Original subtitles

No, no, wrong... The perspective is off.

The river isn't here...

Let's take a break.

My work is full of compromises.

That's why it doesn't sell.

I slack off toward the end...of my work,

though I have grand ideals in the beginning.

Thank you for waiting.

Ladies and gentlemen, the arrival of the bride and groom.

Give them a big round of applause.

Aida-san, Okada-san, Congratulations!

Let's cut the cake!

— Here? — Yes!

We've never seen such a wonderful newlywed couple.

I'm honestly impressed.

— Who came up with their costumes? — These two.

You two? You're true artists.

"Golf"

All the best wishes for happiness and prosperity.

Relax...

Keep it up!

Cute! Oh, cute!

Small, very small.

Which one do you look like?

Single eyelids? Let's operate at once.

There is Aida.

Could you say a word?

A word?

Well, mainly painting,

I'd like to create an understandable and interesting show.

Thank you.

“I'm tired of everything.”

“| apologize for causing any inconvenience...”

“Thank you so much.”

Rice porridge,

something... fried vegetables.

Pickle them into a preservative with

toilet paper and wood adhesive.

It's a shame to destroy an elaborate park such as this.

Precious park.

It would confuse people if you renovated this,

Makoto?

It's an improvement.

Improvement?

He intends to redesign this park or something like that.

Dreamlike.

It's just a proposal though...

He said he wanted to try the idea

and create like that:

now he's doing some research.

I want to restore the Shinjuku-Gyoen National Garden

to an ancient Japanese forest without even a piece of concrete,

even a glimmer of asphalt.

I would get rid of it all.

Okay. Let's meet Mr. Aida.

Give him a warm round of applause.

Thank you for coming.

If there is anyone here from the Ministry of the Environment,

please raise your hand.

No one from the Ministry of the Environment?

Well, is there anyone from Shinjuku Gyoen here?

No one.

Let's see...

A government official,

not necessarily from the Ministry of the Environment,

who came to hear about the plan of the park

rather than as an art fan?

OK, nobody.

A characteristic of contemporary art is

its ruin, almost.

Anyway it's not distinguished,

and has retired from the front line of entertainment.

It has no direct power to affect society.

It is a weird multipurpose place or something.

Oh, disgusting...

Environmental conservation,

ecology,

or earth work.

Such huge works like these on the ground or in nature.

I try to make sarcastic works

against such genres.

The theme is "Love and Birth."

In the beginning, I thought

I would address the theme directly.

Including me, about ten artists are participating in the project.

So, among them, I play an ironic character.

Surely there are other love-and-peace people.

So I'll turn "Love and Birth" upside down.

And that's my expected role.

Sort of a hatchet man.

Even if I get only one complaint from a kind old woman in Hiroshima,

then will I have completed my role.

Basically, my works don't receive many complaints

in Japan, or even in the world.

As long as you're not an idiot, you don't say anything.

They're also not really loved either.

Anyway, there are concepts in English somewhere.

Here.

For this project, these English concepts are important.

1, 2,3, 4, 5 and 6.

At first, one finds a huge, wild place, somewhere like a jungle.

There can be nothing artificial, like bridges or roads.

Nothing but living animals and plants. Basically, not a desert.

Next, cut down all the plants

and level the ground in as large an area as possible.

Completely and totally level the ground.

And if there is water or a river or something, it should be filled in.

Pave the square with black asphalt.

Paint the character "human" on a large scale,

using the same white paint used for crosswalks.

Carefully paint the character "human."

Building materials are to be transported by helicopters

because there isn't even a road.

And finally, after the exhibition,

you can remove it immediately or leave it there permanently.

"It doesn't matter." Either is OK.

That's what I'll paint.

That's why I've looked for jungle pictures.

That's all. "Love and Birth," that's it.

You are going to make a big mess.

He did with the noodles.

So hot.

Is it easy to take it apart? If so, no problem.

It's not that complicated.

You are sitting down in a 50's chair,

which is an icon to people around the world.

Here I go.

I'll finish tomorrow though.

— Tomorrow? — Yeah.

What about painting "Kakumaru" (Revolutionary Marxist)?

With dripping paint.

It looks like a helmet.

Eames with Kakumaru is awesome, right? Or is it my imagination?

"Chukaku (Central Marxist)" on the back.

It will be turned down.

Boat.

One boat.

Kakumaru Chukaku...

It needs one more twist...

But if there is too much going on it may lessen the impact of the piece.

Alright!

Let's sleep!

Just a small painting,

and when you bring it to a museum, it seems amazingly small.

Uh-oh.

I can't do anything without tools. Without tools...

Where are my tools?

It takes a good hour.

Ugh...ugh...

Just kidding.

Like this,

look, look, and then,

yes.

I'm doing it like that, at first.

Then I paint green on to it.

It becomes a jungle immediately.

At least that's what I'm hoping for.

But that by itself is too plain. So I'll paint a little more green.

Am I OK with this pace?

No, I'm not OK.

I'm not sure what I'm drawing.

After black and white, I'm going to paint about six types of green separately.

It seems that there are many kinds of trees.

But I won't know until I try.

Hello, this is Makoto Aida.

I want you to help me a bit.

How about tomorrow?

Well... it might be a little bit boring, the labor is simple though.

Thank you for coming.

— Are you ready now? —Yes.

Let me explain what you'll do.

Here, on the part that I painted gray,

squeeze bright pure white on it, little by little, like this.

With this fine of a brush, you don't really need to add water.

Sort of like cauliflower. The fluffy part of the cauliflower.

The light is coming from this way,

so paint the brightest part as thick as possible.

Thick enough to be tangible.

Basically almost like pointillism.

You can't make a mistake by adding too much paint.

Please paint as much as possible.

I thought I had painted quite a lot, but from a distance it looks like not enough.

I often say that I don't like to paint.

It's OK if someone else paints my work instead.

"Just paint the character for human in the middle of a jungle for me, OK?"

“Canvas size #200.”

— Oh, this is size #200. — Yeah.

I used to live in Tsudanuma, Chiba Prefecture.

In front of the house, there was a field of plum trees,

with many beautiful plum flowers.

I really loved it.

One day, I was awakened by the sound of a chainsaw,

and the plum trees were being cut down.

The next day, there was nothing but empty ground out there.

The day after that, a truck carrying asphalt came

and quickly covered the ground completely.

And then, white lines were drawn and

the area was finally turned into a parking lot.

While watching such a sight,

well...how should I say it...

it was very heart-wrenching,

but at the same time, I felt a kind of ecstasy.

Like an adrenaline rush

while watching this go on all day.

Do you think it will be my masterpiece?

It won't.

Why did you answer first?

It won't.

I need a break.

I'm almost dead.

Alas... I want to get away somewhere.

I'm getting fed up with this place.

Let's just say it's completed.

Let's have a smoke.

A salmon falling down...

The magazine requested an artist.

Artists and designers are different, artist's works are like this.

In the simple word "mid-century,"

there are different meanings:

American mid-century and the Japanese one.

"Mid-century"” in red hi rag an a characters

written next to a hanging old lady.

Would be rejected...

I had originally thought of the encounter between manga and ukiyo-e

in the field of contemporary art;

I'd been thinking about this since I was 20.

When I watched a biography about Hokusai,

while watching that picture of an octopus and a woman,

I thought: "Oh...if I change these arms into King Giddra,

"I can finish one painting."

So I painted it.

One morning, my girlfriend was arranging her hair.

I was just gazing blankly at her head.

I thought, "I see something familiar..."

"What is it... what is it...?"

"Ah yes, it's a path between rice fields!"

I was still dreaming.

While feeling half-awake,

oh...there is a path going through the head...

"I could finish one painting."

At first, I came up with the word, hara-kiri school girls, I guess.

And soon afterwards, I thought of writing a short novel.

Like Kobo Abe, an absurd one,

sort of an edgy one.

When I started to write this novel,

I realized I had no patience to keep writing.

So I painted it.

New York burned in flames by Zero fighters,

and in the style of Japanese painting,

like Rakuchu Rakugai-zu, there is no perspective.

It's a birds-eye view, the viewpoint is from the air.

And the flame is bursting like the famous inferno pictures.

The Zero fighters look like they were created with computers,

they have a mother-of-pearl, glittering rainbow-like material.

These ideas were created

in two seconds at most.

Even though, before those two seconds,

I'd watched, by total luck, a TV program about kamikaze

or something like that...

Regarding World War |I subjects,

I tried to challenge the limit that human senses can tolerate.

This type of expression can be tolerated

because an artist has a unique position in society.

The Pacific War in particular is a topic

that Japanese tend to maintain

a cautious attitude towards, as if we have aphasia.

As if we can't make unwise remarks.

Well, I purposefully tried making such unwise remarks.

If someone carelessly goes beyond

this boundary to the extreme,

it might have a positive side

like social pressure venting, I think.

Tired?

This arm.

Thank you so much. I owe everything to you.

Let's get going.

Some attach a long handle to their brush.

I wanna try it.

It's hard to work with a big piece

because I can't step back to see it.

Let's take a rest.

This is just a painting of the jungle...

but I don't want to make merely a conceptual work

like saying, "There is jungle, asphalt, 'human' and it's irony... period."

Paintings should be enjoyable

in every section to be admirable.

Although conceptual artists in the 70's didn't care,

ones in the 21st century need to show a spirit of service.

Just kidding.

This Onigiri-kamen is my self-portrait,

sort of.

It has a big belly.

Let's take a break.

I expected to put light color, little by little.

Oh, I thought...on the way... mix the medium...

Is it not better?

Well...but it's OK.

Can you paint as horizontally as possible?

This type of stroke will really make it look painted. Like this.

Even if it has the same unevenness,

as long as lines run parallel with the horizon,

it seems to express the asphalt pavement.

Who is that?

I put a heavy value on

the accidental emergence of an idea.

This step is only the creative aspect,

and the next step is manual labor.

This is a boring job. No pleasure.

I have to cast my idea into a shape,

but I never want to do it.

I don't enjoy it at all.

Same as in the "Blender," I save a lot in paint.

Save?

Yes, because what I've used is almost all white paint.

Although it looks like the ragged surface used lots of paint,

most of it is actually white and...

the green paint is pretty thin.

White is the cheapest...

green is quite expensive.

So this is how poor people paint.

I have many classmates that are good at this type of thing.

They don't have any interest in contemporary art though...

The characteristic of contemporary art is...

its ruin, almost.

In recent years, contemporary art

is a multipurpose place for everybody.

It isn't good at dealing with entertainment.

It's a genre forced out of entertainment,

it's small, but still remains.

When I think of what to do in such a field,

something that cannot fit

within the standards of each genre --

For example, genetic engineering

being taboo.

It might work to leave this kind of activity as a multipurpose place.

In the circumstance where values tend to become standardized,

leaving such a place might not be bad,

though might not be good...

Really.

Not entertainment.

Retired from the front line of entertainment.

No power to affect society.

A weird multipurpose place or something.

As far as I'm concerned,

Contemporary art has no social value (the multipurpose place).

If I work regardless of this real issue,

I feel vain...

Vain...

Wow!

Especially like how "War Picture Returns"” is about the Pacific War,

I'm always dealing with well-known materials

that are unnatural for people to ignore.

I don't read newspapers anyway,

and I rarely hear news, either.

The only source is... magazine advertisements in the train.

I'm just absorbing the public atmosphere

through these headlines

like an observer of an essay.

There are many journalists...

and they should investigate well.

Although I may cover stories myself like a freelance journalist,

I don't really want to engage myself in doing that.

I'm just a man who only has a little information anyway...

I'll continue in the style of an essay observer in the future.

But still, I'm interested in modern society.

In the era of Rubens or Eitoku Kano,

painters worked in a court or in a castle,

and in many cases they worked in a group.

Today, an artist working by himself

like Van Gogh did,

is quite frankly, strange.

When I was in high school,

I decided to choose my career

since I thought I could do everything by myself.

It's too late to change my ways,

even though I realize that Rubens-like productivity

is an original style of creative work.

It's wrong that I'm painting this ONIGIRI-KAMEN alone.

I can't make all my decisions,

and I still have some doubts.

Despite this, I keep painting alone

because it's not in my nature

to work with other people.

Ready...

"Risa Stegmayer!"

"Stop! Mako!!"

"Stop, please!!”

"Life is messy, a mix of rain and shine, by Tsuyoshi."

"Ha ha ha!"

Rehearsal. Ready...go!

"Masamichi..."

"Who is she?"

"She is your mother starting today."

"Wait, wait."

Doesn't she give her name, here?

You know what? What about a thin mustache?

That's fine. Oh great!

"Makoto? I think I'm pregnant.”

"Huh?"

"A baby."

"Get out of here!"

"No way..."

"First, there is no evidence that it's my child.”

"Wait..."

"Let go!”

"Just be happy I slept with someone ugly like you."

"Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!"

"My baby..."

Please welcome with wild applause, the artist Makoto Aida.

The art world is led by art magazines,

and it's difficult to reflect people's opinions.

I invited these two people because...

Their two galleries deal with the artists you understand.

Also, these two people appear as judges in the TV program "Everybody is Picasso."

That means, you have the guts to open yourselves to the public.

As a gallerist, the moment I feel I can communicate with someone

is when I sell works.

That's why I do everything: to focus on selling,

but where is the place for communication?

Frankly speaking, let's say foreign people, such as Americans and the French,

are much amused and want to buy Aida's work.

I definitely sell it, even though they don't really understand his work.

As a professional dealer, we need to sell,

even if there are misunderstandings or illusions,

I have to sell it.

What do you think, Aida-san?

I barely think about what a gallery is.

Until now, about 99 percent of the time,

I haven't worked thinking about collectors.

The imaginary target is vague: general customers.

But I actually sell works to an individual, to someone.

So if I thought seriously about a gallery,

it would cause a contradiction with my attitude of working.

That's why I try to think about the gallery

and the collector as little as possible.

After university,

and after participating in an exhibition at Roentgen, no gallery came to me.

So I exhibited at a citizen's public hall or something like that, just like an amateur.

At that time, I didn't think of selling

and I worked part-time not to starve.

I regarded art as a pure concept.

That thought was really clear;

and it was easy to sort out my feelings.

At the time, he showed works such as BRUTUS and THE AMERICAN ART,

but honestly no one bought them.

And he wanted to throw them away after the show

because those works were so big.

So a woman working at the gallery said,

"If so, I'll buy it for 30,000 yen."

This was just the reality in Japan. Very harsh.

"The art world dealing only with 'idealistic' people must die out.”

When I heard this I thought, "That's right."

I agree in a way, but...

I can't feel as a reality that

'idealistic' people still exist in the world.

I mean, I was born into a family of semi-leftist teachers.

I had been taught by my mother that

money is the root of all evil,

ever since I could remember.

While watching "Little House on the Prairie,"

I would see the mean merchant family and think,

"See, a merchant is a bad person like this."

I haven't changed my thoughts since my debut ten years ago.

What I want to do at this Geisai Exhibition is

to experiment to see whether commercialized fine art can happen.

If it occurs, the other side will appear.

Now, it's difficult to make such distance in this society.

In this sense, I need to grow and expand one side rapidly,

and this portion would drastically generate the other side.

Can I ask you one thing? Simply...

Are you really a friend of Nara Yoshitomo?

Bonjour.

Takeshi's video works will be displayed here.

Did you decide what you will show by yourself?

Not really, it was done by agreement.

Murakami and the Cartier people gave their input.

Shinjuku Castle was selected

by the Cartier Fondation from my painting book.

What we need here is...

a PP-band.

Please come closer.

Tear it.

Yes, this is fine.

Two more points?

Three points.

I need to use as little as possible.

What?

The cardboard.

Is it big enough to enter here?

No, westerners are bigger, around here...

I directly express my feelings or ideas

coming from my everyday life in Japan.

For example, about that work:

Japanese homeless people build cardboard houses,

and it's sort of a trend.

I think artists should document reality

in a different way than journalists do.

So you are a reporter of Japanese reality.

For me, this painting is violent,

but still has an optimistic atmosphere:

What do you think about it?

I want to display it in my house.

Really.

The last question is, given that Hokusai is in museums now,

and that manga is also going to be in museums of contemporary art,

manga is art then, isn't it?

Well...let me think...

Westerners from the 17th and 18th century

were deciding if something was worthy to be art.

I think whether or not...

manga and Ukiyo-e should be called art

has some contradictions.

I'm thinking quite simply.

Manga, Ukiyo-e, Delacroix...

Jean-Luc Godard, and Spielberg,

everything is entertainment.

Whether or not it's interesting.

I just saw a beautiful Parisian girl.

Small, small but OK.

People can go through.

We started at 9:00 right?

Amazing that you work so much.

I've decided to work three hours each day.

At first, a homeless man had to invent a way to use a PP-band.

In a sense, that man is a genius.

Good!

Exactly like a computer!

Exactly!

Here was something leaning by chance like a slope.

I want to use this kind of accident.

Too tidy.

A problem for my work.

Still a long way to go!

What are you shooting?

It's become about 20 percent bigger than the original plan. Is that OK?

I might ask you to slide a bit that way, but it's OK.

I'm impressed.

See you later.

No problem! No problem!

Believe me, please.

Lift up just by tying here.

Oh yeah, great.

You don't need to try so hard.

Power up!

I'm sincerely sorry that it's a job.

— Cut! — Yes!

Two short ones.

Sorry to keep you waiting.

Oh, that...

Oh, how did you know that?

Sometimes you are...

amazing.

Erase!!

Making only the donjon on the ground...

only the roof...

Yeah, the roof is not possible even if you use that stuff.

I think we're at the limit.

I got it.

Let's stop building upward.

Can I go out?

If I have energy, I can finish the donjon today.

I'm not powerful...

We met on the way.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too.

Let's get going.

Wait a moment.

OK.

Foolish!

Great! It's quite moving! Really.

Very nice!

Very nice.

I'm going to rest a little.

The banding bands have come.

There is a roof here, like this.

It may be hard, but put everything together to be strong.

OK, OK.

Where do you want to install the video work?

Here.

What about this place, is here OK?

Does every viewer pass through this space?

But... OK, I don't care.

My muscles are sore because

I keep cutting cardboard with a cutter.

My hands are coming apart.

Everybody feels the same way.

You're right.

— Are you going straight home today? — No way!

So tired...

A baby's neck goes through here?

Let's lift it 40 cm.

The height is here.

This is important floor material.

What do you express through this art work?

No...

No meaning in my works.

No meaning.

I have no reason, understand?

Well... I don't know what to scatter.

This is important!

I bought it for this show.

A shoe.

Oh, look at this!

I brought this.

Everything's OK.

Is there an explanation of the work over there?

No, nothing.

In the art world, it's common that works aren't explained much,

so this is not unusual.

Or compared to what's usual, my works are kind and understandable.

Are you available now?

Yes, if it's OK to stand talking.

— It might be difficult for you to say. — What's coming next?

Yes, we are looking forward to it.

Asking about such a plan may, though, be against the rules.

You never can tell.

I basically have a schedule of exhibitions for a year,

and I'm just thinking about how I can fill up all those walls.

I don't really think of the next theme or anything,

I just think about how to do each exhibition wall.

Thanks.

It's nice.

The party's over when the tea comes.

If I play in open space, which is becoming obsolete,

it's still significant that I stick to my self-centeredness.

Why does the camera tum this way?

Hello.

You're sleeping.

This is a new juice called "Nara's fake."

I've already seen it.

We'll finish today!

You sure?

I lied.

All right! I'll make us work!

First, the basic theme song.

Sure, this one.

Tum it up!

There's nothing that can feed me power to work on the damn jungle.

To a certain extent, I didn't want to draw girls

because I don't like the fact that paintings of girls can be easily sold.

But I should draw girls.

I'm happy while painting girls.

This type of work doesn't sell regardless of its price.

That means, the serious version of myself who doesn't paint girls is...

I wonder how many people buy art work in Japan.

Great! It's sushi!

Your dad might finish the work!

A sushi restaurant after finishing.

Yeah, let's really go to a sushi restaurant.

Is it around here?

After you finish.

We don't need to celebrate the completion of my poor work.

This type of image is not good —

she should be in regular clothes...

Hurt?

Al right, the corner isn't sharp.

Oops!

Hey! Hey! Hey!

Oh, no!

This is the work, that's just an accessory.

I'm going to go now.

This is the project:

that a precious jungle is destroyed for damned art.

When people see such a plan,

everybody reflexively thinks that it's a shame to damage Mother Nature.

And then they think something like

“the man who comes up with this plan is a devil.”

At this moment,

everybody becomes a fighter for global environmentalism.

Well, it's called Naita Akaoni (crying-red-devil) campaign.

So I'm kind of that blue devil.

Oh, what a good man I am.

Since I was a child, for some reason, I've liked Naita Akaoni's story.

That's a very good story, right?

The most important truth isn't shot by a video camera.

If there wasre no one here at a time like this, I...

would definitely masturbate.