Expo and the Nation-State: For the exhibition “Another Expo - Beyond
the Nation-State”
Shinya Watanabe (Curator of Spiky Art)
My aim is to create an art exhibition which is free from the structure
of
the Nation-State, the principle of the Expo (World’s Fair)
Expo and the Nation-State:
The meaning of the participation of the
Maurice Roche, author and researcher of Creole culture, pointed out
that the Expo, which started in the 19th century, was the product
of the European shift from city-states to nation-states, and also to the market
economy.
[1]
In the process of the creation of the nation-states,
represented in the unification of
It is noteworthy that especially in the
In the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha in
1898, the Native American band played the “Star Spangled Banner,” and exhibited
the model of the Battleship Maine with the sign ”Remember The Maine.”
[5]
During the next Expo “Pan-American Exhibition”,
held in
In the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at Saint Louis in 1904, groups
of pygmies and “Patagonian giants” from Africa, the Ainu from Japan, and
prominent Native American chiefs including Geronimo were formed into living
ethnological exhibit as a supplement of the US government exhibition of nearly
one thousand Filipino.
[7]
In 1929, the planners of the Expo approved
a proposal from the Ku Klux Klan to organize a meeting and burn a huge cross
at the event. The plan was withdrawn
following an outburst of protest from African-Americans.
[8]
The participation of the
Remember the
The Corruption of Internationalism
and the Limitation of the Nation-State
When Pablo Picasso exhibited
The United Nations
Pavillion in the Aichi Expo 2005 will exhibit the image of the replica of
In the “Another Expo” I propose, there are two artist from former Yugoslavia
– since the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO means the end of Internationalism.
In Yugoslavia, in spite of the Security Council’s order to stop bombing,
NATO (which is led by the United States) started aerical bombing, which is
quick and assymmetric, under the name of humanitarian intervention. Japan
practically supported this bombing. At
that moment, the internationalism which is supposedly the guiding light of
the United Nations was corrupted, and it created American Unilateralism, the
base for the United States to later start the Iraq War.
Furthermore, the Japanese government supported the United State’s
Iraq War, which ignored the UN.
The Japanese Foreign Policy’s long term aim was to join the Security Council,
but this principle was corrupted. Also,
the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage required Japan to amend
the Japanese Constitution No.9, the peace declaration which defines that Japan
cannot have military power and does not have the right to fight against other
countries
[12]
. In other words, Japan became the client
of the United States.
Internationalism was corrupted within the paralyzed UN, and a New Regionalism
saw the light of day, for example in Spain against the Aznar regime as anti-American
feelings spread in Europe. However, this problem is not well discussed
in Japan.
While the greatest institution of Internationalism was corrupted by the hand
of the United States and Japan, if you use the idea of nation-state such as
Aichi Expo to talk about the world, it cannot go further from the problem
of colonialism. What we should
think about is not the interest of developed countries. We need to deconstruct
the idea of outside and inside of the nation – in other words, to deconstruct
the idea of national profit, and to think about the problem of post-colonialism
and global capitalism which emerged at the end of the 20th century
on a global scale.
The Significance of Expo
in
In Showa 15 (1940,)
At the Osaka Expo, there was a huge movement of Anti-Expo Art. The artist Dadakan, the naked Dadaist who
spurred the “Tower of the Sun” designed by Taro Okamoto, located at the
center of Osaka Expo, was in attendance.
On the day of the New Year in 1996, Dadakan sent a New Year’s letter
to Kentaro Takekuma, the researcher of the Expo, which was the old New Year’s
letter in the year 1940. It simply
said: “We celebrate the New year of Emperor Age 2600.”
[14]
Dada emerged in
The Japanese organizer of the Aichi Expo declared that the countries
which will join the 2005 Expo that don’t have more than $2,975 per capita
GNP will be supported by the organizer.
[15]
An “Another Expo” artist Marina Abramovic’s
country is Serbia Montenegro, and its per capita GDP is $1,020, which is one
ninth of
The theme of the Aichi Expo (the Chinese character means Love-Earth
Expo) is “The Wisdom of Nature”. However,
in spite of this theme, the Expo ignores the whole problem of war and environmental
problems. Therefore, I organized
the exhibition “Another Expo – Beyond the Nation-State” and I gathered
the artists who are questioning the structure of the nation-state, which is
the base of the Expo, artists who have suffered from the structure of the
nation-state, and artists who questions the problem of the nation-state.
This “Another Expo” will be included in the gallery exhibition and
the guerilla exhibition inside of the Expo site.
For Okinawa, which was returned to Japan in 1972, the Aichi Expo is the first
Expo it can join as a Japanese territory. Born in
A work titled “You-I, You-I” (Tying Together) is a kimono which got
a prize in the 2002 Vision of Contemporary Art (VOCA) in
From Former
“Another Expo” include the two female artists
from the former Yugoslavia. One
is the Bosnian Muslim artist Sejla Kameric from Sarajevo, and one is a Serbian
artist, Marina Abramovic from Belgrade.
There is no other area like
the former
After experiencing the Serbian siege in
In the spring of 1993, the UN established six “safe areas” for Muslims,
these are the towns where UNPROFOR troops would protect them from attack.
These areas were
This "Bosnian Girl" is a public art project. The image of Bosnian Girl will be distributed
on Newspapers, Magazines and as postcards.
To exhibit this work in
Turkish Neighborhood in
Hollow Shape of
For this “Another Expo,” Sejla Kameric lives in
Jun Shibata - Nauru Republic Pavilion
Coming back to Japan after a six year stay
in Berlin, Jun Shibata created something invisible, of ghost-like consistently.
For “Another Expo,” he will create the Nauru Republic Pavilion, which
was in danger of extinction by the operation of the
The new industry was finance.
However, the people in
After the September 11th
attacks, the
Since the Chief of the Nation
disappeared, there is a severe survival condition in
The Nauru
Republic Pavilion exhibits the products which are connected to with
The Nauru
Republic Pavilion will be held at the backseat of an altered van. By using this van, Shibata will do a guerilla
exhibition in the parking lot of the Aichi Expo or the local parking lot around
the Aichi Expo site.
Ines Pais from
In the process
of traveling and meeting others, Pais felt pushed to the limits of abilities
and expanded her horizons, both culturally and socially. While she was traveling, the people whom
she met tended to forget her name, but they remembered the name of her nationality.
She realized that nationality is still used as a way to reinforce some
kinds of communal illusion. Pais
asks why inquiring for someone’s country’s name is so popular. When someone is asked one’s country name,
doesn’t that person have the possibility to resist the need to categorize?
Can't one affirm one’s autonomy from his or her nationality?
Ines Pais says, “Chixuania
is a fictive nation created by The IP Foundation. It symbolizes everyone's
uniqueness and to a certain extent everyone's privacy. Chixuania has no form. It is a free place. It is neutral and should continue as neutral.
It is located in every country and the language spoken is your native
language. It belongs to everyone who knows about
its existence. Everyone can relate
to Chixuania through individual experiences, preferences, fears and through
their own personal visions. Chixuania
is also a means of psychological, ethnographic research about how someone
is free to inhabit an independent identity, yet linked by the histories, habits,
attitudes of a family, of a clan, of a culture.”
Ryoga Katsuma - Give Me Food Project
Ryoga Katuma has a unique
career as an artist. His career started on the streets of
In this project, Katsuma
lives in the gallery, and draws the portrait of the visitors. If visitors like Katsuma’s drawing of
themselves, the visitors should give him food as an exchange. Sometimes, if Katsuma needs shampoo, the
artist will ask you to give him shampoo in exchange for his drawing. While literally in the exhibition, Katsuma
cannot spend any personal money to get some items at the stores. In this project, Katsuma will survive only
by his technique of drawing and begging. While artwork which deals with the problem
of homeless people and global capital is boring, the paintings of Ryoga Katsuma
who experienced homeless person and also worked at the
Author: Shinya Watanabe
Watanabe is the curator
of Spiky Art. He has traveled
around the world by himself. Having
graduated with a Masters of Visual Art Administration from