david, 'If You're Happy, Clap Your Hands', 2007-2008
DVD
"If you're happy clap your hands" at Andrew James Art this month deserves applause. In concept and execution it adds up to more than the sum of its parts, and the parts are good. A group exhibition of Japanese artists born after 1980 asks whether material wealth and a consumer culture can ultimately satisfy. When these artists were born Japan was undergoing a development boom, a course China is currently embarking upon. But "If you're happy" is much more than a cautionary tale about glitter and gold. The six artists are also products of what they analyse and criticise, products which acknowledge the ambiguity and absurdity of their existential crisis.
This is one reason why it is so interesting that this exhibition is being held in Shanghai. In the 1980s China awoke from a fitful sleep to the bitter realisation that its one-time foe had stolen the economic long march on it. Recent success has not improved China's relationship with Japan. Rising nationalism in China and the Japanese Government's obdurate refusal to address Japan's war history has only worsened matters. In China, the war remains very sensitive; one reason why a Shanghai exhibition of Japan artists is a priori fascinating.
The exhibition title is drawn from the mono-named David's video, which shows him standing in a Tokyo underground train followed by a Shanghai one. Each time he sings, somewhat soullessly, the Western children's song. The commuters, Japanese and Chinese, relentlessly ignore him. Unsurprisingly the song seems to have American, perhaps Baptist, roots. Its simple invocation to express your happiness coming from an adult sounds weird. Coming from this Japanese adult, in English, it sounds cynical and jaded. Japan has long adopted and adapted American culture to its own needs and to its own style. Unsurprising then that famous Japanese rock star, Miyavi, born 1981, did a cover of the song. This makes the non-reaction in Tokyo even more peculiar. No one even stifles a grin or uneasily shuffles their feet. Nothing. And in China the same, but here it is very unlikely that anyone has ever heard the song. The commuters might possibly recognise him as Japanese but that is not obvious. And even if they do, its meaning remains elusive. Ultimately what is so nice about this very short piece is the way it reflects the very ambiguity of the parallels and dissimilarities between the cultures, the awkwardness and the conformity. Another of his works, a pixilated version of Courbet's Origin of the World (amusingly my computer's spell-check offer's "titillated" for "pixilated") does not immediately remind one of that painting but rather of biometric iris-recognition images. And there just isn't space here to begin exploring the umpteen possibilities for discussion that that entails. So go and ogle it yourself.
Miyuki Akiyama, 'Automatic World,' 2008
Acrylic & Oil on Canvas, 80.3 x 100 cm
Miyuki Akiyama's paintings are also playful but in quite a different fashion. Automatic World, Insect's Flower and Half Month are psychotropically Dali-ian, with the little bits of reality which creep into these radioactively colourful abstracts worlds only accentuating a sense of alienation. From what? From the surreal images which we now take for granted. It's sur-sur-realism - Apollinaire would be chuffed.
Initially Ikuni Nagasawa pictures appear to be Hello Kitty stand-ins but as the curator Kenta Torimoto remarks, behind the superficiality of flat, cute figures, there is loneliness and isolation. The portraits' background wallpapers have more individuality than the people depicted. All the girls (no, not adult women) are in school uniform and have ponytails. All the men wear suits and glasses. Success it seems is flat and dull.
Ikumi Nagasawa, 'A Head Wind', 2008
Acrylic on Canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Yu Yusadu, 'Long Night', 2007
Oil on Canvas, 145.5 x 112 cm
Meanwhile, Yu Yasuda's works recall Peter Doig's lonely natural landscapes. Both Untitled and Long Night present snowy nightscapes. In Untitled three anonymous non-participants stand in an unnamed countryside whilst fireworks streak up behind a log cabin. Long Night shows them sitting outside some tents, bunting and fairy lights criss-crossing above their heads. In both cases there was a celebration but clearly it didn't involve these loners. They confound our clichéd expectations of an urban, technology and consumption obsessed Japan. The refusal to participate in celebration abjures society itself.
Ai Ryumon, 'Ophelia', 2007
Oil on Canvas, 180 x 560 cm
Ai Ryumon also looks at the presentation of girls in Japanese society, but from a rather darker perspective. In his giant, brightly coloured painting, Ophelia, four doll-like girls float listlessly in a pool, apparently drowned, long blonde and brunette hair trailing behind them. Most disturbing is the fact that their eyes have been covered over with black tape like in police photographs. The viewer, also under-water, participates in the horror. The crime scene has been presented for your info-tainment and you're in over your head.
Osamu Watanabe, 'Berryfield', 2008
Modelling Paste, Clay, Plastic and Wax
50 x 40 cm
Ending with dessert, Osamu Watanabe's confections are delicious. Multicolour, pastiches Louis Vuitton's styling and trade mark by replicating them as sugary treats to rot your teeth. Echoing the Beatles song, the berries in Berryfield overwhelm the painting, literally escaping the frame. LSD (Like Sweet Dream), unlike Lucy in her sky, winks at Mr Hirst's dot paintings and pharmaceutical works, swapping dots for fake ice cream scoops. Cream fills the sky of Munch's Scream with cream puffs, which then invade Van Gogh's Starry Nights (Creamy Nights). Finally Happiness gives Renoir's model good reason to be, with a hat and scarf dripping in sugary treats. And so should you be if you get the chance to see this playful exhibition, one which proves a broadening appreciation in Shanghai for foreign contemporary art, and shows a fine feeling for cultural cross-overs, Western and Eastern, Chinese and Japanese.
Chris Moore
If you're happy clap your hands
Until 27 July
Andrew James Art
39 Maoming Road
Shanghai
Chris Moore is a writer and a partner in the contemporary art investment firm, mooreandmooreart.co.uk. He lives in Shanghai and specialises in contemporary Chinese art.
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