Yukinori Yanagi, Hinomaru

I was born and raised in Fukoka, the Japanese prefecture closest to the Korean Peninsula. In our island-nation, where people are barely conscious of the national boundaries, I was occasionally forced to recognize the existence of a foreign country right next door. We often found, for example, everyday objects marked with Korean characters, in the debris washed up on shore. To the Japanese, however, "outside" does not only refer to countries across the sea, but also to people living in Japan; Korean and Chinese, native ainu, and Okinawans.
Yukinori Yanagi, 1993

Some of the most experimental contemporary art in Japan today has a political edge; ironic critique, social commentary, and smashing of taboos; and Yukinori Yanagi is probably its best known exemplar. He works with the forms and conventions of conceptual art to explore nationalist concepts and to investigate how they are deployed for social control. Experimental and unorthodox in his technique, whether employing ant farms, neon signs, steel I-beams, or the more traditional silkscreens and lithographs of this exhibition, the artist consistently produces incisive yet humorous visual poetry.

The seven graphic works shown in the exhibit suggest technical continuities with Edo-period Japanese culture while demonstrating the dramatic conceptual shifts between the 18th and 19th centuries and the present. The Hinomaru portfolio, a suite of 6 lithographs with embossing and collage begun in 1991, explores two stereotypical motifs of Japanese nationalism: the "Rising Sun" (Hinomaru in Japanese) and the imperial chrysanthemum crest. Both are loaded symbols: the hinomaru, evoking military aggression and fascism, is officially banned; the chrysanthemum, as the Emperor's crest, asserts the myth that all Japanese, no matter how diverse, are his children and thereby privileged over other nationalities. Yanagi's dryly ironic recreation of these icons calls their meaning into question.

Yanagi's newest graphic work, Chrysanthemum and Sword, merges mythology and history with a bold, seemingly artless combination of image and text. The iconic photograph of General Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito marking Japan's surrender from World War II, screened on canvas, is modified with a strand of Japanese characters quoting Voices of the Heroic Dead by Yukio Mishima. The calligraphy seems to transform this harsh news photo into something much more composed, akin to the graceful interaction of two figures in Edo-period woodblock prints. As in ukiyo-e and surimono prints, the placement of the text both reinforces the figural composition and floats independently on the surface of the page.