For certain reasons, today I visited Mathieu Copeland’s exhibition “Exhibition Cuttings” at the Hermès gallery in Ginza1. I know nothing about the art scene, but in the 1964 of the previous Tokyo Olympics, Japan was leading the world.
Because searches for the Grand Panorama Exhibition and related topics do not yield much good information, I recommend visiting “Exhibition Cuttings.” You can study it together with the series of developments around the world that followed. Incidentally, Yoko Ono was amazing.2
A solo exhibition at a gallery normally begins on its first day with a glamorous reception, but this was an anti-exhibition: it began by sealing off the gallery, and ended by lifting the closure and celebrating at the exhibition’s conclusion. Seeing this and the subsequent movements around the world that challenged the commercialization of art gave me much to think about.
One thought was another Olympic opening ceremony that might have been.
Since it was a period of COVID lockdown, the ceremony could appropriately have been an anti-opening. No athletes would enter the stadium. Instead, socially distanced, they would line the balconies of their own rooms in the Olympic Village. One half of the television screen would continuously show President Bach, the other Olympic aristocrats, and officials alone in the National Stadium; the other half would use drones to tour the accommodation balconies country by country. The music would be Cage’s 4 minutes 33 seconds, during which a moment of silence would honor those who died from COVID and, since these were the “Reconstruction Olympics,” those who died in the earthquake 10 years earlier. For the latter, the actual state of reconstruction would be shown without concealment.
Throughout the Olympics, cameras would closely follow the IOC aristocrats, leaving behind an artistically styled Tokyo Olympics documentary.
Naturally, the athletes would not all gather until the very end of the closing ceremony. Only those who remained would be present; those who had already left would participate virtually on a giant screen.
At the very end, perhaps some symbolic person—who would be suitable?—would remove the Olympic aristocrats, gather the athletes, and declare a break with commercialism3. The Olympics have been this way ever since the LA Olympics, but this time in particular they have exposed so much of the darkness of commercialism and the attention economy4 that I indulged in this little fantasy.
Footnotes
- Le Forum “Exhibition Cuttings,” an exhibition by Mathieu Copeland, 2021.4.23 (Fri.)–7.31 (Sat.)
https://www.hermes.com/jp/ja/story/maison-ginza/forum/210423/ - I fully realize this is impossible because that is where sports organizations obtain their funding.
- the Keigo Oyamada and Nobumi controversies reflect the advertising-agency mentality of selecting people who can attract attention
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