The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

JAPAN HOTARD KOYAMA Space/sea in cavern/ No sight no. 1 1992-93 Gelatin silver photograph, bleaching and varnish 217x347cm Collection : The artist Hotaro Koyama was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1955 and educated at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music where he received a doctorate in 1987. He has held several solo exhibitions in Tokyo, the first being 'Shikaku Shoryo (Delving into the Visual Sense)', at Gallery Yo in 1983. His most recent solo show, held in 1993, was 'Space/ With a Suggestion of Red ' at Akiyama Gallery, Tokyo. The artist has participated in group exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including ' Photographic Aspects of Japanese Art Today', Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, 1987-88; 'Contemporary Photographs from Japan', Columbia College, Chicago, United States, 1988; 'Japanese Contemporary Photography - Twelve Viewpoints', Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Pavillion des Arts, Paris, France, 1990; 'Images in Transition- Photographic Rep- resentation in the Eighties', The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1990; 'Japan Art Today - Elusive Perspectives/ Changing Visions', touring Scandinavia, 1990-91; 'Arret sur Viaduc', L'Espace Art Defense Galerie Art 4, Paris Ia Defense, 74 France, 1992; and 'Photography in Contem- porary Art', Walker Hill Art Center, Seoul, South Korea, 1992. The work of Hotaro Koyama is represented in several collections in Japan including the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, and in the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris. At first glance, it appears as a painting. On a closer look, one recognises photographs in the large picture plane. At the same time, Hotaro Koyama's works give an impression that is so strong that they cannot be viewed simply as photographs. In general, painting has a long tradition of pursuing an image in order to obtain prox- imitywith reality. This pursuit, however, is after all an illusion. An attitude to deny painting emerged in the twentieth century. Various 'isms', performances and installations, all have an 'anti-painting' element. But it is doubtful whether all artistic movements under the anti-painting banner have been successful. And it is this very doubt that has begun to capture many artists and drives them to a renewed search for painting. The core of Hotaro Koyama's expression is 'memory'. 'Memory', of course, has various aspects: personal memory, the memory shared by a race, the memory shared by human beings, and even the memory that is innate to life itself. Obviously, all memories, except personal ones, are not recognised on a conscious level, existing only in genes. Hotaro Koyama works with photographs from personal history. In his creative, or rather 'de- structive' process (as he bleaches, scratches or burns the photographs with a gas burner, any notion of the characteristic of multiplicity of photography is denied here), the clear images of momentarily fixed personal memory are blurred, producing a suffused image on the picture plane.The picture plane, however, goes beyond the illusion of actuality, stirring up a kind of universal principle that makes reality fundamentally real. It rep- resents a universal 'memory' that operates on a subconscious level. Photographs were originally invented as a means of recording reality. But by using them as his raw material, Hotaro Koyama has created a new form of painting. Takeshi Kanazawa