Evocative of myths, legends, fairy tales, and other fantasy worlds, Takata creates vibrantly rich narratives through his self-produced cinematic pieces. Deceptively simple and often profoundly humorous, he meticulously crafts each vignette, often transforming his tiny apartment into elaborate homemade film sets while sculpting his own intricate and colorful props, which are themselves works of art. Directing, filming, narrating, and even acting in his videos, he is a visual storyteller whose elaborate visions playfully interrogate social questions around power, nation, gender, and sexuality. Resonating with subtle and often poetic critique, these works are theatrical, poignant glimpses into alternate universes that challenge our understandings of contemporary society in Japan and worldwide.
“Cut Pieces” for Art Basel Hong Kong 2024, is
an installation and video exhibition that highlights two of Takata’s most
recent companion works, The Butterfly Dream (2022) and a latest video titled
Cut Suits (2023). The first is a piece in which the artist poetically alludes
to “Dream of the Butterfly,” an episode from the Chinese classic Zhuangzi, in
which the protagonist dreams he has metamorphosed into a butterfly. Nodding to
the landmark work of Yoko Ono, Takata conjures up a fantastical scene in which
a hybrid butterfly-scissors chimera flaps its wings as it slices away the
clothing of a sleeping young man, raising profound philosophical questions
around not only the dialectical relationship of power to pleasure but also the
rigid inhibitions surrounding masculinity itself. Cut Suits, meanwhile, is a
sequel that further develops this deconstruction by literally excising the
superficial trappings of institutionalized male power. In this work, six men
clad in business attire delight in snipping away with scissors at each other’s
suits, shirts, and ties, while cheerful music plays enchantingly in the
background. This nonviolent and even whimsical ritual hints at liberatory
themes of shedding, hatching, and unleashing that so prominently recur
throughout Takata’s opus. As a monument to the messiness and difficulty
entailed in unraveling the patriarchy, these scrapped and tattered garments
sheared from the bodies of the film’s characters will be heaped in front of the
screen, a gravesite of molted manhood. Nearby this pile of detritus, the booth
will also feature the butterfly scissors sculpture that appears in the first
film
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| Fuyuhiko Takata, Cut Suits, 2023, installation view ©︎Fuyuhiko Takata, courtesy of the artist and WAITINGROOM |
Referencing both
Duchamp’s famous “Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries” motif, which represents
the symbolization and stereotyping of masculinity and femininity, Takata also
alludes to the practice of minimalist sculptor Robert Morris, who littered his
exhibition sites with shredded fabric. The artist thus brings Western art into
conversation with his identity as a Japanese contemporary artist by fetishizing
the figure of the “salaryman,” the icon of corporate masculinity in Japan, so
often imagined packed into rush-hour trains like sushi. Teasingly cutting away
at the threads that shackle these souls to destinies of heteronormativity and
capitalist machismo, he humanizes them and rescues their innocent joy
enshrouded just beneath the surface
WAITINGROOM
Discoveries Sector, Booth 1C43 Solo Presentation of Fuyuhiko Takata (高田冬彦)
Show Title: Cut Pieces WAITINGROOM is pleased to present
“Cut Pieces,”
a solo exhibition of works by Fuyuhiko Takata（高田冬彦）,
a Tokyo-based artist born in 1987 in Hiroshima, Japan, in the Discoveries
Sector (Booth 1C43) at Art Basel Hong Kong 2024.
