Yutaka Sone
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In fairness Sone said during his talk that his aim is only to entertain and perhaps enchant the viewer. At that he’s fairly successful: in an essay Walker calls Sone’s work “straight-up fun…no strings attached.” And after all, as we’re told, Japanese art isn’t policed for distinctions between fine and commercial art the way Western art is. But much Japanese art, from ukiyo-e woodcuts to manga to film, has used snow and other natural phenomena in stunning and moving ways regardless of its intended audience. If Sone’s installation isn’t beautiful or ugly, tragic or funny, what is it?
It’s about knickknacks–and the best knickknack is a fancy knickknack. The most striking objects in “Forecast: Snow” are two delicate marble carvings, one of a ski lift and one of the San Moritz ski resort. Like the carved marble and crystal snowflakes, these were fabricated by workers in China. But unlike traditional master artists in the West or Japan, who closely supervise or supervised their fabricators, Sone visited the factory “four times a year,” he said during his talk. And judging from his own ham-handed drawings and maquettes, the carved pieces had to have been entirely outsourced even though he also said he participated in the final detail work. Like Sone’s artisan-made marble carvings of Los Angeles freeway interchanges, shown at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art in 2003, his ski dioramas evoke nothing so much as the intricately carved elephant tusks prized by 19th-century European and American collectors of chinoiserie. There’s a lot to look at, but not much to see.
More: U. of C. physics professor Heinrich Jaeger gives a free lecture on the symmetry of crystals Sun 2/26, 2 PM.
