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The Avignon Festival 2006 - A Personal Encounter (Part IV)Reviews (8)Jacqueline Fletcher visits the 60th Avignon FestivalDateline: 27th August, 2006Lune performed by Hiroyuki Nakajima The dilapidated but one-time baroque Chapelle Saint Charles was a perfect ambience for an installation of paintings by Japanese calligrapher and performer Hiroyuki Nakajima. These consisted of twelve drawings in black ink of huge dimensions (1.50m x 3.50m) hanging from the ceiling, each one accompanied by a video of the artist at work on the drawing. Each is a gigantic piece of calligraphy, inspired by a different phase of the moon and accomplished with a massive brush, like a giant mop, that requires movement from the entire body of the artist in a sweep-like motion. These over-sized calligraphic drawings are the essence of Japanese aesthetics, minimal, beautiful and engagingly meditative. Japanese calligraphy, called sho, is a highly developed art form practiced in order to cultivate the spirit. Children start to learn the art at primary school, but there are also numerous private schools. The Japanese practice calligraphy as an art form for their leisure, but also as an intrinsic facet of their culture; a few consecrate themselves to the practice at advance level and become professionals and can open their own school. Nakajimi chose the way of the artist. Nakajimi compares the training of the sho calligrapher with that of a dancer. It consists of daily practice, repetitions and the accumulation of gestures until the brush becomes an extension of the arm and of the interiority of the calligrapher. Each character is a single, rapid gesture giving expression to the spirit and to the spirit's oneness with nature. It is easy to see why the choreographer Josef Nadj, trained originally in martial arts, is inspired by an aesthetic that unifies mind, spirit and body in gesture. Nadj saw Nakajimi's installation and performance in Orléans in 2001 and later invited him to the Avignon Festival. But Nakajimi is not merely a traditional sho practitioner. He allows himself to be inspired by other techniques in the realisation of each work. As he puts it, "I try to express myself as a human being who lives in his own era. In our 21st century, people question the sense of their existence; they search for a raison d'être, on a spiritual as well as material level. I want to reflect the spirituality deep in the heart of people." Prior to starting on the works, Nakajimi travelled to Avignon during the 2005 festival to choose the space. So the Chapelle Saint Charles with its cool interior, its once magnificent now crumbling masonry and its soaring ceiling is directly linked up to the process of reflection and meditation that is always and inevitably a part of the preparation for an installation. It takes into account the change the space brings about in the spectator stepping into the welcome coolness and tranquillity, leaving the crowded festival streets and the heat behind. It is a perfect place for solitude and reflection. At 17.00 each day, Nakajimi gave a very brief performance in the space, which, I gather, differed from day to day, with the phase of the moon and his own interiority. For me this installation, seemingly so simple and unchallenging was one of the most inviting and in some respects exhilarating events during the festival. It offered a sense of equilibrium both external and internal, a door opening to a vast, harmonious space in the spirit, at one with rather than divorced from the roughness of life. It was possible to sit and contemplate these massive banners with a single twisting sweep of the brush. They were elegant and monumental, but rough and complex; the ink sinks and spreads slowly into the paper, changing colour, finishing the process and leaving a margin of unpredictability beyond the control of the artist. Even the drips of ink from the brush, incidental and accidental, have their own dynamic and are an intrinsic facet of the work. >> Next
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