By 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 Morimura"Triennale in the City" is a scheme that is of priority for the sponsoring local government. For many local governments, revitalization is an important mission for the local community, and, therefore, the attitude to achieve this mission through the cultural and/or artistic activities should not be denied.
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 MorimuraEven Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were entertainers. In that way, I am an entertainer and want to make art that is fun.
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 MorimuraI was worried that I, the artist Morimura, would have conflicts with the participating artists and develop a strenuous relationship with them. But the actual experience was completely the opposite. The artists accepted my requests rather positively, because it came from a fellow artist. I strongly feel that the fact that my being an artist avoided the usual curator vs artist tension, and led to creating a positive atmosphere as well as developing a solidarity amongst artists and building a community for artists.
Yasumasa Morimura