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| A film is screened through a microscope in the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art |
With
this in mind, we descended on the PARASOPHIA exhibition in the Kyoto Municipal
Museum of Art. I should state that it wasn’t our idea to go, it was an assigned
excursion by our professor. After buying our ticket and taking off my coat I
braced myself for a modern art marathon.
We stepped inside the first exhibit, a room called Café Little Boy. Placards on the left side of the room provided an artist statement.
“Café
Little Boy is a space for reflection, communication, and exchange. Its title is
inspired by ‘Little Boy,’ or the codename for the atomic bomb that was dropped
on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Your participation is an integral
part of the installation. You are invited to express yourselves on the painted
surfaces of this room. Using the chalk and erasers that are provided for this
purpose. Your interventions will follow one another and intermingle as time
goes by, helping to give shape to the pluralist and collective spirit of this
evolving work.”
“After the explosion of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, there was nothing left of the elementary school in Fukoromachi apart from a wall with a large blackboard on which people left messages for loved ones.”
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| Inside Jean-Luc Vilmouth's Cafe Little Boy |
The room
was full of dreamy, pastel colors, words from people all over the world. Some
parts almost looked smoky, others more like street art. The color palette highlighted
a childish playfulness in the exhibit, a reminder of the roots from which the
project came to being.
Going
into the museum, I had all these ideas of my day at PARASOPHIA. Bursting with
modern, abstract art, I imagined speed walking through the museum all raised
eyebrows and folded arms. I’ve been to the Ufizzi in Florence, the d’Orsay in
Paris. I consistently felt aware of my unfeeling. Seeing a Degas earnestly
hanging on a white wall, the spectacle of artgoers clustering around the Mona
Lisa, it was interesting and exciting. But it always was an experience
removed from me. Walking into Café Little Boy, this melted away. I was being
accessed. I could run my fingers against the walls, I could write things, take
pictures of people and the words they leave behind. So I did.
Looking
at what people wrote I found that so much of it wasn’t what I would expect.
People wrote their names, drew pictures, there were many languages. Soon I
found myself turning to my museum partners and saying the words I never
expected to say in a museum. “You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up later.”
I stayed
for what felt like a long time. I cried. I got chalk under my fingernails. I
took pictures of a couple kind strangers.
Before leaving I did something weird. I rubbed my hands against the chalkier parts of the space. I rubbed chalk into my arms, my pants, my fingers, my shirt. I was purple and dazed when I came out. The museum workers didn’t look surprised.
I would
be lying if I said the other elements of the museum came close to evoking what Café
Little Boy had. Even so, there were many elements of the PARASOPHIA exploding
with creativity and color. There was a mixture of short films, sculpture, light
and sound exhibits, paintings, and much more.
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| Arin Rungjang's Golden Teardrop |
One room
was back-lit hallway with a mirror at the end. I spent ten or fifteen minutes
jumping around, taking photos. If you are ever looking for a photography
challenge, try jumping around in a dark room, not able to look through the
viewfinder, and hold the camera still while your body is in motion.
Leaving the museum, it felt like I finally understood what all the fuss was about. PARASOPHIA was like no other art exhibit I've ever seen.
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