The Echigo Tsumari Land Art Festival in Japan is an art festival that complements nature. On April 29, the Echigo Tsumari Land Art Festival 2022, which was postponed for one year, officially kicked off.
The surging news learned that among the current land art festivals, there are the deceased Christian's "Mori Jing", the Russian artist Kabakov and his wife's new work "The Tower of Holding Hands", which has participated since the first session, and the Ukrainian artist Jenna Kadrova's "stone bread" that desires daily life and peace; and the works of Japanese local artists reflect the local culture and the use of daily tools; in addition, the exhibition will also present works brought by Chinese artists Wu Jian'an, TANGO, Cai Canhuang and others.
It is reported that the exhibition lasts for 145 days, which is the longest in the past, spanning spring, summer and autumn, and nature will also sprinkle more wonderful changes on these art installations.
"Echigo Tsumari" is not the official name marked on today's map, but is taken from the ancient Japanese place name "Echigo Kingdom, Tsumariso", which includes 760 square kilometers of land including today's town of Tokaimachi and Tsunan-cho in the southern part of Niigata Prefecture, Japan, covering an area larger than the 23 wards of Tokyo, located in the naturally surrounded mountain area, which is a rare snowy area in Japan.
The natural beauty of southern Niigata Prefecture in Japan
About 4,500 years ago, during the Jomon period, it was inhabited by people, and the flame-shaped earthenware of the national treasure is still preserved today. It not only has a strong history and culture, but also has a relatively developed agriculture. Relying on wisdom and hard work, the ancestors diverted the river and reclaimed the mountain terraces, giving birth to a unique Satoyama culture. However, after the period of rapid economic growth in Japan, with the gradual exodus of population, the Echigo-Yau area began to face severe social problems such as aging, empty houses, abolition of schools, and abandonment of arable land. In order to solve these problems, the "Land Art Festival" with the goal of "local reconstruction" began to inject new vitality into Echigo's wife.
The Echigo-Tsumari "Land Art Festival" began in 2000 and is held every three years and is the world's largest international outdoor art festival. With the concept of "nature embracing mankind", the goal of "local reconstruction", the art festival as a bridge, farmland as a stage, connecting man and nature, trying to explore the inheritance and development of regional culture, excavate the value contained in the locality, give play to the potential charm of the locality, and revitalize the agricultural areas that are declining and aging in the process of modernization. The works of art are located on a vast expanse of 760 square kilometers. Some of these works are also catering facilities or accommodation facilities that can be used by people, and some works make full use of the original empty houses or abandoned school buildings to transform and give them new life.
Echigo's wife has a land art festival 2022 scene
Me] Movements
Postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this edition of the festival is the longest, spanning the three seasons of spring, summer and autumn, and the organizers hope that more people will visit Echigo and feel the charm of this land. It is reported that a total of 263 groups of artists from 38 countries and regions participated in the art festival, including 95 new works from 13 countries and regions. A total of 210 permanent works (including pre-release works) were added, and 114 new works were added. In order to reduce the gathering, the Echigo Tsumari Land Art Festival 2022 will last for 145 days, the longest in the past.
The Kabakovs, "10 Album Mazes," 2022
Moriyama Avenue "Reincarnation on the Other Side"
"Touching a work in a space like a white square may certainly have a highly abstract and purified work experience, but it may also bring about critical progress." But is this completely without a problem? Some artists have tried to get out of the art museum and bring art into the society of life, and since the 1950s and 60s, they have taken action. Regarding the art festival, artistic director Tomiro Kitagawa wrote, "I think the authors who gathered in Echigo's wife also tried to define the richness of space that is different from the universal space. Christian Boltansky, who has been participating since the 1st session, brings old cookie boxes and discarded clothes into the art museum, adding a multi-layered 'time' to the abstract exhibition space, and he is a man who dares to challenge the revolution. Because his father was Jewish, he had a personal feeling for the Holocaust of the Jews in World War 2, and this problem of consciousness certainly became the background of his creation, but this writer used the farmland and abandoned school buildings owned by Echigo's wife to produce works of universal significance that were only available in this land. Similarly, the deeply engaged Lindro Elish is the same. His use of props such as mirrors is often pointed out to have hallucinatory charm, but I think he directly casts a question mark on the universal space itself. ”
Christian Potansky's "Senjing"
Due to the one-year delay, some artists died sadly. This year's Land Art Festival has curated a special project of "2000-2022 Memorial Commemorative Series". The cover of the guidebook uses the work "Sen Jing" by French artist Christian Potansky, who died last July. It is reported that this work will be exhibited in July. The work uses about 20 black-and-white photographs of Japanese men and women, hanging them in the woods for installation, where viewers can experience gazing at each other. Christian tried to express the new soul in the forest by eliminating the "subordination" of the person originally shown in the photo. Having the viewer gaze into the eyes of the photograph reflects the philosophy of its practical installation, drawing the viewer into the work.
The Kabakovs, "The Tower of Hand-in-Hand"
Russian artists Ilya & Emilia Kabakov have been involved since the first Land Art Festival, when they created the all-time high-profile installation "Terraces (Shed Field)". This year, Echigo's wife has presented nine of their works at the Land Art Festival. Late last year, the Kabakovs created a new work, The Tower of Holding Hands, inspired by the bells of the European Middle Ages, when the city's mourning and joy were expressed through different bells. The Tower of Hand-in-Hand is distinguished by color, and because the Russo-Ukrainian War has plunged the world into misfortune, the lights at the top of the tower are now melancholy blue, and the Kabakovs are looking forward to the day when the lights turn bright yellow as soon as possible.
Takashi Fukasawa "Snow Tower"
This year's Land Art Festival will last until November in late autumn and early winter, and snow is a natural feature of Echigo's area, and installation artist Takashi Fukasawa has created a local monument, "Snow Tower", using the local snow removal tool "クマ武", which is displayed in the Shichiwa Disaster Prevention Center in the Tokachicho area. This is also an entry point for foreign tourists to understand the characteristics of the snow country.
Kaji Seiya, "Waste Wood Aquarium: Dragon Basket"
Above is an aquarium where sardines and great white sharks swim and spider crabs walk in the underground gateball court. Kaji, who calls himself a "waste wood recycler," collects discarded wood from local construction shops and wood processing factories and regenerates life-size animals, giving new life to the discarded materials.
The second floor of the Kamishita Civic Museum is painted yellow by artist Ryuo Kawaguchi, and the old agricultural tools (about 30 pieces) that are familiar to local farmers are suspended in the space like art installations, such as plows, hoes, and sickles, swaying slightly. Visitors can get up close and touch the exhibits, which were originally used as tools for farmers' appendages, but now allow humans to follow their movements.
Ryuo Kawaguchi", "Farm Tool Time"
Fuse Tomoko's Work "Ubusuna no White"
In Kitagawa Furo's recommendation, in addition to "Farm Tool Time", he also mentions the origami work "ううぶすなの家" on the second floor tea room of an art regenerated hut "うぶすなの白". Busch Zhizi folded the white paper into spirals, towers and other sculptural forms, which is quite sacred, as a sign of respect for the souls who inhabit this space.
Echigo's wife has the Satoyama Museum of Modern Art MonET
Ukrainian artist Jenna Kadyrova's Palianytsia
Ukrainian artist Jenna Kadyrova's Palianytsia (partial)
The Echigo Moriyama Museum of Contemporary Art MonET completed renovation last year and became an important exhibition hall at the festival. The pavilion includes works by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova. Evacuated from Kiev to a mountain village in western Ukraine in March, Jenna Kadyrova began collecting stones from the river and making them into stone "bread," a set of artworks called "Palianytsia," which in Ukrainian means "a loaf of bread." Shaping food expresses Jenna Kadrova's desire for everyday life and peace, when war broke out, she felt that art was as fragile as a dream, and now she believes that art can make her voice heard. It is reported that the proceeds from the sale of this group of works will also be donated to Ukrainian citizens.
Wu Jian'an's Heart · Faces》
The Land Art Festival also features works by Chinese artists. In July, artist Wu Jian'an's work "Heart · Faces" will be exhibited at the Art Festival. Wu Jian'an's large-scale interactive video installation "Heart and Face", through tensorflow machine learning and motion capture system in the form of human-computer interaction, transforms the audience's face and expression changes in real time into hundreds of faces composed of hundreds of ancient mythological characters on the big screen, and the faces will change with the audience's expression changes, forming a colorful dynamic smiley face.
TANGO, 101 Frames: Echigo's Fantasy Collection
Cai Canhuang "Heaven"
In addition, illustrator TANGO's new work "101 Frames / Echigo Fantasy Collection". Since July 2018, TANGO has continued to create manga works on its official website that combine with Echigo's folk customs, folklore, and works from the Land Arts Festival. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, his collection of ideas was also blocked, so he collected a large number of texts and photographs to draw inspiration from it. This time, TANGO has selected 30 integrated pamphlets of the "101Frames" comic works he has created in the past three years, which the audience can read and take home to slowly experience during the art festival exhibition; while artist Cai Canhuang's "Paradise" is an extension of the 2020 "Airport Holiday" isolation hotel art project, when the artist appeared 7 positive cases of new crown in the return flight from France, and as a close contact, he conducted 14 days of medical observation in the isolation hotel near Guangzhou Airport. The "sanctuary" of the church space created by the exhibition at that time has been transformed into an illusion similar to "heaven" in memory.
The Tunnel of Light
The Revamped Tunnel of Light
The "Tunnel of Light" of Qingjin Gorge is the work of the 2018 Echigo Wife Land Art Festival, the tunnel is 750 meters long, through the hexagonal rock wall of The Kiyotsu Gorge, and the "Mirror Pond" at the end naturally integrates the "water surface" and "mirror surface" to reflect the fantastic scenery of the four seasons outside the tunnel. After its completion, the popular punch card point "Tunnel of Light", which has increased the number of tourists to more than three times the previous year, has also been upgraded before this year's Land Art Festival. MAD has installed many mirrors in the shape of water droplets on the walls of the observation deck, like chiseling holes into the unknown space in a dull and solid dome, and people are looking for their own position between the poles of reality and surreality. The "bubble" in the center of the second observation deck is actually a bathroom, and the single-sided perspective mirror makes it possible to see through the outside only indoors. The users in the "bubble" are like fulfilling the wish of countless people to be "invisible people" as children. In 2021, MAD Architects upgraded the walls and ground at Observation Deck 2 of the Tunnel. Create a dynamic space that becomes one with The Qingjin Gorge.
Echigo's work "Terraces (Shedida)" in the Echigo Tsutomu Art Festival, 2000
While embarking on an artistic journey, the audience can also enjoy the beautiful landscapes such as terraced fields and natural mountains and forests in the mountains, or experience various activities and participate in handicraft classrooms. The Land Art Festival turns the entire mountain forest of Echigo's wife into a place and paradise suitable for children, evoking people's longing for their hometown and deepening the tacit understanding between people and the earth.
The Echigo Wife Land Art Festival will be on display until November 13.
(This article is a synthesis of the official website of the Echigo Wife Land Art Festival, the one-night aesthetic public name, the Han and cultural public name)
![The land artist has produced a new work, and the ordinary stones have spelled out exquisite patterns, which are decompressed and healed[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)