Summary Art & Globalism - Yukinori Yanagi

Banzai Corner1991
90.0×240.0×240.0cmplastic toy(x approx.380 pieces) and mirror

EC Flag Ant Farm 1992
32.0x48.0cm(x13 pieces)ants, colored sand, plastic boxes, plastic tubes and plastic pipes

Yukinori Yanagi is a Japanese installation artist. He was born in 1959 in Fukuoka, Japan. He has displayed work in numerous countries including Japan, but most often in the US, where he lives. In 2006 he displayed work at the Art Gallery of NSW. Yanagi creates works that explore Japanese culture, politics and international relations. It is through a focus on Japan that globalism can be explored in the works by this artist.

Most of Yanagi’s works have a similar fell to them. They are critical of ideas and events in Japanese history and recent relations, but retain a sense of hope for the future.I felt it required research into Japanese history to better understand his artworks. In studying globalism this is probably required for most artists from foreign countries. I needed to expand my basic knowledge of Japanese history and understand emblems or in the case of Banzai Corner, the term ‘banzai’ and what it represents. Without this knowledge I found his work interesting, but I struggled to critically analyse it. As it is, I doubt my ability to fully comprehend these works as I might if I were Japanese, or if I had a greater understanding of the nuances of Japanese culture.

One of the features that drew me to this artist was his use of ants in a number of his works. I have included images of more than one of these works, but will only describe one in the presentation. It has, I believe a strong relation to mimicking group relations, relevant to this topic. The use of live animals interested me as it is usually an ethical point for many works, but in the case of this artist this could not be argued, because the ants were treated the same as they would be for study purposes in other fields.



Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today, Art and Globalism
New York, Phaidon Press, (2008)

http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/yukinori-yanagi-12627/profile.html#Biography


http://www.iniva.org/dare/themes/space/yanagi.html


http://www.yanagistudio.net/home.html


Karin Higa, Some Thoughts on National and Cultural Identity: Art by Contemporary Japanese and Japanese American Artists, Art Journal Vol.55, No.3, pp. 6-13 College Art association. http://www.jstor.org/stable/777760

Patrick Burns, Into the Atomic Sunshine Exhibition, Shift online magazine
http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2008/02/into_the_atomic_sunshine_exhibition.html


http://www.article9society.org/pp-08.pdf



http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa060300.htm