昨日の続きです。
長谷川哲様の国際交流基金との関わりを示す過去の記録を再現させていただきます。
（2022年2月17日追記：(1)の記述について、長谷川様よりご指摘を受けましたので、時系列が前後して恐縮ですが、ここに本日付で訂正いたします。なお、インターネット上の音声を確認したところ、私には「ギュール」と聞こえましたが、現地にいらした長谷川様の表記では「ジュール市」となっています。長谷川様によると、「ハンガリーのジュール市立美術館での個展は国際交流基金の援助は受けていません。この時は確か野村国際財団の援助を受けたと思います」との由。記述が重複しますが、再度、経過を辿りますと、「2003年にエジプト国際版画トリエンナーレの審査員としてカイロに行きました。そこにハンガリーのジュール市立美術館の館長のJuriaさんが来ていました。シンポジームもありお互いに意見を述べました。彼女は僕を評価してくれたのでしょう、彼女がディレクターをしている展覧会に招待してくれました。それが縁でハンガリーとのお付き合いが始まりました。2005年にはその国際展において特別展という位置づけで私の個展が開催され、そこで講演もしたわけです。」とのことでした。以上、昨日時点で公表したブログ記事内容に齟齬がありましたことを、ここでお詫び申し上げます。）
(1) 2005年、ハンガリーのギュール市美術館での講演記録
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Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
2020年5月2日投稿
Lecture manuscript at Gyor City Museum in Hungary, 2005
Artist’s Creative Statement
Satoshi Hasegawa
I studied law and civil litigation in university, graduating in 1970. Nine years later I made the heady decision to give the life of an artist a try. This sudden decision was a serious issue for me, as all the artists of my generation had entered the fine arts field in the mid-1960s to 1970s, while I found myself with no connections whatsoever to the art community. In fact, only in the 1980s did I begin to establish contacts in the art world, which I believe to have contributed to my lingering detachment from the happenings in the art world.
Lacking any formal training in art, I turned to voracious reading to learn about post-war Japanese fine arts and arts knowledge from the 1960s and 70s. In addition, as all creative pursuits require certain technical skills, regardless of media, I relied entirely on my own explorations. My earliest silkscreens were learned from a book, even using tools I fashioned myself.. Still, one can only gain so much from books, so I made a lot of wrong turns along the road, and often went to the printing house seeking advice. Despite numerous setbacks during the process of self-exploration, looking back at those failures it is clear that I managed to learn a great deal.
Starting around May 1979, I tried my hand at assorted lines, making collages or recording my thoughts, and frequenting used bookstores as well. The used bookstores offered a lot of illustrated magazines, which I bought in large quantities. Referring to the pictures I reproduced collaged works, or painted over the pictures in the magazine pages with colored ink. For me this was all very natural, as I found the magazine pictures both real and beautiful. Our daily lives are surrounded by the images of photographs and television, yet I don’t find it unnatural at all; rather, I am strongly affected by the authenticity therein. The massive dissemination of imagery by capitalist society’s consumption mechanism reveals the environment in which the individual exists. Consequently, these images demand to be observed and investigated.
From the very beginning I made a very natural decision to forego the reproduction of any external objects in my art. More than strict depiction, my art is an attempt to interpret the meanings of many different images. The interpretation relies not on language, but on conscious and subconscious physical movement, placing the results of interpretation on a two-dimensional plane. The bombardment of images produced by the consumer society is intended to stimulate the consumption drive. Both a massive undertaking and the product of considerable brainpower, it is cleaver and ingenious, as these images often capture our mind s or even exert power to direct the ways in which we live. Consequently, with the development of the consumer society the role of fine arts-to create images-must take on different meaning.
The title of my debut work, dating from 1980, is Vision Path(fig.1), a work in which I was aware of the focus of my sight on the one hand and executed the vision in lines on the other hand. Naturally, this represents artistic thinking, as opposed to scientific thinking based upon so-called objective observation. Although the lines are related to the objects in my sights, but rather than “faithfully describing the object” they hint at the connections between subject and object. Further, the objects alluded to here are not living models but images seen in photographs or printed materials. For some time thereafter, I became absorbed in the production of silkscreens (figs.2-3).
During this period I also worked with photographs. Using different plates, my print works increased in complexity (figs. 4-6), yet achieved more direct expressive development.
Around 1985, in the search for more direct expression, I began working on a “light drawing” series (figs.7-9). For these, I would set up a camera across from the model in a completely dark room. From the camera, I then projected slide projector light through a pinhole on to the model.
Using this method resulted in zero diffusion of light, resulting in sharper apertures. The camera recorded the movements of light on the model’s body, and the objects in the light’s path were revealed. The extension of Vision Path, these works treated a woman’s body or other objects like a canvas, on which I painted. This series ultimately developed into a series of self portraits, finally concluding in 1995 (figs. 10-11).
The year 1996 marked a major turning point for me. That March I resigned from my teaching position, signifying my becoming a full-time artist. At this time I lost interest in participating in exhibitions at galleries or art museums, immersing myself instead in a climate completely devoid of art information. I would go to the library, thinking about certain things as I read (as odd as that might sound). I believe it was in October or November of that year that I had a certain dream. As that dream is related in a way to the HOME series on which I am still working I would like to recount that dream here:
In the dream a former colleague asks me to go and view some of his works. I enter a dark room with him. Three works stand in a row at the very front of the room. My eyes become transfixed on the works. Due to the lack of the light it is impossible to see them clearly, but they appear to show human faces. Moreover, these works are striking in their originality. In my dream, thinking that these works are “amazing” I began to feel a sense of jealousy. At this time, he mumbles to himself, “But there are other roads.” I take this to mean that there are other possibilities for my art.
This is where I woke up. The next year, 1997, I began working on my HOME series, which I continue to this day.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the dissolution of the Cold War order, many major changes have taken place in numerous ways around the world. Of course, the drastic changes in values have altered basic individual perceptions. In Japanese society, the end of the Cold War era and the bursting of the “bubble economy” brought about many changes in society and the unraveling of various value systems, so that people must face a vexing and most basic issue: how to preserve self-existence through self-consciousness.
My response to these convulsive social changes was to decide to leave the organizational unit of the university. Alone and unfettered, no longer going to art galleries or museums, I temporarily placed myself outside the environment of the art world, relinquishing the title of university professor in favor of unemployment. In this state, I began to appreciate how that title and the sense of responsibility that came with it had restricted my feel will. The late modern composer John Cage once had a brilliant dialogue with the late Japanese modern composer Toru Takemitsu, in which Cage likened artists to the unemployed. He said: “Unemployed means not being under the dominion of anyone. For an artist, this state is especially important. If you can attain this mental state, you can produce and obtain good inspiration.” This statement really knocked me out.
I felt as if I had been awakened from a long dream of many years. I started to re-evaluate and contemplate what people should live for. Including ourselves, we all appear in this visible world, or on society’s stage, where we go through all sorts of ordeals. Then one day we are about to exit the stage, and subsequently this visible world keeps carrying on is if nothing happened at all. I began to seriously ponder the fact that you and me, the earth, the grass and houses are just ephemeral blips in the ongoing march of time. With this understanding, I began to treat the things and scenes around me that I had previously overlooked from my art, and this helped bring about the genesis of the HOME series.
Broadly defined, “home” refers to one’s domicile, place of origin, and family. Every family home in my works has a distinguishing trait, that these homes were not placed in my works because they are just homes. These should be the vistas we see around us. I photograph the homes around me, and process the developed prints using other media. Then I scrape off the signs indicating where the homes are located, thereby removing the fixed nature of the “home,” and rendering it anonymous. Through this anonymity the homes in the pictures take on certain universality. For the viewer, it is “home itself,” while I see the “home phenomenon” through my connection with it, making it the object of contemplation of each viewer.
《写真》
中央：Director Julia.N.Meszalos
右：長谷川哲氏
左：通訳者
（転載終）
長谷川様のお考えは、1987年10月30日付朝日新聞夕刊（東海版）に掲載された以下の投稿文にも表れています。
(2) 1987年10月30日付朝日新聞夕刊（東海版）
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Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
2020年5月5日投稿
新聞への寄稿
「消費者社会でのアート
広告が溢れる日常 独自の視点どう設定」
1987年10月30日 朝日新聞(東海版・夕刊)
長谷川哲
ここわずかな年月の間に、各地に美術館が次々と開設された。そして、それらが様々な問題を抱えながらも、各種の大型の企画展やら公募展が積極的に開催されて、現在の日本の美術状況は活況を呈しているように見える。けれども当然の事ながら、美術館が増え、画廊が増えれば、日本の美術の質が向上する、というほど単純かつパラレルに事は運ばない。
芸術的営為は個人の内面に帰する事柄であり、物質的な環境面が整えば、それで芸術的主体の内面整備が出来るような性質のものではないからだ。現代美術の状況の中に身を於いている一人の作家として、内側を眺める限り、ここ何年間かの奇妙な停滞と生命力の低下は、恒常的な霧のように立ち込めて、それぞれの作家の内面は見通し不明のままに手探っている、というのが現実であるように感じられる。
しかし、このことは美術創作活動に携わる人々に特殊な問題なのではなく、私たちの現在の文化構造に密接な関連を持っていると考えられる。ここでは私たちの社会が現在、多極的に説明される中で、とりあえず「消費者社会」という側面に限定し、その中にアートを投げ込むことによって、この社会の中での美術表現活動について考えてみたい。
イメージ過剰社会
ここで言う消費者社会とは、生産効率が上がり、そこで剰余価値が独占ではなく、公平に分配されるにつれ、大衆が能動的な消費者となり、消費が文化の理想となるにつれ、それまでの社会と比べて様々な局面で質的変容をきたした社会、と意味しておく。
現在、私たちの社会の中では、日々、マスメディアを通じて、おびただしいイメージ(マスイメージ)が、商品広告という形で吐き出されている。消費者社会は、イメージ過剰社会でもあるわけだ。このイメージ過剰社会の中でのアートの反応の仕方を、米英など先発消費者社会の歴史のうえで見てみると、それに積極的に反応していったのが、日常的なイメージを積極的に主題として取り入れた「ポップアート」であり、もっともネガティブに反応したのが「ミニマルアート」であった。
この両者は消費者社会の中で、次々に生み出される魅惑的で、革新的なイメージの圧倒的な量にショックを受けたことを物語っている。商品の獲得が一部のエリートを意味する時代が去り、消費が社会全般に行き渡ったとき、マスイメージは単に商品の紹介にとどまらず、人々のライフスタイルを方向づけ、ひいては文化の方向づけにまで指導的役割を担うことになった。
そのとき、相対的にアートの持つイメージが社会の中で有効性を減少してゆき、「イメージ」というキーワードを中心に、ポップアートは積極的にマスイメージの取り込みを行い、ミニマルアートはイメージの否定の方向に動いたと考えてよいだろう。
アメリカのポップアートの先駆的引き金となった、イギリスの「インディペンダント・グループ」の一員、リチャード・ハミルトンは自分のポップアートについて、「簡単に忘れられ、大衆的であり、制作費が安く、大量生産ができ、セクシーであり、そして大儲（もう）け出来ること」といった言葉で定義している。
精神の自由を確証
これらの定義は、殆ど現在の商品広告そのものにオーバーラップする。それではポップアートは、マスイメージと同列なのだろうか。それは単に商品広告から商品説明のコピー文を剥（は）ぎ取っただけなのだろうか。私は決してそうではないと考える。
彼の作品を見れば、そこには醒（さ）めた距離とでもいうべき感覚を見て取ることができる。
大儲けできるといっても、よもや自分の作品をレディーメードと同一視し、消費さるべきものと考えたわけではあるまい。消費という生命過程を離れて社会を見つめたが故に、社会そのものが客体化されたのであり、他の人々もそれを通して自分が投げ入れられている社会を客体化することが出来たと考えられる。
美術家は作家である以前に、社会に同時的に投げ入れられている存在である。その於かれた社会と時代の中で、まずもって自分自身の精神の自由を確証するために内省し、思考し、それを物化するという活動がある。そうだとすれば、ポップアートの作家たちがマスメディアの産みだす日常的なイメージを、あるときはほぼそのままの形で、あるいは叉それを用いて別の文脈に置き換えるといった形で、時の社会に積極的に反応していったのは、むしろ素直な展開であったと思われる。
私たちの消費者社会が持続的に拡大し、その中で人々が物そのものの所有にではなく、物のシンボルの所有にリアリティーを感じ、そのシンボル連鎖で各々（おのおの）が世界を構成してゆくとすれば、そこでの世界は物の所有を目指しながら、むしろ物の基板を離れ、各々が自分自身の無意識を投影した流動的世界の集合体へ変容してゆくかもしれない。
作家の内部を侵食
それが社会の中で一層共通項をなくすることだとすれば、作家個人もまた社会的空間の内部にリアリティーを見出すことが出来ず、一層自閉的空間の中に陥る危険性が存在する。加えて潜在的欲望を掘り起こすために、映像メディアなどを通じて、私たちの無意識領域へ働きかける方向でイメージが多用されることになれば、マスイメージの側からのアートの積極的な取り込みがさらに進み、両者の境界はより曖昧（あいまい）になるだろう。
このようにして、この消費者社会の中では、アートが実に多様で多彩な展開を示すにもかかわらず、マスイメージとの関連で絶えずその「自立性」が脅かされることになるのである。
マスイメージは常に現在を演出し、社会を変容させてゆくであろうが、社会そのものを問題にし、見据える地点には立ち得ないと私は考える。アートは、マスイメージとの不可避的な相互交渉の中で、それと異なった視点の場をどのように設定するかが今後の重要な課題であり、それはまた、この不可解な現代社会をいかにつかみ取るか、ということにほかならない。
（転載終）
英文もあります。
(3) Contributions to newspapers
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Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
2020年5月5日投稿
Art in a Consumer Society
How to set up a unique perspective on the daily flood of ads
October 30, 1987 Asahi Newspaper (Tokai edition, evening edition)
Satoshi Hasegawa
In just a few short years, museums have been opened all over the country. In spite of these problems, the situation of art in Japan today seems to be booming, with a variety of large-scale exhibitions and public exhibitions being actively held. However, of course, it is not so simple and parallel as to say that more museums and galleries will improve the quality of art in Japan.
This is because artistic work is a matter attributed to the personal innermost being, and it is not of a nature that can improve the innermost being of an artistic subject once the material environment is in place. As an artist in the context of contemporary art, as far as I can see from the inside, the strange stagnation and declining vitality of the past few years seems to me to be a constant fog, with each artist’s inner life groping around with an unknown outlook.
However, this is not a particular problem for those involved in art creation, and it seems to be closely related to our current cultural structure. While our society is currently being explained in a multipolar manner, I have limited myself to the aspect of “consumer society” for the time being, and by throwing art into this aspect, I have considered art expression activities within this society.
society with an overactive image
The consumer society here means a society that has undergone qualitative changes in various aspects compared to previous societies as the masses have become active consumers and consumption has become an ideal of culture as production efficiency has increased and surplus value is distributed fairly rather than monopolized.
Today, in our society, an abundance of images (mass images) are spewed out in the form of product advertisements through the mass media on a daily basis. The consumer society is also an image overload society. If we look at the way art has responded to this image overload in the history of consumer societies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the one that has responded positively is “pop art,” which positively incorporates everyday images as its subject matter, and the one that has responded most negatively is “minimal art.
Both speak to the shock of the overwhelming amount of captivating, innovative images being produced one after the other in our consumer society. When the era in which the acquisition of goods meant the acquisition of some elites has passed, and consumption has spread throughout society, the mass image has gone beyond the introduction of goods to play a leading role in orienting people’s lifestyles and, by extension, culture.
At that time, the image of art became relatively less effective in society, and with the keyword “image” at the center, Pop Art actively incorporated mass images, while Minimal Art moved in the direction of denial of images.
Richard Hamilton, a member of the British Indy Pendant Group, a pioneering trigger for American pop art, defined his pop art as “easily forgotten, popular, inexpensive, mass-producible, sexy, and lucrative”.
Confirmation of mental freedom.
These definitions almost overlap with current product advertising itself. So is pop art on a par with mass imagery? Is it simply a ripped-off copy of the product description from the product advertisement? I think that is never the case.
If you look at his work, you can see a sense of enlightened distance.
Even though he could make a lot of money, he did not equate his work with ready made and consider it to be for consumption. It is thought that society itself has been objectified because it has left the life process of consumption and looked at society, and other people have been able to objectify the society in which they are thrown through it.
Before being a writer, an artist is a being who is simultaneously thrown into society. In this society and age, the first activity is to reflect, think, and materialize in order to affirm one’s own spiritual freedom. If that is the case, it seems to me that the Pop Art artists reacted positively to the society of the time by taking the everyday images produced by the mass media and replacing them with other contexts, sometimes almost as they were, and sometimes as they were.
If our consumer society is expanding continuously, and people feel the reality of owning the symbols of things rather than the possession of the things themselves, and each person composes the world with the chain of symbols, then the world there, aiming at the possession of the things, may leave the substrate of the things rather than the possession of the things, and be transformed into a collection of fluid worlds in which each person projects his or her own unconsciousness.
Encroaching on the writer’s inner workings
If this means that there is no more commonality in society, then there is also the danger that the individual artist will not be able to find reality inside the social space and will fall further into an autistic space. In addition, if images are used extensively in the direction of working on our unconscious realm through visual media and the like in order to unearth latent desires, there will be more active incorporation of art from the side of the mass image, and the boundary between the two will become more ambiguous.
Thus, in this consumer society, art’s “independence” is constantly threatened in relation to its mass image, even though it represents a very diverse and varied development.
I believe that mass images will always produce the present and transform society, but they will never be able to stand on the ground of looking at society itself as a problem. In the inevitable mutual negotiation with the mass image, an important issue for art is how to set up a field of different perspectives, and how to seize this enigmatic contemporary society.
（End）
もう一つ、日英両文の随筆があります。キーワードは、「読書、対話、夢」でしょうか。
(4) 「HOME」シリーズの由来
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Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
2020年4月23日投稿
HOME Series
私の友人に岩田正人という人がいた。惜しくもまだ若かった時に亡くなった。彼は自分の家に伝わる古美術を展示した「岩田洗心館」の館長をしていた。訪れる客は少なく、彼は毎日読書に明け暮れていた。1996年に私は私が教えていた大学を辞めてフリーになった。そしてその年の一年間は僕は岩田氏の博物館に通い続けた。私たちは、様々なことについて話し合った。延べにすると年間50回以上の対話になったのではなかろうか。長い時には私たちは10時間以上にわたる長時間話をしたのである。岩田氏は、博学でもあったが、ジャック・ラカンの研究者でもあった。
彼は格別西洋哲学を勉強していたが、同時に日本の禅にも精通していた。もちろん美術に対してもよき理解者であった。
おそらく私は彼との対話を通じて、自己分析をしていた。かなり心の深いところで。主に私たちは西洋哲学、心理学、芸術を通してはなしをしていた。岩田氏は僕の話にじっと耳を傾けて、慎重で的確な答えを返してくれた。そしてその年の暮れだったろうか、私は象徴的な夢を見た。夢の中で友人が自分の絵が出来たので私に見てほしいと言う。それで私は彼と一緒に、ある部屋に行った。私たちは扉を開けると壁に3枚の絵が縦にかけられている。やや薄暗いその部屋の中で私は目を凝らして絵を見つめた。顔が描かれているように思われた。そしてその絵が非常に深く本質を描いているように感じられて、夢の中で私の心に彼に嫉妬する感情が生まれた。けれども彼はぽつんとつぶやいた。「まだ他の道がある」
むしろそちらの道のほうが良いのだという雰囲気が夢の中で感じた。
それから間もなく私は「HOME」シリーズを始めることになった。
（転載終）
One of my friends was Masato Iwata. Unfortunately, he died when he was still young. He was the director of “Iwata Senshinkan,” which exhibited antique art transmitted to his home. There were few visitors, and he devoted himself to reading every day. In 1996 I quit the college I was teaching and became free. And for the whole year, I continued to visit Mr. Iwata’s museum. We talked about various things. I think the total number of dialogues was more than 50 times a year. On some days we had more than 10 hours of discussion. Mr. Iwata was both a learned man and a researcher of Jack Lacan.
While studying exceptional Western philosophy, he was also familiar with Japanese Zen. Of course, he was a good understanding of art.
Perhaps I was doing a self-analysis through dialogue with him. In a very deep heart. Mostly we talked about Western philosophy, psychology, and art. Mr. Iwata listened carefully to my story and gave a careful and accurate answer. And maybe at the end of the year, I had a symbolic dream. In a dream, a friend made a picture of himself and asked me to see it. So I went to a room with him. When we open the door, three pictures are hung vertically on the wall. In the slightly dim room, I squinted and stared at the picture. The face seemed to be drawn. And it felt like the painting was so deep and essence that in my dreams my heart was jealous. But he mumbled. “There is still another way”
I felt the vibe in my dream that it would be better to go that way.
Shortly thereafter, I started the “HOME” series.
（End）
(5) 長谷川様とのフェイスブック交信で知り得た、2001年と2003年のエジプト・カイロでの個展批評の詳細を以下に。
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Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
《写真》
2001年、カイロのゲジーラアートセンターでの個展（国際交流基金カイロ事務所、エジプト文化省、ゲジーラ・アートセンター主催）
記者会見の写真：左から国際交流基金カイロ事務所所長、遠藤直氏、台湾のダンサーJessie Fan Koさん、
長谷川様、ゲジーラアートセンター館長
（注：2020年5月2日付投稿から、ユーリによる写真説明。文意を変えずに、語句を一部変更）
2001年と2003年のカイロでの展覧会の様子が記されています。
（https://www.facebook.com/Page-of-Work-introductionSatoshi-Hasegawa-104177617943118/?modal=admin_todo_tour）
Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
2020年5月2日投稿
Criticism of a solo exhibition catalog in Cairo, 2001
East Asia’s New Spirit of Representing the Idea
written by Chu Ko, Art Critic and Painter, Taiwan
Satoshi Hasegawa’s ‘Home’ series has the following features:
1.It evokes the 10,000-years-old traditional culture of Europe-microcosm of decadence and rebirth.
2.Poised between motion and stasis, void and substance, it is suffused with the philosophical thought that underlies East Asian art to a concept derived from traditional Chinese painting, namely, that the artist represents his idea of the subject, not its external reality.
(1) Throughout his career, Satoshi Hasegawa has incorporated photographic media into his art. Photographic media into his art. Photographic technology originated in societies whose tradition of painting is realistic, as part of an ongoing quest to reproduce the principles of nature ever more faithfully, more economically, and instantaneously.
To put this another way, photography is a product of science. Science itself could be characterized as ‘visual experience governed by principles of realism’. It is a logic generated according to principles of proportion. In a quest that encompasses both the arts and the sciences, Europeans have spent over 16,000 years seeking more accurate ways of representing physical reality. The process of cultural maturation that began with the Renaissance led to the ‘Triumph of European civilization'; realistic painting matured as part of this process, together with art education.
Eventually, the quest led to the invention of a time-and labour-saving device for producing realistic images: the camera.
It was this very success of realism that ultimately caused the collapse of the Western tradition of realistic painting. Why spend a lifetime busily drawing still lives, figures, and, and landscapes, if the camera can reproduce reality with a click of the shutter? The recognition that there was no need for artists to do what the camera could do better gave rise to the antitraditional modernist movement.
Today, barely a century later , modernism is still very new compared to the Western tradition, or to realism with its 16,000 – year history. The painters who turned against the European realist tradition were influenced not only by photography, but also by primitive sculpture, and by the culture of ‘representing the idea’ which had developed in East Asia. In the years since the realist tradition was destroyed, European painting has had no alternative but no depend on modernism for its rebirth. It will take another five to ten centuries before it becomes clear what was gained and what was lost thereby, but to depend on modernism for its rebirth.
Satoshi Hasegawa’s artworks have their basis in photography.
He takes a photographic negative and uses engraving tools to scrape away much of the image and then add new lines, until he has eliminated the elements of vagueness that were present in the actual scene. In this way, he infuses new life into it. The value of Hasegawa’s originality quickly becomes apparent.
His prints are made by photographing scenery, then scraping away parts of the image to produce a new work. One could almost say that each finished work has retraced the history of art through the ages, from the times of ancient Greeks, or even from the time of Cro-Magnon Man, tens of thousands of years ago.
(2) The ancient Greeks established the science of logic under the influence of visual experience that lay within the European cultural tradition of realism.
Positivism, the natural sciences, and evolutionary theory followed. Photography is simply one of the offshoots of logic.
In contrast to the European tradition of realism, or the representation of external reality, East Asia has produced a culture of ‘representing the idea’.
On the East Asian mainland, where that culture originated, there is a form of plastic art based on knocked cords. Prehistoric Japan, too, had its cord-marked Jomon pottery. The Chinese word for ‘cord'(Sherng)is quite similar in pronunciation to the word for ‘god'(Shern). The important point here is that this term refers not to a transcendent god in heaven, but to an object of worship that was symbolized in the human world by the cord (or snake) motif, in a process also known as Fong Shen or deification. ‘God’, in the broadest sense of the term, is thus an artistic and idealized plastic form in the world of human activity.
To East Asians, the earliest artworks were ‘god-woks’. By scraping away and engraving lines into scenes reproduced on film, Hasegawa has breathed new life into them.
The spirit of those cultures whose art represents the idea of a thing rather than its external reality is expressed in such illogical formulae as ‘Being arises from nonbeing’, ‘ A way that cannot be a way’ , ‘Alike in appearance, unlike in nature’, ‘Meaning beyond words’, ‘ Action amid stillness’, ‘Truth in falseness’. The artist of these cultures do not depict objects perse. A painting of a waterlily, for example, depicts the purity and tranquility with which the lily rises from the mud.
Artists influenced by East Asia’s culture of ‘representing the idea’ cannot fully accept objective realist art. By photographing a scene and then scraping the negative and engraving lines into it, leaving mere traces of a roof, a window, a shadow, Hasegawa creates something that is ‘ like in appearance, unlike in nature’. Such ‘false resemblances’ are the principle at the heart of the I Ching.
Hasegawa takes realistic representations of scenes and, with his engraving tools, makes them less clearly reflective of reality. His is a quintessentially East Asian aesthetic: ‘Being resembles nonbeing, and ‘Meaning beyond words’.
The engraving is done with a sense of speed resembling that of the Earth’s rotation, so that the viewer feels as if he is riding in a train or car. The lines are of many kinds-thick and thin, scattered and dense. With their intense, lively motion, they call to the photographic images of buildings and natural features to wake up. ‘Come on,’ they cry, ‘the new century is here!’
(3) The countertradition of European modern art is not rooted in the Western tradition. Modern art would probably never have come into existence without colonialism, for 18th-century Western colonialists brought back African sculpture, Indian totem poles, Polynesian weaving, and finely detailed East Asian artworks which represented the idea of the subjects. The invention of photography added a further stimulus. The art capitals of Europe were astounded by the array of plastic arts that existed in the world, each with its own vitality and philosophical depth.
Herein lie the true roots of modern art,. Few other theories of its origins have been able to provide more than a partial explanation which fails to address the essence of the question.
Although modern art and the East Asian plastic arts are different in form, the spirit of ‘representing the idea’ is common to them both. It was only with the rise of modern art that the spirit of East Asian culture came to be known in the West, but its influence has been good. Having been ruled for too long by realism’s objectivisation of nature, Europeans tend to think of themselves as the center.
The artist’s self-awakening is fundamental to the culture of ‘representing the idea’. Instead of merely copying the subject or providing visual gratification, the painter expresses his spirit or that of the subject as he conceives it. In the agricultural societies of East Asia, this expression of spirit is typified by the poetic sentiment seen in landscape paintings. For example, in rendering bamboo, the bamboo to express human emotions and poetic associations, such as a sense of detachment, an awareness of the season, or the feeling of a cool breeze. East Asian landscape painters do not depict actual scenery; they paint a mental state-perhaps a contemplative mood inspired by the mountains’ depths, or a feeling of losing oneself in admiration of an ever-changing vista of dark ravines
In a similarly associative state of mind, but one suited to the 20th century or the contemporary era, Hasegawa expresses ‘likeness in appearance, unlikeness in nature’ in his prints by reshaping landscapes; that already have a fixed form. They don’t behave as one would expect of landscapes; they sing songs of praise which unite self and subject amid truth and falseness, motion and stillness.
There is much that future artists can learn from the principles of ‘representation of the idea’ in East Asia’s modern art, as demonstrated by Satoshi Hasegawa
(together with the region’s other outstanding modern artists). An artist who bases his work on Western photographic technology has developed original modern prints by adopting anew the spirit of ‘representing the idea’. That East Asian spirit can accommodate many more artists -including you, perhaps? Each of the various trends of modern art, such as installations, abstraction, or antipictorial art, has a pre-existing theoretical standpoint. But trends that originate in a theoretical position generally become a trap and an obstacle to artists, holding back the genesis of new art. Only the East Asian spirit of ‘representing the idea’ allows artists to create as they please, without any constraints.
East Asia’s alternative to realism can lead to possibilities for creative work that is active, vital, and liberated. It allows us to envision a world of truly free art, and a still brighter future for humanity.
These impressions are offered as an introduction to the world of Satoshi Hasegawa’s prints, a world of ‘representing the spirit’.
（End）
（https://www.facebook.com/Page-of-Work-introductionSatoshi-Hasegawa-104177617943118/?modal=admin_todo_tour）
Page of Work introduction, Satoshi Hasegawa
2020年5月2日投稿
Lecture manuscript at the 2003 symposium in Cairo
The print design as contemporary method of social communication
Satoshi Hasegawa
We are a social existence and are closely related to social changes. Since art is not a separated and isolated existence within society, it also is influenced by social changes.
When we discuss the theme of this symposium, we must look back and think about history. What comes to mind first is the tremendous development mass media made within the mass society of the 20th century. This is the era in which product consumption spread from a privileged class to include the general public. This was in the late 1940’s. In the history of art, if we look at the so-called era of “pop art” within art history, this movement started in independent groups in England, but truly blossomed in the United States.
It is safe to say the characteristics of the mass media are its tremendous funds and the group of experts who gather and think hard to link consumers with products. The mainstream mass media at the time was graph magazines, and seductive advertisements and images flooded the pages. As a result, the image of art started losing its appeal.
This is when artists split into two sides against mass images: one confirming mass images and the other denying them. Pop art confirmed these mass images while minimalism denied them. Of course, this is a very rough generalization, but consider this as an introduction to this Symposium’s theme. I would like to show how art and social changes are closely related.
The society we currently facing could be called the era of informational revolution and the era of globalization, which are closely interlinked and which started to stand out in the latter half of the 20th century. The development of the digital techniques is really astonishing. Nowadays, we can take a picture with a home-use digital camera, and we can digitally edit the picture with a computer. The quality of the image does not drop because the editing is done digitally. The evolution of the hardware is amazing. Today, individuals can take high-quality pictures, add music and edit all by themselves. I have a hunch that, perhaps from now on, multi media contents will consist of many good moves produced on an individual level. As a result, many personal movies will be produced.
Let’s compare the digital picture as a stationary picture with prints made with conventional media and think about the differences.
First, I will show you some slides.
These images are based on Fractal mathematics invented by French mathematician, Dr. Mandel Blow. This piece was created by a Japanese artist Kiyoshi Iwata, and it is based on his own algorithm. He claimed that he applied rigorous mathematical principles to this picture. I think this picture is very beautiful from the standpoint of the art as well. We can say this image is attainable only with digital means because we cannot create this with our hands, and cannot even imagine the results.
We can raise the lack of corporeality as a shortcoming of the digital pictures.
What I mean by the lack of corporeality is whatever we create, either a woodblock paint, a copperplate engraving, or a lithograph, we directly get involved with wood, copper or rock and we use our hands to draw lines on them. In other words, artist’s thoughts are conveyed through a body part called the hands, and emerge in various ways as a collaboration of wood, copper or rocks. Therefore, artist’s corporeality appears.
On the contrary, digital pictures are a media with which it is very difficult to express this corporeality.
When we look at it this way, there aren’t a whole lot of images that can be expressed only digitally. In the future, image made with a computer and print art created by incorporating processed images into traditional media is sure to increase. On the other hand, just like the fractal picture I have shown, I think work simply created by drawing the image with the computer following an algorithm will develop in a separate field. In fact, this is already being called “algorithm art”.
Let’s think about the diversification of media and the fluctuation in the concept of print art next. Because of the diversification of the media, produced will also be diverse. It is so diverse; for example, photocopy machine, digital printer, photographs, or combination of these. Whether we should include these plane works in the concept of prints is an issue. In my opinion, the point is whether the work must pass through a medium, or whether the work attains a uniqueness when passed through a medium.
When creating work with new media, acknowledgement of the necessity of media processing is sure to be the merkmal (landmark) of print art. For example, if a piece is created with photographs, and the negatives are thought of as the print’s plate, I do not think that we can consider this to be a print just because multiple prints can be made.
My work that won the grand prize at International Print Triennale in Egypt was a combination of drawings and photographs.
*Work Slides
I have a hard time accepting the reality of photographs in the original state, so I created this piece by adding drawings. * (Slide 1) Here are the original photographs. * (Slide 2) Here is the piece created by adding drawings.
Mr. Chu KO, a Taiwanese artist whom I admire, pointed out the subconscious impulse that existed in me when he saw my work. He said, “people, who grew up with an East Asian aesthetic feeling, cannot accept the reality of photographs.” According to him, the essence of East Asia’s aesthetic feeling and its reality is to reflect “will” in the work. He, then named my work “New Picture-Will Art.” I deeply pay my respects to the panel of judges who acknowledged and highly valued my work as print art.
I would like to think about the influence of globalization on individual consciousness. Although the word, “globalization,” already existed in the 1980s, it was at the Economic Summit held in Lyon in 1996 that “globalization” was confirmed to be decisively important for the future of world economics. Though people seemed to begin to talk about the globalization as the solution to problems mainly in the economic field, I would like to think about the problems globalization causes in terms of culture, and I would like to question the future role of art.
In terms of economy, “globalization” aims to allow funds and people to come and go freely, by establishing an economic activity structure and set a global standard for these activities so as to make the world one big economic market. This in turn forces a country’s structure, customs, and even culture to be standardized on a global level.
When I think instinctively about the situation of the world to which this idea will lead, I feel a great danger. I think there is a risk of banishing distinctive cultural styles that exist on earth. I think the world is better off when filled with diversity.
Individual egos are a complex existence deeply connected to their own thought forms, aesthetic feeling, and spatial awareness shaped by cultural spheres over a long period of time. If globalization is an inevitable stream that progresses worldwide, individuals will internally experience a breakup between the surface of conscience and the cultural distinctiveness that remains within subconscious in rapid social changes. In fact, this problem is not unique to the globalization era. This is the problem Japan had in the Meiji era, in which Japan had to modernize, and has had ever since. I think that this can be said not only for Japan but also for all over Asia where countries had to modernize after other cultures.
We have taken a general view of the new media produced within rapid social changes we face today, various images resulting from this new media, and their characteristics.
In such era, what roles can our print art play as a method of social communication? What I would like to point out first is that the image produced with new media emerging in each era cannot be a superior image just because the media that produced the image is new.
The important issue is that whichever media an artist uses, how deeply he can think in the relation to the media. Before he is an artist, the artist is a person who is thrown to the same time and space and exists. Within the era or the society he belongs to, recognize his own existence, social or world problems as his own problems with the instincts as an artist, and then creates an image in relation with the media. If that can be accomplished, the image will send, to the people living in the same era, a message from other dimensions that cannot be provided through a mass image.
In turn, the image that art produces, will have depth and a mysterious element, and will carry the meaning as a text.
（End）
最後に、二日前と今日、長谷川様から個人的にいただいたメッセージを私がリライトしたものを、以下に掲載させていただきます。それにより、民主党政権の国際交流基金に対する事業仕分けが如何に馬鹿げたものであったか、十数年後の今、判別ができるのではないでしょうか。
・2001年の長谷川様のエジプトでの個展は、国際交流基金カイロ事務所が主催したものだった。換言すると、その後の事業仕分けで事業制限や経費削減が求められたため、海外事務所主催事業は極めて困難になった。実質的に、あれが最後だったと言えよう。
・経緯を辿ると、2000年の一月だったか、突然ファックスがエジプト文化省から届いた。内容は、長谷川様が「トリエンナーレでグランプリを受賞したので表彰式に招待する」というものだった。カイロの日本大使館にファックスで問い合わせをすると、確かに「グランプリを受賞した」という返事が届いた。賞金はトロフィーの送付などもあるので、以後、国際交流基金カイロ事務所に引き継ぐとあった。その後、基金事務所から連絡があり、やり取りが始まり、「今回の受賞が歴史的な記念すべきものであるので、記念の展覧会を企画したいがどうか」との問い合わせがあった。もちろん承諾。出来るだけインパクトのある展覧会にするべく、台湾のダンサーとのコラボも取り入れ、「東洋からの緑の風」というタイトルにした。
・台湾には打ち合わせで2回ほど行ったが、台湾でも大きな話題になった。
・この展覧会は実に大きなインパクトを与えた。その結果、2002年のアレキサンドリアでの世界最古の図書館の復元事業（ユネスコが中心）、その完成記念の展覧会、Imagining the bookでアジア地区のコーディネーターの長谷川様への依頼、そして2003年の国際版画トリエンナーレの審査委員長の委嘱、と続いた。
・台湾在住５０年の日本人の友人の紹介で台北で会った美術家は、台湾の現代美術の第一世代であり、台湾美術界を作ってきた一人の重鎮であるソカ（Chu Ko）さん。亡くなった時、葬儀には李登輝さんが出席された。
・ソカ（Chu Ko）さんは、「東アジアの美意識の中で育った人間にとっては写真のリアリズムをそのまま受け取るのは難しい」と言った。だが、長谷川様の作品は「意を写すという水墨の精神を体現している」と言った。そして、「新写意芸術」と名付けてくれた。
（以上、加筆訂正を施した抜粋引用終）
日本の美術家が、国内よりも海外でむしろ高く評価され、台湾との協力も得て、エジプトで三年連続、影響力を及ぼした背景には、かつての国際交流基金の尽力があったということです。
付け加えさせていただきますと、私は2015年春、ダニエル・パイプス氏が率いた中東フォーラムの研修旅行でイスラエルのネゲブを訪問しましたが、途中で英語圏の参加者と一緒にヨルダンのペトラも観光しました（https://itunalily.hatenablog.com/entry/20150810）。ここの観光地化の整備は、日本の三菱が関与しており、石碑が立っていました。
このように、日本の底力、日本人の能力の高さと他国への貢献度には目を見張るものがあり、中東でも私は確かに感じることができました。その特質はイスラエルのユダヤ系の人々も承認しており、テルアビブやエルサレムでも、「日本人は賢い」と、わざわざ私に言ってくださった方々もいました。我々の先祖の弛みない努力と遺産によるものだと、私は感謝しております。
以上、イデオロギーや近視眼的思考で、我が国の誇るべき文化を破壊することの愚かしさと危険性を、私がかつてお世話になった国際交流基金を題材に、ここ三日間のブログで考察いたしました。
末筆で誠に恐縮ながら、長谷川哲様には、このような省察の機会を与えていただき、重ねまして感謝申し上げます。
PS：ただ今いただいたメッセージによれば、長谷川哲様のいとこ様が、私と同じ高校卒だそうです。以前、長谷川様から「〇〇高校卒ですか？」と尋ねられたことを覚えています。これも何かのご縁だと思います。
…………….
2023年5月5日追記：
（https://www.facebook.com/satoshi.hasegawa.1420）
2023年5月4日投稿
ユーリ：長谷川様、お誕生日おめでとうございます。
長谷川 哲：ユーリさん、メッセージをありがとうございます。77歳になったのです。医学の進歩は有難いもので、私はすでに2回にわたって命を長らえました。今後寿命は限りなく100歳に近づくでしょうね。長く生きて日々の喜びを感じ、未知という世界に思いをはせることはやはり素晴らしいと思います。
ユーリ：ご丁寧なお返事、誠にありがとうございます。どうぞ、末長くお健やかに….。
（2023年5月5日転載終）
………….
2023年5月24日追記：
下記の名古屋市千種区にある「ちくさ正文館書店」は、私の母方祖母の家の近くです。一度だけ、学生時代に本を買ったことがあります。（ユーリ記）
（https://www.outermosterm.com/hasegawa-satoshi2023-shobunkan/?fbclid=IwAR02DZpqzcXONJJ2pRDth1_AZ58Mc4VBpA0AjGuBRflMe39dIQZN1JowDFA）
長谷川哲 ちくさ正文館書店本店 2023年5月4-25日
2023年5月13日
井上 昇治
1964年、名古屋市生まれ。1989年、新聞社に就職。2002年10月、名古屋で芸術批評誌REARを有志で立ち上げ、2011年頃まで編集。2019年６月にWEBサイトOutermostNAGOYAを始めた。
長谷川哲さんは1946年、愛知県稲沢市生まれ。1970年に慶応大学法学部を卒業。1979年から創作をしている。
1988年、名古屋市芸術奨励賞受賞。現代日本美術展などでの受賞歴も多く、2000年には、第3回エジプト国際版画トリエンナーレでグランプリを獲得している。
2002年には、稲沢市荻須記念美術館で「INAZAWA・現在・未来展(5) 長谷川哲・三輪美津子」が開催された。2019年にギャラリーA・C・S（名古屋）で開かれた個展のレビューも参照。
長谷川哲さんの作品は、風景などを撮ったモノクロ写真のイメージを素材に、荒々しいストロークのような痕跡によって加工した作品などが知られる。イメージ、あるいは意味の世界と、おびただしい線の関係が、長谷川さんの作品では注目されるところである。
つまり、ストロークの線の向こうには、かき消された世界＝イメージがあった。そうして消えたイメージと、侵食され、分断され、孤絶化されつつも残るイメージの断片が、強く、現代の混迷、孤独を浮かび上がらせる。
言葉から、あるいは言葉に向けて
今回、長谷川さんは、F3のキャンバスにドローイングをした13点を画廊空間ではなく、書店の中に展示している。
最初、筆者は、作品が書店内の小部屋のような空間に壁掛けしてあるのかと、勝手に思い込み、作品を探したが、見つけることができなかった。
書店の人に聞いて分かったのだが、作品は、本に交じって、書店の各所に1点ずつちりばめるように展示してある。
作品のサイズが本や雑誌の大きさと、さほど変わらないこともあって、紛れ込んでいるのが面白い。
最初、筆者は、作品が書店内の小部屋のような空間に壁掛けしてあるのかと、勝手に思い込み、作品を探したが、見つけることができなかった。
書店の人に聞いて分かったのだが、作品は、本に交じって、書店の各所に1点ずつちりばめるように展示してある。
作品のサイズが本や雑誌の大きさと、さほど変わらないこともあって、紛れ込んでいるのが面白い。
陳列棚に並んだ本の表紙の間に立て掛けてあるかと思えば、平置きされていたり、レジの付近に忍ばせてあったりと、探して歩くのが楽しいのである。
筆者は、あらかじめ、長谷川さんの作品を見る目的で書店を訪れたが、知らずに来た人はまた違う印象をもつだろう。
作品は、黒地に、這うような白の細線がぎっしり引かれたドローイングである。
長谷川さんによると、この作品は、言葉の機能を離れていくような考え方で制作されている。一見、横書きの文字のようにも見えるが、無軌道な線は意味内容の世界を離脱し、線は線でしかない。
どの言語にせよ、文字は、点や線の組み合わせで記号化され、意味内容を伝えるが、長谷川さんの作品は、それを攪乱するような線の連なりである。
本は、情報伝達、表現のためのメディアであり、電子媒体がどれだけ進化しようとも、人類にとって欠かすことのできない手段であり続けている。
この書店のさまざまな分野の専門書のタイトルを見るだけで、日々、どれだけ多くの、世界への解釈、記録、伝達、表現がなされているのかと思う。
線がランダムに、繊細にかかれたオールオーバーな小品。この充実した書店は、意味と解釈の世界で生きる人間世界の象徴でもあろう。長谷川さんの作品は、そんな書店に不意に現れた、意味の空洞である。
最後までお読みいただき、ありがとうございます。（井上昇治）
（2023年5月24日転載終）
