I put priority on such artists who focus on the world of "oblivion" and who consider placing themselves into the world of "oblivion" as fundamental to their attitude for their expression.
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 MorimuraBy putting a border line between life and death, we separate the world of death from our world of life, casting the dead away into the "world of oblivion".
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 Morimura