Flush with Water: Nobuaki Takekawa

Ota Fine Arts Singapore is delighted to present "Flush with Water",  a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Nobuaki Takekawa (b. 1977, Japan). This exhibition is a survey of Takekawa's artistic footsteps following his 2011 solo exhibition that looked into the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident. Since then, Takekawa has actively participated in the new wave of civic movements that have emerged from anti-nuclear demonstrations in Japan. In particular, he became deeply involved in the anti-discrimination movement against 'Zainichi' Koreans (Korean people residing in Japan) and other immigrants.

Making its exhibition debut is the character "Heart", marching in colourful costumes and beating drums. They were initially created after Takekawa was rushed to the hospital with a heart condition, coinciding with the period when undocumented foreigners died in Japan's detention centers without access to proper medical care. The incident triggered Takekawa to symbolise the heart of a regular citizen and the heart of a foreigner, an 'irregular' citizen. The Hearts stand against the social system of differential treatment based on ranking, and a lively tone exudes from the paintings and drawings. It is a beat that corresponds to the sound of the heart, as well as a beat that vibrates and echoes loudly, as if it were a declaration of their presence, in response to the power that ignores the existence of problems, and the weak as if they are not there. The Hearts stride through the city with a resounding demonstration of their existence.

The cat motifs that Takekawa has come to be known for makes an appearance in this exhibition as well. Under their adorable expressions are themes of social problems from the past that are connected to contemporary society. In 2018, Takekawa's exhibition "Cat Olympics: In memory of Torajiro", presented in the Singapore gallery, looked at the similarities between the Berlin Olympics held under the Nazi regime and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. By representing such serious themes through the motifs cats, Takekawa is able to reassess these issues objectively. In this exhibition, the cats are painted in scenes that look at the major strains in society that have been created during the course of scientific and technological development and rapid modernization, such as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station issue, and the Ashio Copper Mine poisoning incident.

While the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant started discharging ALPS-treated water to the sea in 2023, so far it has not even been able to remove a single gram of nuclear fuel debris. Considering the huge human and economic burden, the attempt to extract 1g of debris can be compared to a mining operation. This led Takekawa to develop a focus on mining issues following the nuclear accident, given that mining has been at the heart of modernisation since the Industrial Revolution. It was also an issue that was related to many strains created by modernisation, such as imperialism, pollution and civil movements, forced labour and historical revisionism, which are themes that Takekawa has been interested in. In the painting Direct Appeal to the Emperor on the Issue of Mineral Poisoning (2024), Takekawa depicts activist Shozo Tanaka as a yellow cat standing upright and appealing directly to the Meiji Emperor, also in the form of a cat, sitting in a carriage. This is a reenactment of the event in 1901, in response to the Ashio Copper Mine poisoning incident. The social impact of Shozo Tanaka’s action made the pollution problem widely known to the public, and he became a pioneer in making such issues visible to the community. 

The title of this exhibition, "Flush with Water", is a Japanese idiom that means to pretend that the unmanageable past never happened. The Ashio Copper Mine has a history of discharging mine pollution into the Watarase River, and to protect Tokyo's water from pollution, villages in affected areas were abandoned as waterways were built to contain the pollution there. Even till today, the coal mine polluted water continues to flow. It can never be said that "nothing happened", and we must beat the drum and make noise. Ota Fine Arts Singapore invites all to experience the eye-opening works of Nobuaki Takekawa.