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Loose Lips Save Ships
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT)
March 5 – May 29, 2016
Loose Lips Save Ships: Text
Installation view from Loose Lips Save Ships at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2016, Courtesy of ARTiT © 2020 Fujii Hikaru
Loose Lips Save Ships: Portfolio
“Co-curated by the ARTISTS GUILD, an artist-led organization that develops experimental projects to improve the environments of artistic expression, this exhibition marks the MOT Annual's 14th instalment and is presented in a somewhat different format from its predecessors.
Surveying contemporary society, while everyone can now make their voice heard freely through the Internet, there is also growing intolerance against opinions that differ from the values of the majority. Various frictions created by this contortion are evident, and sites of creative expression are no exception. Under such circumstances, what kind of impact on society and people can artistic expression and action make by challenging existing sets of values and social norms, and raising radical questions?
Recognizing the significance of acts of vocalization without fear of saying improper things, as the title "Loose Lips Save Ships" suggests, this exhibition aims to build a platform where multiple interpretations based on different perspectives intersect with one another.”
Statement by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT)
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“Loose Lips Save Ships” was MOT’s 14th installment of its Annual Exhibition series showcasing emerging artists who represent new trends in Japanese contemporary art. The 2016 edition was co-curated by MOT curator, Yoshizaki Kazuhiko and in partnership with Koizumi Meiro, Masumoto Yasuto, and Mori Hiroharu, three Tokyo-based artists from the ARTISTS’ GUILD. The exhibition was designed in response to rising incidences of museum censorship in Japan, and thus aimed to confront the controversial topic of censorship and self-censorship within the nation while shedding light on how artistic expression can challenge normative societal rules and values. The exhibition’s original Japanese title “Kisei no Seiki” is a play on words roughly translating to “regulating regulations,” but since it was written in phonetic script rather than usual kanji characters, the meaning was left unclear, alluding to genitalia, parasites, and machines, among other things. The exhibition's English title “Loose Lips Save Ships” refers to the propagandistic military campaign by the Allied forces during World War II, urging people to repress news that might undermine morale, thus turning the phrase on its head to instead promote freedom of expression. The show included artworks and performances by Koizumi Meiro, Fujii Hikaru, Endo Mai + Masuto Yasuto, Saito Hajime, Artur Żmijewski, Takata Fuyuhiko, Hashimoto Satoshi, Furuya Seiichi, Dan Perjovschi, and Yokota Toru.
Loose Lips Save Ships: Text
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Loose Lips Save Ships: Portfolio
Despite the liberating intentions of “Loose Lips Save Ships,” the exhibition was subject to many instances of the very censorship/self-censorship the curators had aimed to combat. Demonstrating both their naivety in the face of institutional authority, and the extent to which the museum's administration was beholden to governmental regulations as a public entity, this exhibition served as a landmark case of contemporary bureaucratic censorship. The artworks included in “Loose Lips Save Ships” had a broad focus on various aspects of Japanese society, but we specifically chose to include it in our curatorial project due to these instances of censorship, as well as the inclusion of important artworks by Koizumi Meiro and Fujii Hikaru that specifically engaged with Japanese society's national amnesia surrounding the Asia-Pacific War. Their artworks problematize Japan’s national narrative, working to challenge social acceptance of how the past is remembered (or forgotten) by those who hold power over the historical narrative.
Koizumi, a co-director of the exhibition and artist who regularly engages with Japan's war history, ended up being subject to censorship when his painting, “Air” that criticized the Japanese Emperor, was excluded from the exhibition. As he was a co-curator of the exhibition itself, this incident demonstrated just how far the museum's administration subverted the curatorial team's intentions. They did manage to include Koizumi's contentious video installation, “Oral History.” This project was developed between 2013-2015, during which the artist asked 200 Japanese nationals to recount what had transpired in Japan between 1900-1945. Koizumi’s video protected peoples’ anonymity by presenting a montage of eerily close-up footage of respondents’ mouths as they reacted to his inquiry. This approach would offer the exhibition's visitors with a series of snapshots into a layman’s ‘oral history’ of this volatile period of Japanese history. The narrated histories ranged from a complete lack of knowledge about the time period, to a barrage of vague generalizations, as well as an avoidance of the topic altogether. Many respondents openly admitted to not knowing anything about Japan from 1900-1945. While some did refer to it only as the “shame of Japan,” others refused to respond altogether as this topic 'was not one that should be spoken about.' The range of responses demonstrated the convolution and divisive attitude of Japan towards its own imperialist past. A phenomenon that has spread throughout Japanese society during the postwar period, historic revision and erasure in media and education has become commonplace over the last 75 years.
Fujii Hikaru, another artist who frequently engages with national history, created the installation “Record of the Bombing,” presenting audiences with a room full of empty glass display cases accompanied by mediating captions and two videos (main photo). Fujii had originally planned to fill the MOT's display cases with the 5,040 documents and archival materials that had been collected for the aborted construction plans for a “Tokyo Metropolitan Peace Memorial Museum” in 1974 that would commemorate victims of the Tokyo Air Raids. However, his request to exhibit the materials in "Loose Lips Save Ships" was swiftly denied by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The proposed museum’s archival materials have remained in ceremonial wooden boxes since 1999, when the project was official shut down due to its proposition of an exhibition design that hoped to expand Japan’s wartime memory by including critical appraisal of the aggression and atrocities committed during the Asia-Pacific War. Realizing that his own knowledge of the war was “a blank,” Fujii decided to instead exhibit the empty displays with associated textual content as a way of showcasing the subjectiveness of Japanese historical memory of the war. His installation was arranged in accordance of the original exhibition plans considered for the Peace Memorial Museum, and was assembled by residents of the area who were older than 75-years of age. This was a significant endeavor as it meant that the project's participants had lived through the air raids of World War II.
“I wanted to reconstruct in my own way the memories that had vanished into the depths of history… I keep thinking about whether the means for resisting oblivion is a sense of justice that agrees with the historical recognitions, or rather, [through] each and every single act of recollection.”
- Excerpt from the Exhibition Text for Fujii Hikaru's Installation, “Record of the Bombing”
e-flux Press Release
ArtiT Exhibition Review
ARTIST GUILD x Arts Commons Tokyo Publication (JP)
Loose Lips Save Ships: Text
Loose Lips Save Ships: HTML Embed
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