Shintaro Miyake

The blueprint changes as I go along.
Like a cat reacting to something that moves.

Turning to the works in the exhibition, the four-meter high sculpture is the main work here. How was it to make?

It was really difficult. I told them to make it stonelike, but “stonelike” is pretty vague. “Make it shiny like the hood of car,” would have been clear, but “stonelike” could be like granite or like concrete, etc. so the nuance was hard to get across.
Not be able to precisely communicate things was no problem, though. After all, I wasn’t manufacturing some industrial product. A lot of people had a hand in the production, so it was only natural that the thing would change along the way. Of course, there’s always a limit as to how much change you can allow.
It’s hard to complain to people who are making the work for you, though, and at the workshop, I would sometimes lose sight of things. Then, at home I would remember things that I thought needed to be redone. Of course, it was a pain in the ass for the workers to hear about it later.

You were sometimes suddenly confronted with things you didn’t expect?

Yes, but it was usually less a matter of good vs. bad than one of which direction to proceed. Things should flow like water. The earth spins at an incredible speed, doesn’t it? There’s no way you’re going to catch up with it in a car. The earth is revolving like crazy and at the same time it’s revolving around the sun, and the whole thing is spinning around the Milky Way. Trying to go against this movement is pointless. To a certain extent, you have to let things flow the way they will.

This installation was certainly a case in point. While setting up the show, you decided to leave the scaffolding in the exhibition, didn’t you? And aren’t the paintings in Gallery 2 are a new experiment?

Every time is a new experiment! Every time is a screw-up! I kept giving up because I couldn’t stretch the canvas. I tried it with a size #50 (117 x 91cm) canvas. I remember reading in a book or a website that Nara-san or Kawashima-san said it was a good idea to spray the canvas with water to make it easier to stretch. Well, I soaked mine. It got all floppy and was impossible to stretch. It made me never want paint again.

Why did you decide to make paintings this time?

I thought it would be fun.
I had always wanted to give it try. I wanted to paint, but I couldn’t. There are always things you have wanted to try but actually can’t do. Like if I had played basketball in high school, I could have gone on to the NBA and played in the All Star Game. That’s 100% impossible. But with painting I have a much better chance. That’s why I decided to try it again even though I had messed up in the past.

Did you buy pre-stretched canvasses this time?

That’s right. I figured that if I had to stretch them myself again, I would have given up. I was surprised how expensive they were!

What is the narrative in these paintings?

There isn’t one. I just painted what I wanted to paint. Everybody asks me though. I did a drawing of bear in Basel and somebody asked me, half-jokingly, what kind of bear it was. I said it was a Japanese bear and the person laughed.
I thought I’d start out my Egyptian painting with a guy on a throne. Finishing one figure didn’t decide anything for me, so then I thought I’d paint a sun. Have painted these two things, I thought it could use a line of people, so I painted a line of people. I wanted to paint five figures, but got bored after making three, so I started on another place. Then I went back to the first spot and thought it needed a scorpion, not a person, so I painted a scorpion. It’s a repetition of this process. Like a cat reacting to something that moves.
It’s not a story about what the Egyptians did or how they lived, etc. I may have some kind of narrative in mind, but once I start painting, I forget it. It’s not process of deciding on a goal and then building the work in order to realize that goal. The blueprint changes as I go along. There is even the possibility that I didn’t want to make Egyptian works in the first place. But having made a promise to the gallery you can’t very well say that you don’t want to do it one month before the show. There’s a limit to how selfish you can be.
Your goal is to create good works to make a good show, but you have to careful not make excuses in the name of making “good works.”
You may be working hard to make good pieces, but there are times when you find yourself slacking off. And if you then think, “I’m selling well, so what the hell,” you are only fooling yourself. You can convince yourself you are working hard, when actually that’s not the case at all. That’s really scary. I’m always worrying about it. You might get stuck in the studio, think you need to take a break from work, and then really wind up goofing off.

Gugging　"Pure Art -True Art - Real Art"
I just felt since I had this wonderful opportunity to actually go to Gugging and do a collaboration there that, if possible, I wanted curate a show of their work in Japan.

You curated the current sixth-floor show of Gugging artists. What led you to Gugging?

I was making pictures at university, but didn’t know what I wanted to draw. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be drawing. I had no technique either. It was the pits. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to do something. But that “something” was really vague.
Eventually, I decided I wanted to make pictures, that I wanted to be an artist. After university, I kept making drawings, but they got weirder and weirder. I felt like I was making boring pictures. I thought, “Ah, I’m no good,” and got all whiny and sad. Like the guy who puts on the stocking of the girlfriend who dumped him. I would go to Logos [bookstore] and look at art catalogs. I happened to find one on the Gugging artists and thought their work was incredible. I decided I wanted to draw like them and started copying their style. The Gugging artists usually work in crayon or color pencil. I hadn’t been able to focus using other media, but color pencil felt just right, even though the techniques in my work today are quite different. After working in this new way for a long while, drawing no longer became a struggle for me. For better or worse, this is how I became able to draw.

What was the title of the catalogue you saw?

It was Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond, (Phaidon 1996).

You just happened to find on the shelf?

That’s right.

Before this time, did you ever think to imitate anyone else’s work? Did you have favorite artists before you encountered Gugging?

When I was at yobiko, I liked Dali and made Daliesque works. I also liked Kamoy Rey and made work in his style, too. Leonardo Cremonini was also popular then and everybody was making work like his. Imitating is a good way to start.

You actually went to Gugging in 2004. How was it meeting the artists there?

It was like being a James Dean fan meeting James Dean. These were people I never thought I would be able to meet. If they were pop idols or actors you could meet them at promotion events and autograph sessions, but not these folks. I was happy beyond words. I could have given up making art right then.

What was it that attracted you so much to their art?

Whenever I look at somebody’s work I always think that it’s either great or uninteresting. It’s rare that I think something is just pretty good. Works that you think are good?and there may not be that many of them?are works that you like regardless of their market value. Plus, one’s interest has a specific range. Also, you may like this or that work by a certain artist, but dislike his or her other works. But the Gugging artists are all amazing. They are each making great pictures, and I’m interested in seeing their works from other periods.

In other words, there’s a amazing percentage of good artists there.

I’m not kidding when I say something’s good, and it simply means I like it. After all there are only so many things out there we can like. So, when people ask me why I was so moved by the Gugging artists, I can only shrug my shoulders. If I say I was deeply moved, it might seem like an exaggeration.

The artists at Gugging starting making pictures as part of a psychotherapeutic program.

Artists try to make good pictures, and to get money for them, because they have chosen the profession of art. To say that the same is not true for the Gugging artists and other outsiders is not always accurate. It depends on the person.
Of course, many outsider artists have to depend on caregivers for their survival, but as far as their attitudes towards making pictures go, their stances vary. For example, Karl Vondal’s hey-look-at-this approach to his art is similar to that of ordinary artists. On the other hand, there are those folks painting away in some corner whose look says, “Don’t bother me.” There are all types. Their day-to-day lives may differ from those of other artists, but they share the same basic feelings towards their work.

So, you were attracted purely by the works themselves?

Right. It has nothing to do with their outsider background. You know how people say they love children’s drawings? Well, not every kid’s drawing is a masterpiece. The quality always varies.

Of the many artists at Gugging how did you come to select six?

I chose them from a catalog. We showed all the artists I selected except for Johann Hauser and Oswald Tschirtner, whose works we couldn’t get for copyright reasons or due to unavailability.

And you are particularly attracted to the work of Franz Kernbeis, aren’t you?

Yes, his work is great!

When you were doing the collaboration at Gugging, did you decide you wanted to curate a show of the artists here in Tokyo along with your solo show?

Koyama Gallery always has a show of a different artist on the seventh and sixth floors. And, being Koyama Gallery, the shows are at the same time. I thought, “Why not use both spaces?” Of course, I could have shown my work in both spaces, but that would have been selfish. I did want to show everything though, including the things I was connected to.
I wanted to go beyond a mere fan’s approach towards a Gugging show. Plus, I hadn’t realized until I went there that you could actually buy their works. Having only seen their art at places like the Setagaya Art Museum and the Shiseido Gallery, I didn’t think it was for sale.
I thought if I could go to Gugging and buy these artists’ works, why not show them at a gallery in Tokyo so the many interested viewers here could also have the chance to purchase them. That’s something I wanted to do. Before waiting for the gallery to suggest it, I thought I had to move on the idea first. I wanted to take credit for it [laughs].

When you went to Gugging last year for your exhibition there (Innocy’s House, Museum Gugging, Art/Brut Center Gugging, 2007), you met with the artists at the press conference and party. Upon leaving, you told them you were going to have a solo show at Koyama Gallery and that you wanted to do a Gugging show at the same time. And right after that, at your HACHÕBORI show opening at the Krinzinger Gallery in nearby Vienna, you brought up the idea with the director and staff of the Gugging Gallery and they were very interested.

I was completely surprised. Gugging has connections to many places, and I had no idea if I could simply ask, “Would you like to do a show?” They could have just as easily said, “Ah, we’re sorry, but....” Though I have a good relationship with them, if I had asked to curate a show and they said “Huh?” that would have killed me.
I just felt since I had this wonderful opportunity to actually go to Gugging and do a collaboration there that, if possible, I wanted curate a show of their work in Japan.

I think you are very concerned about how people see your work?is it primitive or not or real or not, etc. And though your stance is different from the Gugging artists and?as you mentioned earlier?their individual stances also vary, it seems that you share a certain spirit.

I wonder. I don’t really know. I can’t honestly say that we’re kindred spirits. That would be arrogant.

However, I think a lot of people see this kind of connection in your work.

But there are also people who don’t like it. They say that I’m copying the outsiders and that Henry Darger is much better than Miyake.

Everybody has their likes and dislikes. It’s hard to know what aspect of the work they are talking about.

People say a lot of things about it. There are people who complain that my work is no good, that there’s something about it that’s not right. Thinking about that “something” keeps me up at night.
Of course I get pissed off when people say, “What the hell is this?” about my work. When I see the same kind of review on the net, I read it carefully. I spend a few weeks being irritated. I read the thing over and over, come to the realization that the writer was only focusing on this or that part of the work, and wonder why this person, who has such a superficial understanding of my work, had to write such nasty things. Then I think, “Back to work!”
You have to look at in positive way, but at the same time you can’t help thinking, “that shithead!” This kind of thing happens a lot

It is something that motivates you, that acts a stimulus.

There are many aspects to making a picture. You can’t not express yourself, you want to make good works and have people praise you, you’ve chosen this profession, and want to live your life drawing pictures. You want people to think your pictures are better than the other guy’s. That his album may have gone platinum, but your songs are better!
It’s easy to fall into complacency though. I may think I’m not being smug, but then I don’t really have any message to convey to anybody, so maybe I’m wrong. I go back and forth with this constantly. That’s why when I make a picture I always ask, “What do you think? What do think?” And when I sell a piece I think, “Somebody likes it!” The real path of my art? well, at least the path that I’m always worrying about?follows the flow of all things in the world, and if I can’t go upstream, at least let me stay afloat and maybe head a bit to the right...