Shintaro Miyake

I think it's always good to accept projects that have the potential to be fun.

Have you been interested in Egypt as a motif for a while?

I wanted to go to Egypt a few years back. Then there was this tourist-hotel bombing in which many people were killed, so it happened to be too dangerous a time to go.

There was also that terrorist attack at the ruins in Luxor.

Right. A lot of tourists were machine-gunned. That was scary! Just getting on a plane to go over overseas is scary enough for me, let alone going to some dangerous place.
The subject of Egypt doesn’t often come up in our everyday lives here. But once you start thinking about it, you see it all over. You haveYoshimura Sakuji (Japanese Egyptologist) popping up everywhere, and TV programs like Sekai Fushigi Hakken and the History Channel. Actually, I think a lot of Japanese are interested in Egypt.
Do they like it for its mysteries? For example, what are the pyramids actually made of? If they are tombs, why are there no mummies inside? Are the places cursed or not? Why was ancient Egyptian surveying technology as good as that of today?
I am not, however, interested in the mysterious romance of the place. I just like their pictures. Their frescoes are full of pots, for instance, many of which sprout feet. I don’t know why. I’m sure each of their images means something, but you don’t have to know the meaning to enjoy them. It might be wrong to delight in them only on a superficial level, but in this case, ignorance may be a strength.
Conversely, my not having been there and my lack of knowledge of Egypt have allowed me to develop my own vision of the place. Sometimes a lack of knowledge becomes a driving force to create. It can define the borderline between what’s interesting and what’s not.

The connected series of drawings are fascinating. Path to Egypt, the work on the right when you enter Gallery 1, reminds me of Innocy’s House, the piece you did at Gugging, but it seems more dense than works you have done before. The Path to Egypt work on the left of the gallery is more the Miyake World we know, but if you look closely, you discover that the Egyptian imagery shares the picture with weird science-fiction creatures and an eye in the sky. Contrasting worlds unite in various places throughout the work.

Regarding the different drawing styles, I intended to make the works on the left like the triptych on the right. The latter three drawings, however, took a long time to make. I drew each figure individually, and it took forever. I failed to pace myself. I knew if I continued like that, I wouldn’t make it to the finish line, so put the work aside. Then I had to prepare works for a show at Honor Fraser (a gallery in Los Angeles) and Basel (the Swiss artfair), so it was a while before I started again. I looked at the drawings I had completed and panicked, wondering how to proceed. That’s why there is a difference in density. When I originally left off working, the triptych was almost done, so it only needed a bit more work. I knew that if I gave the drawings on the left the same density, I would never finish in time. It wasn’t about taking the easy route because of a lack of time. Densely rendered images and lightly rendered images each have their own worth.

I don’t think the drawings on the left are too thin.

In other words, I always feel that I can just keep on drawing.
With the series of ten drawings on the left, for example, I could always draw in more people, add more detail to the clothing, or fill in the desert with color. It’s the same thing when I make objects. I am not interested in coming up with a specific idea and then working only to realize that idea.
Within a limited time frame, I simply decided to make Egyptian images and then suddenly started drawing them, and therefore had no idea what I would have in the end. But by the time the deadline rolls around, I usually find myself in a natural rhythm with the work. On the other hand, if you begin working with a fixed project that you have to finish by a certain date, and you’re running out of time, then you have to think about hiring people to help you, or cutting the scale of the work in half, etc. You have to make compromises. This is something I don’t want to do. I think you come up with better work within a time frame that is over when it’s over, no matter how much you kick and scream. With sculptures too you can have exact plans for how you want to make something, and bitch about this or that detail while making it.
I prefer a more digressive mode where even if you’re moving away from your original dreamy plan, you still have a good collaboration with the craftsmen helping you, and you can always make adjustments.
My drawing is like this, too. I might take a blank page and start drawing on the very edge. That’s why I hated drawing plaster models at art yobiko [preparatory school]. You were encouraged to plan the drawing to best fit the model onto the paper. That kind of thing really stressed me out.
This attitude towards work also extends to how I select motifs and go about actually making the pieces. A lot of it may seem like hit or miss, but that’s the way I like it.
When making art, there is a part of you that has to be organized and a part that has to be free. In my case, how I draw something, what subjects I choose, and how I put things together always vary from situation to situation. I think this approach is more fun.

It’s a different story for the gallery. The gallery always wants to know how many works I will bring on what day. Otherwise, they can’t plan their shows. But, I never really know. So, I usually just say something appropriate when they ask and later come up with something quite different. Always. Anyways, I never have a set plan to begin with, and usually wind up promising more than I think I can make. When I start working, however, I am usually able to gradually adjust things to come up with the right amount of works in the end.
For this show, I originally wanted to do something different. I wanted to use typhoon as my theme, but after talking with the gallery staff, that didn’t seem to be the right choice...

If you had done a typhoon show, what kind of characters would you have used?

Mexico would be the motif. It would be a lot of Mexican people wearing hats like the guy in the Don Tacos commercial...what do you call those wide-brimmed conical hats [sombreros]? A lot of people in those hats.
But it would have nothing to do with El Niño or La Niña’s effect on future weather in the area, or with an artist’s view of global warming, etc.

Nothing to do with environmental issues.

Nachos are delicious, aren’t they? I love them. Nachos & typhoons in Mexico. I just thought it would be fun to put Mexican cheese and hurricanes together. For no reason. There’s no real connection between Mexico and typhoons anyway. Except that some typhoons start out in the Gulf of Mexico.
Last summer I was thinking that it would be fun to start drawings using this theme. I had made an atmospheric-pressure costume. Right, atmospheric pressure. Not a suit based on an animal or a thing, but on atmospheric pressure. That’s why I thought about making typhoon drawings. Then, that idea was roundly refused! What was I going to do! I had made some Egyptian drawings earlier, and also wanted to continue them. So, with my main pitcher out of commission, I had no choice but to put in my backup.

Up to now, you have consistently taken something you’re curious about as your point of departure, and, with no fixed goal in mind, incorporated whatever comes along in a process that, if it’s fun, you follow to the end, or if it’s not, you backtrack to where it went wrong.

At any rate, I first come up with something I want to do. Then, I accept an offer to do a show. But sometimes, after thinking about the schedule, the budget, or whether or not this is really good for me to do, I have to refuse! Of course, it might have turned out great. Or, I may wind up being a pain in the ass to the people who asked me to do the show. But I think it’s always good to accept projects that have the potential to be fun.

You seem to have a strong desire to always “make something new.” You don’t like to let an opportunity to do something fun escape you.

Right, right. I think there are a lot of people out there who think the same way. People who look at art. You could be an artist or someone who thinks it more interesting to do things that no one else does. The example I always use is the difference between an art-school graduate painting pictures and some sixty-year-old guy who’s been a farmer all his life and then suddenly decides to start painting. The farmer’s story is more interesting; plus, there is no calculation on his part. And just because you make pictures doesn’t mean you have to be some aloof weirdo. You can also be someone who says “Good morning” to his neighbors, shows up on time, and does things the way normal people do.
If I suddenly popped up in one of my costumes at a red light at the big Shibuya intersection, some people might think it was funny, but a lot of others would see it as a nuisance. That’s not what I want. I prefer to suit up and scamper around the city in a calm way.

So, it’s not just a matter of being eccentric?

I love Egashira 2:50 (Japanese comedian). Every year he’s voted the most hated celebrity, and at first glance, he looks like a wacko. But, actually, Egashira has a very sincere approach to his brand of comedy. It’s amazing. He has a serious connection to his creative work. If you don’t have this honest approach, anything you try to improvise winds up being truly haphazard.

But you don’t necessarily have to show this to people?

Well, if you’re not an artist it doesn’t matter if you’re making works or not, but if you are it becomes a difficult question. If you’re too earnest, that’s boring, but if you’re not serious at all, that’s no good either.
You struggle as an artist, but that struggling is not what’s important. I’m always going around and around with this. Always thinking about it while brushing my teeth at night. Then I just think “what the hell,” and go to bed.

Does this repeat itself day after day?

Whenever I think of something, I write it down. But then I look at it later and wonder what the hell it means. And during the everyday cycle of things appearing and later vanishing, I’ll occasionally manage to recall something curious, something interesting. Other times, I’ll read what I wrote on a memo and not have the faintest idea why I thought to write it down in the first place.