Atomic-powered cyborgs, quasi-animate freight trains, and other absurd and fabulous contraptions populate the universe of Kenji Yanobe. Welcome to the world of the future-past, the unkempt aftermath of "Better Living Through Science."

I am the last son of the bubble period [the economic boom of the 1980s] in Japan.

Kenji Yanobe was born in Osaka in 1965, and earned his MA at Kyoto City University of the Arts in 1991. Like others of his generation, Yanobe grew up on a steady diet of television and manga--the picture novels or comic books representing the most popular form of printed media in Japan. His work incorporates references to manga as well as to television and film animation (anime) in the same way American artists invoke images from our popular mass media.

I tried to think about what is my real background. My background is not European art, is not American art....When I was young, what excited me? It was things like animation, like science fiction. I was really excited by this culture. I wanted to try to look for the idea of beauty in this culture.

Situating his work within the toxic environment of much science fiction, Yanobe employs themes and forms from futuristic media to address the central paradox of technology: its boundless potential and unbridled danger. The ingenious objects in this exhibition evoke very powerful emotions, including the basic instincts for food, shelter, and procreation.

My family house is close to the ruins of Expo 1970 Osaka, which was the big exposition put on during the period of Japanese economic growth. I used to play in the ruins of the Expo, with its destroyed robots, strange scientific pavilions, and spacey sculptures. The huge hall was deserted. I became interested in the image of ruins after a big futuristic catastrophe.

Yanobe constructs devices he needs now or may need in the future out of industrial detritus and scavenged materials: Tanking Machine offers serenity in a safe haven not unlike Tokyo's notorious capsule hotels; Foot Soldier (Godzilla) functions as a personal combat vehicle; Yellow Suit and Radiation Suits protect their wearers from nuclear disaster, monitoring radiation exposure at sensitive points of the body; Survival System Train and the Emergency Escape Pods provide shelter equipped with life's "essentials"--food, water, and manga. Through this work Yanobe ironically envisions the need for extreme solutions, hoping another message emerges. His sheer delight in gadgets and machinery demonstrates unequivocally the parallel need for their moderation and control.

Elizabeth A. Brown
Chief Curator

Survival System Train and Other Sculptures by Kenji Yanobe was organized by the Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco, and curated by Renny Pritikin, Chief Curator at the Center for the Arts. Its presentation in Santa Barbara is made possible in part by the generous support of the David Bermant Foundation, Dean Valentine, Alice and Donald Willfong, The Santa Barbara Independent, the California Arts Council, the Japan Foundation and Language Center in Los Angeles, Francisco Torres, Computer Motion Inc., Santa Barbara, and Project Crossroads and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UCSB.