Highlights from Okayama Art Summit 2019

The Okayama Art Summit (OAS) was launched in 2016 by three Okayama natives—Taro Nasu of the eponymous Tokyo-based gallery; interior designer Masamichi Katayama; and retail businessman Yasuharu Ishikawa—with a vision to create an art circle around the Setouchi Inland Sea, and to revitalize the Okayama cultural scene. In a bid for the event’s second edition to attract global attention, the OAS committee invited French multimedia sculptor Pierre Huyghe to act as artistic director. Huyghe in turn roped in 18 international artists and collectives examining biological, chemical, and technological processes, with the intent for the 2019 exhibition to be a living, complex system that expands conceptions of what constitutes intelligent life forms. Titled “If the Snake,” the show elicited “spontaneous order[s], self-generating material[s] with consciousness, shifting meaning[s], [and] constantly modif[ied] its plasticity in total indifference to any potential witness,” in Huyghe’s words.

As in 2016, the summit unfolded across a cluster of cultural and historical venues at the foot of the Okayama Castle, an area that was once famous as a joukamachi (castle town), and, later, as a hub for local artisans and craftspeople. The exhibition spaces included the former Fukuoka Soy Sauce Factory and the Hayashibara Museum of Art. Although there were also outdoor works installed along the Asahi River, most projects were displayed indoors—mainly at the former Uchisange Elementary School. Unlike in 2016, there were no commissions of large-scale installations transforming the cityscape. Also lacking were dialogues between the art and the rich history of the sites. This system of art, as Huyghe stated, “existed on its own,” though it was difficult for viewers to completely ignore the historical ambience of the projects’ surroundings, especially architectural structures as impressive as the Okayama Castle. While the parachuting in of artists might prompt one to think that the venues were simply used as “containers” for art, the post-apocalyptic features of these works blended in visually with the disturbing atmosphere of the deserted sites, such as the school and the factory, the ghosts of which seemed to linger in the background, becoming a part of the Summit’s entity. Through incorporating these elements of the tangible and the intangible, “If the Snake” co-opted within its system the living—the artworks, artists, and visitors—and the dead, questioning the very idea of existence and consciousness.

Here are some highlights: