In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury raised cautions against mass media, especially the television, which dumb down human sensibilities and coerce everybody's thoughts into a single uniform value, allowing human to forget the fundamental action of "having one's opinion". As a result, the society deteriorates. I decided to exhibit [Edward] Kienholz's work which features television as its subject, as well as the Big Double Cross as works that represent this warning.
Yasumasa MorimuraThis is why there is not any artist who takes Internet as the theme. My position is quite the opposite to the current trend of art, but this is exactly why the title of my exhibition is "ART Fahrenheit 451".
Yasumasa MorimuraOf course, I, like the sponsoring government, would like to have as many people as possible visit Yokohama Triennale. This is because I believe that art should not be monopolized by professionals and specialists.
Yasumasa MorimuraThe artists could be dead, but some of them are not so distant from us, and make us feel as if they are alive with us. Such artists are worth calling "contemporary artists".
Yasumasa MorimuraLeonard de Vinci, for example, is a great artist, but he is living in the past. However, I don't feel John Cage and Matsuzawa Yutaka as artists who live in the past. Their ideas are still alive in our world because they express the very important concerns of our age. That is why I could trust them as "contemporary artists".
Yasumasa MorimuraIn Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury raised cautions against mass media, especially the television, which dumb down human sensibilities and coerce everybody's thoughts into a single uniform value, allowing human to forget the fundamental action of "having one's opinion". As a result, the society deteriorates. I decided to exhibit [Edward] Kienholz's work which features television as its subject, as well as the Big Double Cross as works that represent this warning.
Yasumasa Morimura