Yoshiaki Kaihatsu: ART IS LIVE―Welcome to One Person Democracy

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is pleased to present Yoshiaki Kaihatsu: ART IS LIVE―Welcome to One Person Democracy, the first major exhibition dedicated to Yoshiaki Kaihatsu (1966–) held at a museum in Tokyo. Since the beginning of his career in the 1990s, the artist has devoted himself to artistic activities that involve and provoke communication, with underlying interest in familiar events, such as everyday life and social occurrences.

The forms of expression he employs are diverse, ranging from the production of drawings, photographs, performances, and installations to everyday tasks, workshops at schools and in communities, and proposing and advocating Thank You Art Day, which designates March 9 (the pronunciation of “3 9” resembles “thank you” in Japanese) as the day to celebrate art. Among them, the ongoing projects offer us a glimpse into the philosophy behind his endeavors. Future Post Office, in which a letter you write to yourself or to your friend arrives after a year, 100 Teachers, in which classes are conducted under the slogan, “Everyone is a teacher, everyone is a student,” and Mole TV, which invites diverse guests to the underground studio, all mimic the existing formats—the postal service, education, and mass media—while suggesting an equal relationship between the message’s sender and receiver.

Dragon Chair, a workshop that started at school in Fuchu, invited children to express themselves—without worrying about what others think—through chairs, which are linked together to form a dozens-meter-long dragon. In 2011, the artist began a charity exhibition, Daylily Art Circus (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014), with his artist and personal friends. The project collected donations, traveling from Western Japan, the region struck by the Great Hanshin and Awaji Earthquake, to the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant accident. His interaction with people in the disaster-stricken regions and experiences at the sites led to other projects in Fukushima, such as The House of Politicians (2012–) and Cotoba Library (Library of Words), which collects vanishing dialects. These projects, in which Kaihatsu hears individuals’ faint voices and calmly continues to do what he can do, can be described as “side-by-side activism.”

Kaihatsu’s gestures of personally intervening in social structures, systems, communities, and events have come to characterize his practice: the late Osamu Ikeda (former director of BankART1929) called it “One Person Democracy*.” “Democracy,” a term premised on everyone’s participation, may seem to contradict “one person.” However, precisely because these movements are not united, individuals can react to each other, and the reaction successively involves people and results in an action. This is where we find the core of Kaihatsu’s artistic expression.

Many of his extensive and diverse artistic activities are not intended to be in a collection or exhibited at museums, and this has limited opportunities to overview his career of over thirty years. Yoshiaki Kaihatsu: ART IS LIVE―Welcome to One Person Democracy presents about fifty pieces of works and projects by the artist, who has confronted everyday events and social changes firsthand. We welcome viewers to the world of One Person Democracy.

^*Osamu Ikeda, “One Person Democracy,” KAIHATSU Yoshiaki, BankART1929, 2014

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