International Triennale of Contemporary Art 2005

The doors open for Yokohama’s celebrated art event

Wolfgang Winter and Barthold Horbelt, Swingerclub Yokohama, mixed-media, 2005 Courtesy of Wolfgang Winter and Barthold Holbert

The subtitle for the 2005 Yokohama Triennale is “Art Circus [Jumping from the Ordinary],” a label that aptly describes this massive exhibition camped near the city’s Yamashita Park. Bringing together 86 artists from 30 countries, the event is a chaotic art buffet that spreads over and out of two warehouse spaces. Every corner of its bare-bones industrial housing is covered with a free flow of ideas and artworks that feels as much like a stylish playground as it does an art event.

As part of a curatorial imperative to create opportunities for public participation in the project, numerous interactive works feature prominently throughout the exhibition. Several artists created installations that center around irreverent sports themes or absurdist café-like settings meant to pull visitors into their works. Yet in the pursuit of such user-friendliness, one notices an apparent lack—or perhaps outright avoidance—of anything palpably approaching shock or agitprop.

Among the show’s numerous entertaining offerings are Kyoto-based group Couma’s series of themed ping-pong tables and the KOSUGE1-16+Atelier Bow-Wow+YOKOCOM group’s near life-sized game of tabletop soccer. Others, like Thailand-based group ©uratorman Inc., offer a faux casino setting with several events planned to question traditional systems of displaying art and to create a connection between art and community.

Also present throughout the exhibit are a number of works by perennial international art-stars like Daniel Buren, who contributes circus flags along the entranceway and whose own “art circus” group, Buren Cirque cie Etokan, performed in the exhibition’s opening week. Yoshitomo Nara, working with Osaka-based collective GRAF, fills a corner of Warehouse No. 3 with Yokohama Seaside Tenement House (2005), an awkward house-like environment displaying his drawings and sculptures.

Other works, like Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Horbelt’s Kastenhaus 720.9—Yokohama Belvedere (2005), Pyuupiru’s Love Reincarnation (2001-05), and Takehito Koganezawa’s animation RGBY (2004), utilize both exotic and familiar materials to craft compelling works of fantasy. Filled with seductive lighting and computer-generated effects, these works resonate with instantly appealing sleekness.

KOSUGE1-16+Atelier Bow-Wow+YOKOCOM, Athletic Club No. 4 project, mixed-media, 2005 Andrew Conti

In contrast to this abundance of unusual materials and digital wizardry, it’s the less-assuming works that create the greatest impact. Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr’s visually humble video The Echo, one of the few political pieces in the show, is a potent and stirring call to action in the face of apathy. Likewise, Ingo Gunther’s unassuming light-box drawing, U (2005), and Guo Fengyi’s wildly psychedelic deities in Chinatown Fen Shui (2005) seemed to gather a sublime and pervading energy through sheer avoidance of any grand gestures.

In an era where the international art show has become a ubiquitous act of global belonging throughout the world (the past year featured at least eight exhibitions with the coveted -alle suffix), the curators of “Yokohama 2005” have struggled to create something both respectable to the art world and meaningful locally. Its highly consumable circus-like atmosphere, though thoroughly entertaining, remains a somewhat emotionally flat experience with the absence of any show-stealing moments. Yet the generous mix of interactive exhibitions, live performances and educational workshops ensures that, much like the theme parks its format evokes, one will need to visit several times to absorb the event’s varied offerings in their entirety.

Yamashita Pier No. 3 and No. 4 Warehouses, until Dec 18. See exhibition listings (other areas) for details.

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