 Tanabe
Mitsuaki's first work on the theme of wild rice was made in 1991 for a factory
building. I did not actually see this work until quite a bit later because of
its location. |
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| As
it appears in a photograph, the tall spindle-shaped work is attached vertically
to the wall in the high-ceilinged entrance room. It is an elegant abstract form
made of stainless steel wire and painted in seven colors. When I saw the actual
piece, I noticed an enigmatic feature, the web of brushstrokes added to the gently
swelling shoulders at the top of the spindle-like form. When I asked the artist
about this, he said, "That is the germ." After hearing this, I could
see the point at the bottom of the piece as the nogi and the double
indentation in this part as the constricted part of it. I also came to understand
the symbolism of the colors, showing that just one grain in the middle of the
rice ears floating on the surface of the water in the original habitat is about
to search for a black, fertile bed at the bottom of the blue water and enter the
condition of germination. The germ, which is covered by the husk and cannot actually
be seen, becomes visible because of the artistﾕs earnest desire to express the
existence of spirit in things with form. It is easy to lose a belief in such things
in the present age of mass consumption and production. However, in Tanabeﾕs case,
this concern became the motivation to make a number of large sculptures using
natural wood from trees that had to be cut down. |
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In
1996, Tanabe made MOMI 1996 - Pathum Thani at the museum connected
to the Pathumm Thani Rice Research Center in Thailand. The material and the technique
were completely different from the first work on the theme of wild rice. The material
was bamboo, which was split, bundled together, bent, woven, and assembled. The
native peoples of Asia have used this heaven-sent resource with sophisticated
techniques rivaling anything that can be done with a machine to create marvelous
for all sorts of everyday uses. In MOMI 1991, the artist used a
manual technique to join the stainless steel wire, and the work was so painstaking
that it almost made his hands bleed, but he did not attempt to show skill or achieve
perfection. Rather he expressed the incomplete nature of life in the germ, which
sets out to attempt the impossible, in the midst of chaotic irregularities and
imbalances.
The bamboo MOMI
1996 is a memorial celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Pathum Thani
Rice Reseach Center. Tanabe told me that an old plow is sealed inside the momi.
On the day of the celebration, the sculpture was decorated like the bamboo fronds
set up for the Tanabata festival in Japan or a Christmas tree. When I saw it a
year later, store-bought toy animals were hanging from the tips of the split pieces
of bamboo, probably put there by the young people who helped the artist make the
work. Tanabe later made sculptures of animals with grotesque forms, and this playful
gesture might have provided the unexpected motivation for this work. |
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The
first of these natural wood pieces, which might be described as "incomplete
and grotesque," were several figures of animals carved in short logs of camphor
wood included in an installation in the "Tanabe Mitsuaki Exhibitionﾓ at the
Kanagawa Prefectural Citizens" Hall in 1999. The artist later donated these
sculptures as a group to Gokurakuji temple in Yokohama. In this temple, a bronze
momi that Tanabe made early in his career is enshrined in the main
worship hall. It is a sprout of cultivated rice that has a beautifully smooth
and rounded form. The grotesque forms of the snake, lizard, leech, and centipede
were added as organisms that have a symbiotic relationship with wild rice. They
appear as new forms of the Asuras and Yashas, the protective deities and deities
of the Buddhist pantheon. After spending a night at this temple, the poet Hidaka
Teru wrote,
The depths
of these carved forms
Contain
the sound of.temple bells.
These grotesque, fragmentary forms are like
the spots that suggest the existence of a leapord or sounds that continue to change
with reverberations that recall previous sounds. They express the incompleteness
of life like a germinated bud. |
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| Tanabe
carved two monuments on the campus of Shizuoka University in 2003, one from a
metasequoia log (20 meters in length) with the branches removed and one from Himalayan
cedar (10 meters in length) with the branches cut short. The former is carved
in the shape of a momi, commemorating the work of the university, which supports
the in-situ conservation of the habitat of wild rice in Thailand. The latter expresses
the diversity of life found in a single tree. The latter work contains samples
of siderite and stromatolite, which suggest the ancient origins of the Earth and
life, and it also features carved images of lizards and cranes that are in danger
of extinction. The world of organisms has evolved to create great diversity with
a delicate balance between plants, the producers, animals, the consumers, and
microorganisms, the cleaners. There is a need to sound a warning that balance
is threatened by the acts of human beings. |
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| On either side of the
main altar in Kofukuji temple in Yokohama, Tanabe has placed logs of cedar (11
meters in length) and persimmon (5.2 meters in length), carved into straight momi
form with long nogi and there is a pair of large centipedes wrapped around the
logs. The material is not forced to conform with the artistﾕs intentions. The
relief is carved to incorporate the knots, protuberances, cracks, and hollows
that provide evidence of the natural treeﾕs struggle for survival. These works
are collaborations with nature, and I believe that they can be described with
a concept of incompleteness. |
