Day 98 - Glass deer
October 19, 2018
Today's visit is to Gallery 232, the last of the Japanese galleries, whose central display raises troubling questions about art and nature, about life and death, about art and ethics. There's a temptation to write about something, anything, else- the beautiful ikebana display of fuchsia-hued orchids in a corner, a painting showing two calligraphic characters that makes clear the pictograph origins of the character for "horse" - you can aee the animal's four legs and flowing mane and tail in the strokes that the character comprises.
But there is no avoiding confrontation with the main display, a taxidermied stag perhaps 6 feet high at the tip of its antlers, that is completely covered by clear glass spheres of different sizes, ranging from less than an inch to perhaps a foot in radius. The spheres have a magnifying function, and through the larger ones, you can see the slicked down hair of the embalmed animal and, more startlingly, its staring eyes. The animal - or should I say statue?- looks back over its shoulder, as if it had caught the scent of a predator.
The elaborate glasswork is very impressive. But what is the point? What would its creator, Kohei Nawa, who made this object on 2011, say? He called it "Pix-Cell Deer," presumably to indicate something about how the glass reduces the animal to its formative elements. Too, according to the caption, deer have a symbolic significance in Shintoism- they are the messengers of the gods, and they often have auspicious and poetic associations. But presumably those associations are to the live animals, not their dead counterparts.
But there is no avoiding confrontation with the main display, a taxidermied stag perhaps 6 feet high at the tip of its antlers, that is completely covered by clear glass spheres of different sizes, ranging from less than an inch to perhaps a foot in radius. The spheres have a magnifying function, and through the larger ones, you can see the slicked down hair of the embalmed animal and, more startlingly, its staring eyes. The animal - or should I say statue?- looks back over its shoulder, as if it had caught the scent of a predator.
The elaborate glasswork is very impressive. But what is the point? What would its creator, Kohei Nawa, who made this object on 2011, say? He called it "Pix-Cell Deer," presumably to indicate something about how the glass reduces the animal to its formative elements. Too, according to the caption, deer have a symbolic significance in Shintoism- they are the messengers of the gods, and they often have auspicious and poetic associations. But presumably those associations are to the live animals, not their dead counterparts.
By enclosing the deer in glass, has the artist made it more permanent than a mere taxidermied animal? Does it have more lasting value? Perhaps if I thought the statue were itself beautiful, I could see it as perpetuating the beauty of a once-vital creature. But I don't find it beautiful, so what I focus on is the deadness of the body that the glass encloses. Presumably, the stag was not purpose-killed to make this object; if it were, we - I, anyway - would find it unacceptable to kill an animal (well, a mammal) in the interest of creating art.
Yet we happily eat farm-raised venison. So is it less legitimate and ethical to make art out of an animal' s body than it is to eat it?
Is this all some giant joke Nawa is playing on art collectors and critics? Or, as Doreen suggested when I described the statue to her, did he intend it to be troubling? If so, he succeeded, at least in my case. The image offers no easy answers.
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