In this weeks lecture the artist Akasegawa Genpei and his contribution of Tomosons. Akasegawa, was bourn in 1937 in Yokohama, Japan. His early work during the 1950’s and 1960’s was involved in the Neo-Dada movement, which was an audio and visual art similar to previous Dada work stemming from Pop art. He printed a 1000 Yen note as an artwork however this broke laws of money laundering and was sentenced to gaol. When he was released from gaol he then did a follow up artwork – finding a loophole in the law and printed a zero Yen note.
A few years later he noticed a staircase leading up the side of a wall, along, and down again – leading nowhere. After passing it several times he noticed that the banister had been replaced. Akasegawa noticed that someone had been looking after and maintaining this pointless staircase with no purpose.
Again, years later he saw a prefect Japanese gateway that had been covered up in perfect stucco techniques. The story behind this was that the entrance was designed and made specifically for a wealthy man who after years of living in his home asked a servant what the door was for as it was being covered up. The servant’s response to this was that it was made specifically for his to enter through and since he had never been though and now he was dying it was no longer needed and being covered up.
After seeing the examples for the staircase and the doorway Akasegawa Genpei created his own type of art – it was what looked like conceptual art however not artist had made it, it had become a spontaneous and serendipitous. After seeing the American major league baseball player Gary Thomasson who played for the Japanese baseball team the Yomiuri Giants he though of him as a human version of this art. Thomasson looked like a beautiful player, but that was all – he would swing beautifully but not play well. Simply, he did nothing – beautifully. Yet Thomasson was treated with respect in Japan and would most likely be taken as a joke in America. From this Thomasson became the term for these examples of hyper-art.
While teaching Akasegawa Genpei send his student to take photos of some Thomassons they would find. One student took an image on top of a tall chimney of one of the last remaining traditional bath houses in Tokyo . Akasegawa Genpei described this student as ‘slightly retarded’ for taking ridiculous and dangerous length to get the photograph, so much so that he asked the student to prove he went, to climb back and taking a rubbing of the top of the chimney – which he did.
To Akasegawa Genpei, objects would fall into two categories, a Thomason’s and a non-Thomasson. An example was a staircase with a section of the stairs cordoned off for no particular or obvious reason, believed to be a pointless ‘half-arsed compromise’.
Another example of this was the image of two phone booths, one phone booth had been removed leaving a scar on the wall where it had sat for years, and its partner sat unused next to it. It became a portrait of the space and what it was subjected to such as underneath the booth with still remains, a dark patch of the floor is there showing that it has been protected from the elements more that the other one.
There is also great debate about whether thing are Thomassons or non-Thomassons. One image, which was rejected as a Thomasson was a tree stump protected by a guard – the idea that there was a guard protecting nothing. However Thomasson enthusiasts were arguing that this was not a Thomasson because they believed that at one stage there would have been a tree growing that would have been cut down while still young.
Thomassons are being found all over the world and being protected and maintained by the public.
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