作品解説:オセアニアの造形̶発現する布
Work description: Oceania's Creations - Textile Revelations
- 日本語
- ENGLISH
撮影:Ufer! Art Documentary
南太平洋の伝統的な社会では、西洋的な「美」や「芸術」の概念はみられず、宗教や社会的な儀式、もしくは日常生活で実際に使用するものが生み出されてきました。しかし、熱帯の大自然に育まれた人々の造形には、私たちの「芸術」に対する常識を揺り動かす力があります。19世紀後半から白人の宣教師や入植者が訪れるようになったオセアニア地域では、伝統的な暮らしや裸の装いが野蛮視され、否定、迫害されるなど、急速に文化が衰退するようになりました。またヨーロッパでは、20世紀前半にシュルレアリストをはじめとする芸術家が、アフリカやオセアニア地域の仮面・彫像に魅了され、自らの表現にグロテスクさやデフォルメの要素を取り入れましたが、それは多分にエキゾチシズムを含んだものであったでしょう。
今回はメラネシアの3国から、パプアニューギニアのタパ(樹皮布)、ヴァヌアツのパンダヌスの編み布、ソロモン諸島の貝貨と紐衣を展観します。この3国には日本の約1.5倍の面積に、現在約1000万人が住んでいますが、世界にある約7000の言語のうち、1000あまりの言語が数えられています。世界でもっとも言語密度が高い、多民族地域です。それぞれの民族が独自の文化や造形を手がけるなかでも、特に顕著な発達をみせる造形を選びました。
ここで展示しているタパや編み布、貝貨などは、衣料や装身具などにもなりますが、それ以上に、冠婚葬祭をはじめとした儀礼に伴う交換財として重用されてきました。それだけに社会の誰もが称賛する魅力にあふれ、美的なもの、洗練されたもの、妙味のあるものとして完成されています。これらの造形物は、文化における布の価値や大切さとともに、布本来の機能が、身体に纏う衣類などの実用のみではなかったことを気づかせてくれます。
タパは、南太平洋のみならず、世界の熱帯地域にみられます*。カジノキをはじめとするクワ科の木の幹から外皮をはぎ取り、中にある靭皮を取り出して叩きのばした原初的な布で、オセアニアでは重要な贈り物や交換財であるとともに、褌や腰巻などの衣料のほか、敷布や寝具、テーブルクロス、住居の装飾などにも用いられます。南太平洋では伝統的に女性が製作を担い、タパの上に植物や泥から得た染料もしくは顔料で様々な模様が描かれま
す。文様の多くは、先祖代々、民族や氏族に受け継がれてきたものです。今回は、パプアニューギニアのオロ州で1971-80年と2020年に福本繁樹が収集したMaisinの人々によるユニークな手描き文様の数々を展示します。
ヴァヌアツのペンテコスト島中部には、世界でもまれにみる模様染めパンダヌス布の「貨幣」をつくる術が伝えられてきました。Apma人がつくるパンダヌス布は大小2種あり、幅80cm、長さ4mほどの「セセsese」と、幅30cmあまり、長さ1.3mほどの「チップtsip」です。この布は主に女性の手により、縦糸や横糸が斜めに交差するように編まれ、一年に1-2回、村人総出で大々的に染色が施されるものです。丸太を用意し、パンダヌス布を巻き付け、模様を切り抜いたバナナの葉鞘の板をあて、これらをロープでぐるぐる巻きにして、染料の木labaの根の表皮を貝で搔き削った赤色染料で炊き染めにします。タパと同様に、パンダヌス布の編み組織や染め模様にも、祖先から受け継がれてきた名前と物語があります。
福本繁樹は京都市立美術大学ニューギニア未開美術調査隊の一員として、1969年にはじめてパプアニューギニアを訪ねました。探検部をもとにした調査隊の活動や、企業に委託された民族資料の収集といった機会を利用しつつも、30歳で上梓した『メラネシアの美術』(1976年)において次のように書いています。
「本書の企図するもの、それはメラネシア美術の表面的な形態だけをみて、誤った固定観念や主観的な感覚のみにたよった判断からのがれようという試みである。それはあのロマンチックな原始への回帰主義に対する疑問や抗議といったものになるかも知れない。**」
1960年代末から、時代の変化など南太平洋美術の状況をみてきた福本繁樹は、特にタパや編み布などを通して、実用よりも表現媒体としての布の本領に気づきました。布は軽薄長大な支持体となり、繊維は細密多様な構成技法と多彩な文様や着色を可能とします。なぜ自身の創作で、布や染料に深くかかわってきたのか考えさせられたと言います。一方、1971-80年にかけて3回パプアニューギニアへ同行した福本潮子も、その土地の人々が、自然の営みのなかで自分たちにしか作れないかたちを生み出していることに感銘を受け、日本の伝統を改めて学ぶなかで藍染めに出会いました。オセアニアの人々のものづくりのあり方は、福本繁樹と福本潮子の現在に至る創作に、大きな示唆を与えています。
* 日本でも楮の繊維の布は、古来「木綿(ゆふ)」と呼ばれ、衣料や和紙、神が降臨する御弊に用いられた。
** 福本繁樹「序にかえて」より(『メラネシアの美術』求龍堂、1976年)
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福本 繁樹FUKUMOTO Shigeki
1946年滋賀県生まれ、京都市育ち。京都市立美術大学(現・京都市立芸術大学)西洋画科で学ぶ。89年まで家業の和装染色業に従事。京都市立美術大学ニューギニア美術調査隊に参加するなど、69―90年にかけて南太平洋美術を探査し、著作にも注力する。76年『メラネシアの美術』(求龍堂)の出版以降、染色家として作品発表を本格化させ、国内の絵画展や工芸展、80年代後半からスイス、ポーランド、インドネシア、中国、韓国などの国際展に参加するなど、現代美術やファイバーアートの領域で活動。京都を拠点に、「染め」が日本固有の文化であることを論証・実践し、染色・工芸論講義や民族藝術学会での研究活動にも取り組む。近年は「する」から「なる」へ、自然の理や現象にまかせた「なるほど染め」を考案。「日本の美」を伝えてきた、35年にわたる活動の軌跡を集約した作品集『愚のごとく、然りげなく、生るほどに』(淡交社)を2017年に刊行した。
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福本 潮子FUKUMOTO Shihoko
1945年静岡県清水市生まれ。68年京都市立美術大学(現・京都市立芸術大学)西洋画科卒業。ニューギニアの民族美術の学術調査に携わったことを機に、自らのアイデンティティを問いなおし、二代目龍村平蔵のもとで京都の染織文化を学ぶ。そのなかで藍に出会い作品制作を開始。日本の伝統と独自技法を組み合わせた藍染め作品を、80年代より欧米各地の国際展や個展で発表する機会を得て、国際的に評価を受けている。近年では、手績みの業が凝縮された希少な自然布に着目。時代とともに失われてゆく日本の手仕事にみられる風土や気質を再認識し、それを自らの作品に活かす制作を試みている。2015年、最初期からの活動の集大成として『福本潮子作品集 藍の青』を刊行(赤々舎、第50回造本装幀コンクール「出版文化国際交流会賞」受賞)。近年の個展「福本潮子展 藍の青 2021」(高島屋美術画廊やARTCOURT Gallery)などを通じ、古布の作品シリーズの新たな展開を見せている。
Photo: Ufer! Art Documentary
In traditional South Pacific societies, objects were produced for religious or social ceremonies, or for practical use in everyday life, but Western notions of ‘beauty’ and ‘art’ were absent. Nevertheless, the forms created by people nurtured in the tropical wilderness have the power to challenge our accepted ideas of art. From the late 19th century, when white missionaries and settlers first began to visit Oceania, the region’s traditional lifestyles and naked way of life were considered barbaric and were condemned and suppressed, which contributed to the rapid decline of these traditional cultures.
Meanwhile, in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, artists such as the Surrealists became fascinated by the masks
and statues of Africa and Oceania, and the elements of grotesqueness and deformation that they incorporated into their own creations were surely tinged with a sense of exoticism.
This present exhibition features traditional objects from three Melanesian countries: tapa (bark cloth) from Papua New
Guinea, plaited pandanus cloth from Vanuatu, and shell money and string clothing from the Solomon Islands. These countries,
which together cover an area about 1.5 times the size of Japan, are currently home to about 10 million people and contain more
than 1,000 languages out of the world’s approximately 7,000 languages, a multi-ethnic region with the highest language density in the world. Each ethnic group has its own unique culture and creations, and for this exhibition, examples of the most prominent and well-developed of these have been selected.
The tapa, woven fabrics and shell money on display here could be used as clothing and ornaments, but more importantly, they have been valued as exchange goods for ceremonial purposes such as weddings and funerals etc. This being so, they are
created to entice and invite the admiration of the people of that society, and display an impressive perfection of beauty,
refinement and charm. These forms not only remind us of the value and importance of cloth in culture, they alert us to the fact that the original function of cloth transcended any merely practical uses such as clothing for the body.
Tapa is found not only in the South Pacific but also in other tropical regions throughout the world.* It is an early form of cloth made by stripping the outer bark from the trunks of mulberry and related species of trees, extracting the inner ligneous bark and pounding it flat. In Oceania it has been an important item of gift and exchange, and is used for loincloths,
waistcloths and other clothing, as well as for sheet cloth, bedding, tablecloths and home decoration. In the South Pacific, women are traditionally responsible for the production of tapa, on which various patterns are painted using plant or mud dyes
and pigments. Many of the patterns have been handed down for generations, in ethnic groups or within clans. This exhibition
presents a number of unique hand-painted patterns by the Maisin people, collected by FUKUMOTO Shigeki in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, between 1971-80 and 2020.
The central area of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu is one of the few places in the world to have preserved the art of making
pattern-dyed pandanus cloth money. The Apma people manufacture two types of pandanus cloth: the large sese, 80 cm wide and about 4 m long, and the smaller tsip, 30cm wide and around 1.3 m long. The cloth is woven mainly by the women, with warp and weft threads crossing diagonally, and once or twice a year the entire village gathers to dye it on a large scale. A
log is prepared and wrapped with the pandanus cloth, then covered with sheets of banana leaf sheath into which patterns have been cut. This is then rolled and wrapped with rope, boiled and dyed with red dye made by scraping the skin of the dye tree
laba’s roots with a shell. Like tapa, the weaves and dye patterns of pandanus cloth have names and associated stories handed
down from the ancestors.
Fukumoto Shigeki first visited Papua New Guinea in 1969 as a member of the Kyoto City University of Arts’ New Guinea Art
Research Team. He took full advantage of the opportunities offered by the expedition-based survey team and the commissioned collection of ethnic material, and at the age of 30 he published Melanesian Art (1976). He wrote:
‘This book attempts to flee Melanesian art om the kinds of false stereotypes and subjective judgments that are based solely on the superficial forms of the art. It could be said to be an interrogation of and protest against the romantic urge to return to the “primitive”.’ **
Through his observation of the circumstances and changes that have taken place in South Pacific art since the 1960s, Fukumoto has used his understanding of tapa and braided cloth to grasp the true nature of cloth as a medium of expression rather than of simply practical use. Cloth is a supporting material that has lightness, thinness and length, and its fibers allow for a variety of compositional techniques, patterns and coloring. Fukumoto says it has made him consider the reasons why he had been so deeply involved with fabric and dyes in his own creative work. On the other hand, FUKUMOTO Shihoko, who accompanied Shigeki to Papua New Guinea three times between 1971 and 1980, was impressed by the way the local people created forms that only they could create through their engagement with the natural world, and her subsequent renewed study of Japanese traditions led her to an encounter with indigo dyeing. The way the people of Oceania approach craftsmanship has remained a major inspiration for the creations of both Fukumoto Shigeki and Shihoko to the present day.
* In Japan, cloth made from mulberry fibre has long been known by the ancient name yufu, and has been used for clothing, Japanese washi paper, and for the paper wands sacred to the gods.
** From Melanesian Art (Kyuryudo, 1976), Introduction.
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FUKUMOTO Shigeki
Fukumoto Shigeki was born 1946 in Shiga Prefecture and grew up in Kyoto. He studied Western painting at Kyoto City University of Arts and worked in the family kimono dyeing business until 1989. Having joined the Kyoto City University of Arts New Guinea art research expedition as a student, between 1969 and 1990 he continued investigations of South Pacific art while also devoting himself to publication in the field. Having published Melanesian Art (Kyuryudo, 1976), he began in earnest to exhibit his work as a dye artist, participating in national painting and craft exhibitions and from the late 1980s he has been active in the fields of contemporary art and fiber art, participating in international exhibitions in Switzerland, Poland, Indonesia, China, Korea and elsewhere. Based in Kyoto, he has argued that the culture of ‘somé (Japanese dyeing)’, which he puts into practice, is unique to Japan. He is also involved in lectures on dyeing and crafts theory, together with research activities at the Society of Ethno-Artists. In recent years, he has shifted from the principle of ‘suru (doing)’ to ‘naru (becoming)’ and invented ‘naruhodo-zomé‘, a dyeing method that relinquishes control to natural principles and phenomena. In 2017, he published a collection of his writing, titled in English To Dye, Perchance to Dream (Tankosha), which brings together the trajectory of his activities over 35 years of conveying the ‘beauty of Japan’.
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FUKUMOTO Shihoko
Born 1945 in Shimizu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Fukumoto Shihoko graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 1968 with a degree in Western painting. After engaging in academic research on ethnic art in New Guinea, she began to consider the question of her own identity, studying the dyeing and weaving culture that flourished in Kyoto under TATSUMURA Heizo II. In the process, she encountered indigo and began producing her own works. Since the 1980s, she has had a number of opportunities to exhibit her indigo dye works, which combine Japanese tradition and her own techniques, at international and solo exhibitions in Europe and the USA, and has received international acclaim. In recent years, she has focused her attention on rare natural fabrics which are a condensed product of the handspun industry. She has gained a renewed appreciation of natural environment and human temperament reveled in Japan’s old and rapidly disappearing handicraft tradition, and attempts to bring this to life in her own work. In 2015, as a compilation of her activities since the beginning of her career, she published Fukumoto Shihoko: Japan Blue (Akaakasha), which was awarded the Publication Culture International Exchange Society Prize at the 50th Japan Book Design Awards. Her recent solo exhibition “Fukumoto Shihoko Exhibition: Ai no Ao (Japan Blue) 2021″ (Takashimaya Art Gallery and ARTCOURT Gallery), has revealed new developments in her series of works using old cloth.