西成田 洋子の作品：多元宇宙の結節点
小泉 晋弥
Works by Yoko Nishinarita: Nodal Points of the Multiverse
Shinya Koizumi, Art Critic, Professor Emeritus at Ibaraki University
水戸の Gallery Cielの個展で、西成田洋子のフェイク・ファーと組み合わされた小品を目にしたとき、意外な印象を受けた。筆者はそれまで、力強さ、エネルギッシュな造形力など、彼女の作品から作家として素材を統御する膂力を感じ取っていた。どんな素材であろうとも、その手にかかればたちまち変化して、西成田洋子の作品の一部に組み込まれてしまう。「ミダス王の手」のように、ガラクタを黄金に変える手。それは、ちょうどピカソがオブジェを作品に組み込むときのように、ガラクタを取りまとめて一つの宇宙を創造する、絶対の創造主としての作者の姿を思わせた。渾沌と見える作品宇宙に、西成田洋子という自我が君臨する…。どうやらそんなイメージは間違っていたようだ。
フェイク・ファーは、もらってきた（？）そのままの状態で作品に収まっていた。これは、オブジェトゥルヴェ（発見物）、レディメイド（既製品）ということではないか。この作品の半分は、彼女が格闘するように素材を制御しているのに、半分は、見つけてきたオブジェをそのまま付け足しただけではないか。彼女はシュルレアリスト・ダダイストだったのか？西成田洋子の作品を説明するには、横文字の言葉ではなんだかしっくりこない。
今回の作品の素材である紅白の幔幕は、東日本大震災後、知人の蔵の片付けの際に出てきたものだという。この幕は、慶事のたびに、背中側から小さな歴史を目撃し続けてきたのだろう。それを捨てるに忍びないという感覚が彼女を制作に向かわせた。新作なのに、数十年前の歴史的遺物のように見えるのは、すでに歴史がそこに染み込んでいるからに違いない。この作品の圧倒的な存在感は、西成田の造形力が半分、あとの半分は素材の背負っている歴史にあるのだろうか。
歴史ー物語が作品の中で重要な位置を占めるというのは、モダニズムの原則におよそ反する事態である。絵画なら画面の色彩と形態の位置関係がもたらす効果に集中し、彫刻なら素材そのものからヴォリュームを引き出し、空間を対峙させることによって作品として自律させる。これがモダニズムの原則である。たとえば、フランク・ステラの立体は、葉巻の煙や海水浴用の帽子を原形として使っている。特別の意味もない、ありふれた形を変形していくことで、見るものは作品から「文学的」意味よりも、「視覚的」意味を受けとる。文学のことは文学に任せ、美術は美術がやるべきことに精進する。これがモダニズムの生きる道だ…。しかし、そんな原則に律儀に従えば、官僚の縦割り行政のようにして、美術をやせ細ったものにしてしまうのではないか。カンディンスキーやマティスのようにモダニズム草創期の作家たちでさえ、音楽に憧れ、作品のテーマも信念をもって意味深いものを選んでいたではないか。
ではモダニズムの意味とは何だったのか。20世紀前半に、夾雑物を排して純粋な造形を目指したことによって、私たちは、単純な画面こそが豊かな内面の流出物を受け止める器になることに逆説的に気付いた。近代の強烈な自我の入れ物としては、お仕着せの物語や歴史はむしろ邪魔だったということだろうか。20世紀後半にはお仕着せのものを「大きな物語」、自己に密接なものを「小さな物語」と呼ぶことが流行したが、問題は大小にあるのではない。「物語（心の素材）」と「物体（美術の素材）」の位相の違いにあるのだ。
物質と精神の関係をうまくイメージさせる仏教用語がある。「色即是空、空即是色」。これを西成田の作品に当てはめれば、「空」としての画面が「色」としての心を映し出す。「空即是色」の絵画世界。そして具体的な物体＝「色」が、彫刻として組み込まれて現世の実体を失って「空」となったとき出現する「色即是空」の彫刻世界。彼女の現代彫刻は、前近代的な遺物の位相をひっくり返して、「色」に封じられていた時間と時を「空」に解放しているようだ。絵画作品では、絵の具による非物質的な色彩と形態のカオスの中に、澱のようにうごめく実体が出現してきて、ときにキャンバスを突き破って「色」化していく。このとき出現するものは、西成田の内部にあった何ものかではなく、まるで他所の宇宙からやってきた生物の侵略といったおもむきなのだ。
この世界に開いた他所の宇宙につながる穴のような場所を見出し、そこに閉じてしまわないようにして、こちらの宇宙の物体を詰め込んでいる。すると位相転換によって、何ものかが出現する。彼女の作品は、位相転換装置として、さまざまな宇宙とつながっている。のぞき込んだ者に異なる時空を見せるのは当然で、時にはそこに吸い付けられた物質を他所の精神に送り込む。作品がいつ作られたのか、古いのか新しいのかすら分からないのは、そういう事情によるだろう。どうやら彼女の腕力が作品を魅力的にしているのではない。この世のほころびを見出す力だ。
［こいずみ・しんや 美術評論家／茨城大学名誉教授］
I was surprised when I first caught sight of a small artwork by Yoko Nishinarita incorporating fake fur at Gallery Ciel in Mito City. This writer had theretofore been impressed with the power of Nishinarita’s workmanship and the energy of her modelling methods. She was always in full command of her materials, bending and shaping them to her will in order to fulfill her artistic vision. At the touch of her hand, whatever material she used was instantly transformed and became an integral part of one of the artist’s works. Hers was much like the hand of King Midas, creating gold from mundane paraphernalia and found objects. And in the same way that Picasso integrated objects in his works, Nishinarita gathered together various odds and ends to make yet another universe, where she was its absolute Creator, her ego reigning over the veritable chaos she had forged from the void.
But it now seemed as if I had been mistaken. In the small artwork before me, fake fur that was given to the artist had been used as it was, with little or no working or shaping. Was this an example of objet trouvé, of ready-made art? Half of the work showed signs of her struggle to control her materials, and yet for the other half she had merely added this piece of fur in the state that it came in. Was Nishinarita a Surrealist? A Dadaist? When describing Nishinarita’s art, such western terms seem to be inadequate.
Nishinarita says that she found the red and white striped curtain used as a material in one of the works in this exhibition when she was helping to straighten out a friend’s storehouse after an earthquake. The curtain is of the kind that is used as a decorative element for various auspicious events throughout Japan, and thus had continued to bear witness from the background to a panoply of minor celebrations over the years. Not being able to bring herself to toss it out, she set to work at using it to create art. Despite the finished artwork’s being something new, it seems to be some kind of historical relic from decades gone by because of the history it is inherently steeped in. To the viewer, it seems that half of the work’s overwhelming sense of presence comes from the manipulations Nishinarita has put it through, while the other half of its power is due to the history its materials embody.
The act of having a historical tale occupy an important position in a work of art basically goes against the principles of modern art. In a painting, the artist concentrates on the effects brought about by the positions of colors and forms in the picture, and in a sculpture the artist brings out volume from the material itself, and the sculpture stands independently as it confronts the space around it. These are the some of the basic rules of modern art. For example, in the three-dimensional works of Frank Stella, cigar smoke or a swimming cap can be used as an original form, and without any particular meaning, the shapes of these commonplace things are modified or altered, presenting to the viewer a “visual” meaning rather than a “literary” one. Leave literature up to literature, and let art devote itself to what only art can do. That is the way things are in Modernism. However, if one faithfully adhered to such principles, wouldn’t art become this sickly, emaciated thing, the product of an overcompartmentalized bureaucracy? Even such early Modernists as Kandinsky and Matisse had a love of music, and believed in their themes as they made meaningful choices when creating their works.
So what exactly is the meaning of modern art? In the first half of the 20th century, artists strove to mold and shape “pure” forms by getting rid of any unnecessary elements, and viewers paradoxically realized that it was indeed a simple picture that best served as a vessel to catch the rich interior elements overflowing from the work. Off-the-shelf stories and history that were meant to serve as a receptacle for a powerful modern ego were conversely seen to be nothing more than a hindrance. By the latter half of the 20th century, major off-the-shelf stories were popularly referred to as being “big stories”, while intimate ones were known as “little stories”, but the problem isn’t in being “big” or “little”. It’s a matter of phase: being a “story” (material for the heart or soul), or being an “object” (material for art).
There is a Buddhist saying that skillfully describes the relationship between the physical and the spiritual: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”. If you apply this to Nishinarita’s art, her works have an “emptiness” that expresses her inner self as a “form”. “Emptiness is form”. That is the essence of Nishinarita’s paintings. And the essence of her sculptures is “Form is emptiness”, in that concrete physicalities (“forms”) lose their status as entities in this world and are brought together to make sculptures that represent the void (“emptiness”). Now her sculptures are like premodern relics in an upside-down phase, setting loose the time and eras that had been trapped in her “forms”. And in the chaos of her paintings with their pigments creating non-material colors and shapes, the viewer finds writhing entities, dregs as it were, that at times seem to pierce through the canvas as they take on their colors. These things that appear in Nishinarita’s works don’t come from a place inside the artist’s imagination, but rather seem to be strange creatures invading from some other universe.
The viewer discovers places like holes opening to this world, holes that connect with another universe on the other side, and as if to make sure that they don’t close up, objects from our universe have been stuffed into them. And by means of phase converters, something appears. Used as phase converters, Nishinarita’s works are connected with all kinds of universes. It is only natural that her works reveal a different space-time continuum to anyone who takes a look at them, and at times objects that are being sucked into them are seemingly sent to spirits in other far away places. That is perhaps why it’s difficult to tell when the works were created, and even whether they are old or new. Apparently it is not Nishinarita’s physical strength that makes her works so engrossing, but rather it is her ability to reveal in them the fraying edges of this world.
