first edition of World Uprising was documented in the November 1972 issue of Bijutsu Techō, with the composition and layout by Kōdō Tanaka and Taii Ashizawa, and it remains a vivid record to this day. However, as a record on paper, it lacks the elements of time and space that we see in the films screened here. Captured on 8mm film, World Uprising beckons once more to the original scene. Here, in addition to a record of the first World Uprising, footage of a performance by Taku Furusawa and a ceremony by Yutaka Matsuzawa will be screened. While these archival films were not produced as works of art, they are unique documents that reveal the process of conceptual art through the distinctive characteristics of moving-image medium. Documentary representation of this kind will become increasingly important in future re-evaluations of artists and their works, and this screening will serve in part as a starting point to make this clear. It is our hope that through these films, viewers will have the opportunity to reach across time and space and engage with the people of the Free Commune.
[1] Matsuzawa Yutaka: The 100th Anniversary of His Birth three-way conversation “The Collective Visions of Matsuzawa Yutaka: The Time of Nirvana”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ0qmSSP4r4
[2] Bijutsu Techo, November 1972, p. 88.
Performance by Taku Furusawa
Cameraperson unknown, 1971, B&W, silent, 15 min. Courtesy of Kumiko Matsuzawa
This film documents a performance by Taku Furusawa, acting as the Aoyama Outpost of the Kingdom of Lilliput under the influence of Matsuzawa associate Shō Kazakura. Furusawa also acted in the underground theater group Theater Yakōkan (Night Theater), which had ties with Matsuzawa as well, and in his later years was active under the name Kubikukuri Takuzō, but this film is a valuable document of his early convulsive performance.
『古沢宅によるパフォーマンス』
撮影者不詳／1971年ごろ／モノクロ／サイレント／15分
映像提供：松澤久美子
松澤宥とも交流のあった風倉匠の薫陶を受け、〈リリパット王国青山出張所〉として活動した古沢宅によるパフォーマンスの記録。古沢は、松澤と交流のあった〈シアター夜行館〉にも出演したほか、晩年は首くくり栲象としても活動しているが、初期の痙攣のパフォーマンスの記録は貴重である。
観念芸術（Conceptual Art）の映像記録、その可能性
細谷修平
2022年2月2日から3月21日まで、リニューアル・オープンした長野県立美術館の真新しい展示室において、「生誕100年 松澤宥」展が開催された。展示は、建築を志した松澤青年期の痕跡に始まり、記号詩による表現、ドローイングによる色の探求、読売アンデパンダン展における試み、そして、ことばと身体をめぐる観念芸術（Conceptual Art）の展開とアトリエかつ思考の空間たる「プサイの部屋」の再現があらわされた。それは生誕100年を迎え、松澤宥という一人の表現者を多角的に捉えるための新たなる挑戦であったといえよう。また、並行して、松澤が終生を過ごした長野県下諏訪町を舞台に「松澤宥 生誕100年祭」が有志によって開催され、松澤の地元からその表現の多様性と広がりのあり様が発信された。
「生誕100年 松澤宥」展は、難解とされる表現ゆえに神話化されていた松澤宥という人とその仕事を丁寧に読み解き、脱神話化する試みでもあったと言える。また、こうした松澤宥をめぐる昨今の再評価の機会は、その作品と資料を管理する「一般財団法人 松澤宥プサイの部屋」の協力のもとで取り組まれており、海外においてもジャパン・ソサエティーにおける「Radicalism in the Wilderness: Japanese Artists in the Global 1960s」（2019年3月8日−6月9日）などで展示されている。今回の再考を機に、今後さらなる発見と再評価が期待される。
いわずもがな、松澤宥は1964年に「オブジェを消せ」という啓示を受け、以降、観念芸術（Conceptual Art）の展開を試みていく。松澤が呼びかけ、水上旬や春原敏之らの協働によって、1970年8月12日から14日まで京都市美術館で開催された「ニルヴァーナ 最終美術のために」展を契機として、松澤はコミューンの実践を試みていった。松澤のもとに集まった表現者たちは、松澤とともに「最終美術への招待」展、「泉水入瞑想台・音会」、「山式・雪の会座」、「世界蜂起」と、立て続けにイヴェントを繰り広げていく。ここでのコミューンのあり様は、グルの指導のもとに思想と行動を一元化するものではなく、参加した田中孝道が述懐するように、それぞれが核となり自由に動き続ける星雲のごときあり様を呈するものであった[1]。また、松澤自身、「われ（ら）ニルヴァーナ」マニュフェストにおいて、こうした集合を「核運動体連合」と示しており、「フリー・コミューン」を提唱している。
今回上映されるいくつかの行為の映像記録は、こうした「フリー・コミューン」のイヴェントの一つである「世界蜂起」第一回をめぐる記録である。「世界蜂起」は松澤が呼びかけたメール・アートのプロジェクトであり、参加者各々の観念と行為を文章、写真、フィルム、テープ、その他によって記録し、松澤の「虚空間状況探知センター」に送るよう要請がなされた。参加者は、松澤宥、春原敏之、田中孝道、小林起一、栗山邦正、田中三蔵、河津紘、赤土類、芦沢タイイ、鈴木秀明、長谷川真紀男、宿沢育夫、金子昭二、池田龍雄、古沢宅、水上旬、ダグラス・ヒューブラー、ダニエル・ビュラン、ローレンス・ウェイナーの19名である[2]。「世界蜂起」は、各人がコンセプトをことばと身体を介して表現した時空間を、メールによって「虚空間状況探知センター」へと接続させるという極めてコンセプチュアルな営みであった。これによって、「世界蜂起」というイヴェントは完結し、送られたメールは記録として集積される。松澤や活動をともにした水上にとって、記録の集積はアートワークとしての意味を持ち合わせており、松澤においては、DCCA（Data Center of Contemporary Art）というアーカイブ・プロジェクトを試みている。いくつかのメディアによって定着された記録は、観念芸術（Conceptual Art）の遺物として、現在にまで残されているのである。現在、DCCAを含む記録物については、東京文化財研究所において、橘川英規を研究代表とする「ポスト1968年表現共同体の研究：松澤宥アーカイブズを基軸として」（JSPS科研費 JP18K00200）により調査研究が進められている。
「世界蜂起」第一回の記録は、田中孝道と芦沢タイイの構成・レイアウトによって、『美術手帖』1972年11月号にも残されており、いまもって記録表現の輝きを失っていない。しかし、一方でそれは紙面での展開であり、時間を持ち合わせてはいない。今回上映する映像記録にはその時空間が立ち現れる。8ミリフィルムで記録された「世界蜂起」は、ふたたび、わたしたちをその現場へと誘うのである。今回は「世界蜂起」第一回の記録とともに、古沢宅のパフォーマンスと松澤宥によるセレモニーの記録を上映する。これらの映像記録は作品として制作されたものではないが、映像メディアの特性によって、観念芸術のプロセスをあらわす唯一無二の記録表現であると言える。こうした記録表現は表現者たちの仕事を再評価していくために、今後ますます重要な意味を帯びていくだろう。今回の上映はそれを明示する出発点ともなる。いま一度、映像を通して「フリー・コミューン」の人びとと触れ合っていただければと思う。
[1] 「【生誕100年 松澤宥展】鼎談：松澤宥の共同体幻想――〈ニルヴァーナ〉のころ」
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ0qmSSP4r4
[2] 『美術手帖』1972年11月号、p. 88
Shuhei Hosoya
Born in 1983, Shuhei Hosoya is a scholar on art and media, as well as a videographer. He is chief representatives of the Zero Jigen Katō Yoshihiro Archive, as well as the HM Archive which holds materials by Minoru Hirata. After he studied symbolic iconography, and book and film editing at university, Hosoya is engaged in art documentation through interviews and research of artists’ practices. His main research field is art and politics, as well as media in the 1960s, about which he has published videos and books, and organized symposia. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, Hosoya continues his thinking and practice on art and documentation. Further, he was responsible as the special researcher for the Zero Jigen Collection for the Performance Art Archive at Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, Korea. His co-authored works include: Shibusawa Tatsuhiko Again (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2017), Japanese Terror: Era of Bombs 60s-70s (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2017), Peninsula Theory (Kyobunsha, 2018).