06 Jan 2012, Posted by charlie in current work,EXHIBITIONS, No Comments.

METABOLISM TRIP exhibition

 Koko Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, January the 3rd -  15th 2012

This exhibition, which coincides with the release of the Metabolism Trip book, Is a selection of images from Charlie Koolhaas’ photographs of the Metabolism movement, in an installation designed by Japanese architect Shohei Shigematsu in Tokyo’s innovative Koko Gallery. 

www.gallery-koko.com

Jan. 7th 15:00～ the Metabolism exhibition talk
Guest speaker: Charlie koolhaas, Shohei Shigematsu, Yoshikazu Nango (moderator)

Y.N: Why did you choose photography after your studies in Sociology, did you see it as an expression of your interest in sociology? 

C.K: When I studied Sociology at New York University, I was particularly interested in theorists like Georg Simmel, who observed how the modern metropolis, which united people from diverse social groups had created new kinds of social and psychological associations; how distance allowed new proximity. I particularly liked his concept of the ‘stranger’ as a person in society whose value stems from objectivity and lack of connections, stripping away inhibitions. In his view we can confess and open-up to a stranger, and the ‘stranger’ can exert new influences into an otherwise closed social network and can form a bridge to alternative realities; states of being. I see my life and my work as the role of a ‘stranger’ and I am interested in recording the lives of other ‘outsiders’. When I lived in China I started a magazine called ‘Unit’ that featured interviews with foreigners in China and Chinese immigrants in various other countries. These people, immigrants, traders, foreigners, are the mediators of social and cultural change. They are the creative force behind ‘Globalisation’ because they have the objectivity that Simmel called ‘freedom’.

Ultimately I realised that my real interests where not in defining or labeling certain social groups or categories, this felt too serious and static. For me the academic study of Sociology was never surreal or humorous enough, and it is the ridiculous details of social life, the absurd moments and silliness that allude to deeper dramas and conflicts, which I hope to capture in my work. My photography might be influenced by my social studies, but for me it is more about transitions, an almost anti-sociology in that it attempts to capture the dynamic nature of society rather than define our social lives.

In my travels I see cultural hybrids emerging resulting from the blending of identities and social norms. My photographs attempt to describe what is happening in cities like London, Guangzhou, Bombay or New York where new identities live and die in an accelerated space of time, gone before they could be properly defined. I felt that the immediate nature of photography, the capturing of moments out of context, suited the recording of these transient incongruities. I like the overused and abused word ‘lifestyle’, which alludes to something universal but superficial, it refers to the cosmetic and imminent version of our social lives. I hope to record the in-between steps of our changing societies.

Y.N: The Metabolist buildings and movement was very male, this is the first time that these buildings have been photographed by a woman and I think that this female insight is a very apparent in your photographs.

C.K: I wonder what it really is that makes my perspective female, if at all? Is it that I have no fear of the failures that are a part of life? What attracts me to buildings are their vulnerabilities. I photograph the cracks, the peeling apart of the building’s surfaces, the places that have been infected by mould and leaks. These are a building’s wounds that bring it alive. That’s what I can relate to. The leaking Nakagin Capsule Tower, for example, moved me because it seemed that this neglected building was crying. I find that pain and suffering is more a source of connection and understanding, than beauty and excellence, Might this be a female view?

When I approach a building or environment I search for the places in which the intentions of their planners have been thwarted by the chaos of human life. The ways in which the rebellious nature of people means that they will not obide by the high ideals that are forced upon them. We see this even in the most modernist structure, like in the Sakaide Artificial Ground, where the inhabitants have added lace curtains, mundane posters of pop stars, or as in the Yaminashi Broadcasting Center they decorated their stark concrete interiors with Toys of large furry ducks.

Architecture is a profession mostly populated by men. Architects strive to avoid failure again and again until an almost impossible triumph occurs – a design is realised. My favourite photograph from the Metabolism Trip series is the one of the woman sunbathing in the Nakagin Capsule Tower. She is relaxing amongst the puddles and mould stemming from leaks from the decaying building that creaks above her head. Its rusty infrastructure exposed, like she is in her bikini. But in this dangerous and appalling ‘nature’ she had found the perfect place for privacy and peace and when I saw her I thought ‘I would love to sunbathe here’. I doubt a man would have envied her in the same way.

S.S: Why can you sell these images as separate Art objects when you have made a book that places them into a narrative and then you add stories that give them context. When you take these out of context again to sell them as Art, how do you reconcile yourself with this commercialism? What do these photographs become as individuals?

C.K: I think that this ‘Metabolism Trip’ book is one narrative, it describes my adventure through the Metabolist architectures like an adventure film, I tried to add sensory information, to show the tension that I felt from the cinematic and dramatic nature of these incredible beasts. At times I was overwhelmed and consumed by the buildings.

As an exhibition ‘Metabolism Trip’ inserts you directly into these scenes and places. I believe that Art can bring you into a moment, place, idea without background and it forces you to sink or swim. Hopefully you will drown because there is no lifeboat that is ‘context’ and therefore you are compelled to consider and then to understand your own judgement. Art provides us with a self-conscious glimpse into our own reactions, it does this better than documentary, because with documentary you’re told what you are supposed to feel. I enjoy selling Art because I like collections (my mother is a collector of ‘failed’ art and objects), anyone buying one of these photographs is removing it from my story and putting it into another. The photograph then becomes part of a new narrative with an endless amount of unexpected associations defined by the collectors unique obsessions – it then enters a new collection or community and achieves a new identity, this sets it free from its original context once again.

Ultimately I see my work as being about hybrids and a hybrid itself, it is at once Documentary, Art, Sociology, Fiction, it is real and fake at the same time. I would like to try to wriggle out from under the weight of these heavy definitions because otherwise I face the same restrictions that I found when I studied sociology, that actually the really exciting moments have no labels yet.

 

Yoshikazu Nango (moderator), Charlie koolhaas, Shohei Shigematsu