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'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After
Aichi Triennale 2019
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art Gallery
August 1 – October 14, 2019
EXHIBITION CLOSED ON AUGUST 4, 2019
'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Text
Installation view of 'Un-freedom of Expression Show'...and After, 2019, Image Courtesy of the Yomiuri Shimbun via Associated Press Images
'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Portfolio
"This may seem like a little exhibition inside an exhibition. For one reason or another, due to censorship or self-censorship, most works presented here were not exhibited in the past in Japan. Although the reason for their removal varies, it shows that there is no simple dynamic in regard to 'freedom of expression.'
The exhibition provides you with information on who regulated these works, through which criteria and how, along with the background to each work, and how such works were censored."
- Statement from the Aichi Triennale Curatorial Committee
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“I see the current situation as something that proves freedom of expression is being undermined.
- Daisuke Tsuda, Artistic Director of the Aichi Triennale 2019 following its closure
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The 2019 rendition of the Aichi Triennale was held across various museums and sites in Nagoya and Toyota in Aichi Prefecture, with a theme of Taming Y/Our Passion that aimed to mediate a vast array of contemporary polarizations, such as between nationalism/globalism, universalism/relativism, idealism/realism, and center/periphery. Tsuda Daisuke, the artistic director of the Triennale, attempted to link the rise of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiments across the globe in this large-scale exhibition, but once again a curatorial endeavor to critically engage with Japan’s nationalism went awry. While Tsuda did see more than 80 international artists participate in one of the biggest contemporary art events of the year, the majority of media attention was focused on the momentous censorship scandal that unfolded in the first three days of its opening. One section of the Triennale, entitled “ 'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'…and After,” proved to push too far, causing his curatorial project to set a new precedent for art world censorship in Japan.
'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Text
[click through for gallery view]
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'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Portfolio
“Un-Freedom of Expression Exhibition'…and After” is a direct translation of the Japanese title of the exhibition (表現の不自由展。。。その後) named after the original 2015 exhibition “Un-Freedom of Expression” that was held in 2015 at private commercial Gallery Furuto in Tokyo. The original exhibition assembled an array of artworks that had either been rejected or removed by exhibition organizers in the past, spearheaded by Nikon’s cancellation of Korean photographer Ahn Sehong’s photo project about “comfort women” in 2012. We feel that the exhibition’s translation into English throughout the art world for the 2019 Aichi Triennale as “After ‘Freedom of Expression’ ” does not do these origins of the exhibition justice, as the Japanese title specifically alluded to the Gallery Furuto show and was highlighting ‘Un-Freedom’ or (non-freedom) rather than free speech.
The 2019 rendition of the exhibition at the Triennale included many of the same works as its 2015 counterpart, along with updates such as Koizumi Meiro’s “Air” (2016) which was excluded from the Loose Lips Save Ships exhibition at MOT, and Nakagaki Katsuhisa’s “Portrait of the Period–Endangered Species Idiot JAPONICA–Round Burial Mound” (2014). Most notably, the exhibition included the version of Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung’s “Statue of Peace” (2011) that had been removed from the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012 for representing the history of Korean "comfort women;" and a series of seminal collages by Oura Nobuyuki that criticized Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, including the infamous “Holding Perspective” (2019) which faced a censorship backlash so strong that in 1986 that the Toyama Museum had to haphazardly sell a series of Oura’s collages and destroy hundreds of exhibition catalogues.
However, once the public caught wind that the Aichi Triennale would include the “Statue of Peace” and “Holding Perspective,” the Triennale organizers became inundated with threatening phone calls and emails sent by terrorists, nationalists, and anonymous members of the general public, including threatening messages of arson attacks to public schools and kindergartens throughout Aichi prefecture, as well as the curatorial staff and their families. Earlier that summer, there had been an arson attack at Kyoto Animation Studio that had resulted in the deaths of at least 36 people. Given this context, the Triennale’s executive committee immediately began to discuss closure of the exhibit with the Prefecture’s political leadership, many of whom were members of the conservative LDP. The mayor of Nagoya, Kawamura Takashi, even joined protestors to demand for the removal of the “Statue of Peace,” claiming that government funding should not support the display of something which “tramples on the feelings of Japanese citizens.”
This display of ethno-nationalism paired with governmental pressures led to the exhibition being closed only three days after the triennale's opening day. In an ironic but hardly surprising turn of events, national amnesia became upheld while freedom of expression was rendered negligible.
'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Text
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'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Portfolio
We included this exhibition in our curatorial project because it is yet another case of curatorial activism being foiled by national amnesia in the public sphere. Even as the Triennale attempted to mediate divisions by shedding light on untold histories, governmental figures legitimized terrorist threats by demanding the removal of the artworks and denying their factual basis in historical truth. As disconcerting as this incident was, it did work to bring narratives of Japan’s ethno-nationalist conservatism to the fore in an international context—the scandal dominated art world news cycle and media channels outside the usual art-focused networks also reported on the event. In response to the exhibition’s closure, various protests, symposiums, and artist/curatorial talks broke out throughout Japan and and amongst the Japanese diaspora all over the world to engage with this disturbing incident. Participating artists decried the censorship of the exhibition—many of them altered or withdrew their works from the Triennale, joined in the establishment of an off-site arts program called ReFreedom_Aichi, and signed a collective statement demanding the resumption of the exhibition.
It’s also worth noting that while the censorship scandal mostly eclipsed the other 80 participating artists, Tsuda’s direction for the 2019 Triennale did include an array of Japanese artists that engage specifically with ethnic marginalization, national histories, and critiques of neoliberalism that were not censored by the state (pictured below). One intriguing example included experimental theatre director Takayama Akira’s piece “Public Speech Project,” in which he threw various live parties that including public reading of pre-war Pan-Asianist texts—reframing philosophical texts that are largely associated with Japan’s so-called ‘Pan-Asian co-prosperity project’ of colonial expansion into ideas that could battle xenophobic attitudes amongst the updated setting of the globalization, transpacific diaspora, and immigration crises that mark the 21st century.
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"We insist that After “Freedom of Expression?” should remain on view on that condition. Normally an exhibition space is meant to be an open, public site, but the closure of the exhibit just three days after the Triennale opening has robbed people of the opportunity to see the artworks and foreclosed any active discussion of them. Moreover, it has shut down the diversity of responses, ranging from feelings of anger to sorrow, that viewers might have had in front of the artworks. We strongly object to any violent intervention by politicians into exhibits, screenings, and performances at art institutions, and the kinds of menacing acts and intimidation that drove the Triennale to close After “Freedom of Expression?” as an emergency measure. [...]
What we seek is a patient process for reaching deeper understanding—the opposite of violent interventions. What we seek is a discussion that is open to all people and respects individual opinions and conditions, and a Triennale that is capable of realizing such a discussion.
- Excerpt of Statement signed by 72 Participating Artists of the Aichi Triennale 2019
NY Times Exhibition Review
ArtForum Exhibition Report
Frieze Exhibition Report
Art Asia Pacific Exhibition Report
Ocula Exhibition Review
Bijutsu Techō Exhibition Report (JP)
'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Text
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'Un-Freedom of Expression Show'...and After: Portfolio
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