For many Japanese, 1970 is a special year associated with "Banpaku"(the International Exposition at Osaka). This event marked the growing sense of confidence and material prosperity that epitomized the Japan in the followings decades. Paradoxically enough, this material abundance have sealed up every cracks in society, through which people could see outside and hope for freedom.
Shozo Shozo, an artist, has tried to find ways to go out of this confinement, by various and unusual forms of artistic activities. What he call "network" and "collaboration," are projects that deviate from our everyday routine, creating unexpected encounters between people and ideas. His work reminds us of one most important functions of art: to show us that happiness and freedom are not equivalent with social success and prosperity. Here you read an excerpt of the dialogue featured on Diatext. Vol.5 "1970", October 26, 2001.

"Sexy head" encounters "mail art"

Shozo:...Yes, 1970s is an important epoch for me, too. When "Gutai" group broke up in 1972, I thought I was entering the second phase of my career.

Hiroshi: How did "Gutai" dissolve?

Shozo: Well, nothing special happened. But I had my own ideas about what "Gutai" was. I thought "Gutai" was the name for an activity, in which people try to do something new, get out of an accepted idea of art. So I planned to go on trying novel, extraordinary things after the breakup. But when I looked around at the other ex-members, I found them doing things in a totally different way form me. They thought it important to continue what Gutai had already done up to that point. That's just the opposite of what I thought Gutai spirit was. So I found I was the only one who had a different idea. They turned me into a kind of heretic, since I seemed to have deviated from Gutai. They started to see me as a deviant from Gutai.

Hiroshi: For them, Gutai had come to mean a certain style rather than a spirit.

Shozo: There is still a shed behind this studio, where, picking out types, I printed the first issue of the journal Gutai, A primitive method of type-printing, without using machines. I set types in a wooden galley, spread ink on them, and print it on paper... All done by hand, and I sent the journal abroad. When Gutai broke up, the journal stopped. I suddenly lost my connection to the world. I felt I had nothing to do, so I started to communicate with people around the world, exchanging artworks. This then gave me the idea of "mail art." By then, I hadn't known such a thing existed. I had sent my artworks to museums and art galleries. I got responses, but not from those to whom I sent the works, whom I intended to show the works, but from those whom I didn't send, whom I didn't intend to show anything. This told me that "mail art" is spreading over the world.? I first sent letters in Japanese made of cardboard. After this I started to send pictures of my head. What is interesting about mail art is finding out that there are many different ways of thinking and appreciating artworks. Pictures I sent abroad were called "sexyhead"! I was fifty then, but I had never been called myself "sexy." I know I'm not good-looking. But even after I turned sixty I was called "sexy" when I was abroad. I asked them how I could be thought of as sexy, and they told me that I had a large space on the back of my head. I used to think this was a physical defect, but when I projected slides and films on the back of my head, they felt I was "sexy."

Hiroshi: How did you start showing images on your head?

Shozo: I was invited to show my works at the Pompidou Center in Paris, and I came back with many slides I had taken there. So I invited friends to my house and offered to show the slides. However I felt they were not enthusiastic about seeing them. I knew why. I wouldn't want to if I were in their position. At that time traveling overseas was still not common, people were often tempted to display whatever they had seen in foreign countries. I was ashamed to discover that I wanted to show off like everyone else. So I said to them "No, I am not going to show you my slides in a normal way. I will project them not on the screen, but here(pointing the back of his head)." I told that because I didn't find any better alternative. Then I did it. They enjoyed it so much that they asked me to repeat it.

Hiroshi: Did you just hit on the idea?

Shozo: Yes. I stumbled on the idea of projecting images on the back of my head. As I didn't want to be seen as a nuisance by forcing them to see something they were not interested in.

Hiroshi: People are forced to pay attention to the image itself if you project it on a normal screen. By projecting it on a head, I think a totally different element has come into play, an element of network as you described.


Who is really disabled?

Shozo: Another activity I have been involved in is art by "disabled" people. It also started when I was invited to Pompidou Center. I was asked by one of the curators by which artist had been my biggest influence. I told him that it is not Picasso, nor Matisse, but my pupils at school for the mentally disabled in Japan. Then he called me an "art brut". The name "art brut" was not as popular then as it is today, so I thought he had just invented some nickname for me, because I gave an unusual answer to his question. By the way, take a look at this catalogue. This shows an exhibition of art by mentally disabled, held in Kobe this spring. This picture shows a work by Hanako Imamura, who always put some part of her meal on the Tatami mat, and her mother takes pictures of them. Here is a painting by Daisuke Kibuse, who likes posters of old Japanese films. He paints them only from memory after looking at the original once. No photographing, no making of sketches. And he cannot read. He just memorizes the shapes of all the words of the title and the characters.?

Hiroshi: This is amazing!

Shozo: Isn't it? Though he cannot read, he can look at words and memorize their shapes immediately. And here is another one called Takaya Kobayashi. He draw the face of a person, and then erases it until you cannot recognize it.

Hiroshi: I see. He draws out with crayons a picture he has already completed.

Shozo: I don't know why he does it, but he draws lines on it until the original face becomes invisible. It's hard to understand the reason, because, in our common sense, it would be a waste of time to draw a picture if we paint it out later. And my name is included in this exhibition of the disabled. I don't know why the curator included me. But I feel more honored by this than by an invitation to some international Biennale. The eyes of the disabled people resemble those of mail artists. They are the opposite of the eyes of normal artists. I was classified as a member of the former group. Interesting.

Hiroshi: What do the disabled and mail artists have in common?

Shozo: What they value in life. They give priority to intuition over common sense. Let me tell you a story. Once a German mail artist came all the way from Germany to Japan, through Russia by land of course, bringing all his mail artworks in a mailbag that he had made. He stayed at someone's house, and when he left, he gave some of his mail artworks to the host as thanks for accommodation, but also took works from the host, and went to another mail artist's house. There he left works from the previous host as well as some of his own, took works from this new host, and went to the next. In Japan it's hard to imagine that this artist, with only 360 dollars income a month, and he travel abroad every year. With this amount, you could hardly make a living in Japan. But he enjoys a comfortable life. Generally, mail artists have no regular job. But they live in big houses. They have only one saucepan in the kitchen, but live in a big house in the country, grow flowers in the garden. I always wonder...Here in Japan people work hard to earn money, buy a lot of things, and they are always under pressure. This is strange. What has made them live that way?

Hiroshi: People in this country seem to have forgotten how to live happily without too much money or too many things.

Shozo: Exactly. But people don't even mention that there is another way of life. They only talk of recession, stock prices going down again, and all that kind of things. This tendency has come extreme since 1970. Hiroshi: Already in 1970 this country was crazy about money. But perhaps because society was not yet so well-organized as today, there were people who preferred to live in their own, strange ways. Today, in this abundance of things and information, we feel it harder to live as we like.

The Beauty of "Nyotaku"

Hiroshi: Could you tell us a little bit about "Nyotaku"?

Shozo: Sure. Here is a collection of photos. Nyotaku is an ink rubbing of a female body on paper. Can you imagine how beautiful it looks after this happens? I mean, not Nyotaku, but a woman's body wet with black ink. I wonder why it looks so beautiful... In commercial nude photos, a woman's body is clean, decorated with various items, but the image seems dirty. I don't know why. Once Ben Simons, a photographer, came to me to take my portrait for a magazine published by All Nippon Airways. I was amazed to see how cool I looked in his portrait, and we became friends. When we met again some time later, I told him of Nyotaku series I was working on. He liked it so much that he joined the tour of my Nyotaku performance in France, Finland and Taiwan, all at his own expense! A book will be published soon by Shogakukan, in which you can see how we perform Nyotaku.

Hiroshi: How many women have collaborated with you on Nyotaku series?

Shozo: About 420 now. Since Ben joined us, we have had to slow down. Almost stopped now. He takes so much time to photograph! But he never asks us to pose or smile, as most photographers do. He just take pictures of our doing Nyotaku, all in natural light. Nyotaku is often compared to work of Yves Klein, but Klein controls everything from the beginning, instructs everything at every moment. In my work, it is the women who take the lead. It's a collaboration.

Hiroshi: How did you first conceive the idea of Nyotaku?

Shozo: When I visited a hospital to treat my coronary problem, I was told by my doctor that it would take three years to recover completely. "That long?" I exclaimed. Then he asked me, in a voice half joking, half serious, "Shozo-san, what do you like best in life?" I answered "I like women very much," and then he reassured me that I would recover (laughing). "Ok, so you should tell all the women you know to come and see you at the hospital. You can tell them that your doctor says you could die if women didn't see you." So, a lot of women came to see me at the hospital. When I was finally allowed to leave, they hold a celebration party at the Royal Hotel, jokingly titled "Shozo Shozo and a thousand of beauties." 500 women actually attended. They all contributed 10.000 yen for the party, so I felt a little obligated to do something for them in return. Then I came up with the idea of Nyotaku. At first, I didn't know if they were ready to be naked for Nyotaku. Then I leaned a little bit about women psychology. They want to make a record of their body while they are young and beautiful. But photography makes them hesitate because it is too realistic. But Nyotaku is far from photographic reality because it is made by ink rubbing.

Hiroshi: Have you had some interesting conversations with some of participants in Nyotaku?

Shozo: Yes. When they came in couples, men always pointed out some shortcomings in their partner's body, whether they are married or not. He might mention how imperfect the breasts or the hips of his partner were. Of course he loved her. So these remarks were intended as a modest disclaimers in front of the third person, as you might guess. This is not the case with non-Japanese. The husbands urge their wives to do Nyotaku, all the while telling me how beautiful they were, even when they were 64 years old. A Japanese man likes to say his partner is not very beautiful even when she actually is. The woman is discouraged by this comment and say then she doesn't want to do Nyotaku. When women come alone, most of them don't hesitate.

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