Naoki Koide

In These Days

I’d like to talk about the form of the installation now. In the undead family and A Couple in the Bathroom installations, you created stage-like rooms with a lot of small props. This style seems to have disappeared in more recent shows. Is it because you are now dealing with a white cube, like this space, or because you simply don’t feel the need to use the props anymore?

When setting up the Project Room show, which was a group show in a small space, people’s works seemed too independent from each other, causing a lack of unity. So I said, “I want to paint the walls!” and everybody reluctantly agreed. The next time it was in the same place and I figured since I had painted it once that I could paint it again, so I did. I guess I have always had this desire to create spaces. Just having one object in a room doesn’t make it complete. One way to achieve this sense of completion is with photographs. So, gradually I started taking photographs of things and using those photographs. This time, with picnic with undead, I’ve made a room-like situation. But if you asked me what I really wanted to do, it would be to make a house or entire room in the space. Nobody was really in favor of that idea though. [laughs]

In your earlier photographs of the couple, you had them acting out various situations in different rooms. In contrast to the dramatic element in these works, it seems that the recent works have become more static, more removed from actual scenes and situations, and more akin to bronze statuary. And the photographs here don’t necessarily depict concrete situations. It seems to me that you now feel less of a need to set up specific situations and are more interested in following a path towards the abstract and universal.

Perhaps, at the time I made the couple works, situations involving couples―in the bedroom or bathroom, for example―were more important to me than now. That’s why, in the photographs, I placed and recorded the sculptures in various scenes. Then in Marriage, the scene shifted to another place, so I photographed the figures at the wedding hall. This time, because the theme is that of moving into a new house, you find photos of the house. The reason you find so many works here featuring houses is a measure of how important this new environment is to me.

Does that mean once you have children, and your new life with them begins, you will return to a concern with interiors?

Oops, you’ve given away the ending. [laughs] I think that if I do have a child everything I make might start coming from a child’s perspective. Having tied the marriage knot, I do feel more at ease with my ego. It’s a shift from myself to my family. Regardless of what kind of married couple we become, once we have children, they’ll likely become the focus. The next show could probably be all about that.

gallery 2 : This room is really great. What do you feel are the relationships between painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture in your work?

I think, when you get right down to it, everything is painting for me. In order of skill and ease, it goes sculpture, drawing, and finally painting. Painting is the highest hurdle for me, the one most difficult to approach.

And you make drawings for the sculptures, or to help you get your ideas down.

When I make objects, I hardly do any sketching. I draw right on the styrofoam and start carving and forming the shape I want. Actually, sculpting, for me, is the most refreshing work. Almost all of the paintings in this show are of objects I’ve made in the past. It was easier for me to paint something that I had already sculpted. Some of the paintings here aren’t based on objects and those took a long time to make. Drawing has gotten a lot easier for me and I am able to draw things now without relying on a sculptural model.

What about these oddly shaped drawings here?

It’s weird, but I think I have an allergy to squares. I get nervous when I try to paint on a rectangle. I think this is the difficulty with painting. I get so tense I have trouble moving the brush or I just stop altogether. To break through this situation, I sometimes cut the paper, and this usually helps. Even if I start out with a big sheet of paper, I’ll cut it a bit here and there, and in the end I have a little drawing. First I’ll cover the paper in color, then I’ll cut it. When I’m done, I sometimes also make a drawing on the piece I’ve cut off. This process makes it much easier for me to draw.

So, it’s easier for you to draw on an imperfect square?

An artist friend of mine says, “painting’s job is fitting the world in a square.” That just makes me nervous.

This exhibition really put you to the test, then?

I was able to paint because I decided to use objects I’ve made as models for the images. I figured that if I could just overcome the tension, I would be able to paint. My research topic from here on in will be to learn to paint while generating the least amount of stress.

Does that mean you’d like to be able to make painting independent of the motifs arising from the sculpture?

Eventually, yes, but everyone has their own stance regarding their work. For example, some artists can’t paint without first having a cigarette or whatever. So, I also have developed a little system. First of all I make an object or woodcarving, then I start drawing or painting and see what happens. All I can say is that squares are tough.

I wonder about your works getting bigger and bigger in the future. They just seem to be growing larger.

This time, having made a big work, I now understand hard it is to work large and how things look at this scale. Next time, I going to try to find the perfect size piece for the space. Until you create something large, you are always thinking, “I want to work big,” and now, having done so, I’m thinking, “Ahh, it’s too big!” I still want to make a house-sized piece, though, maybe by building rooms inside a house. This is probably the last time I come up with the entire construction on my own. I plan to work with existing structures from now on.

Does the size difference of the figures in new home reflect your family dynamics?

Yes, it’s a concrete representation of the way I see it. And don’t most husbands think that they are charming and their wives powerful? I’m sure most married couples saw the piece and said, “that’s us.” It resonates with them. At first, I made my wife’s lips pout out a bit, like the woman’s in the couple, and then I thought, something’s not right here...oh, it’s the lips! So I went ahead and made them stick way out and that solved the problem. I’ll leave it to your imagination to determine the significance of these lips. And we have a goat in our neighborhood, so I was even thinking about putting a goat on the lips.

And this is your new house?

The house shows up in several works. This cat here, Daddy-Cat, is a stray that shits and pisses in our yard. This is where he always takes a leak. This gecko, Yacchan, was already living here when we moved in. It passed last winter inside with us and I fed it crickets I bought on the internet. He shed his skin last summer and got bigger. I figured he could take care of himself, so I left him in a field.