“The Design of Love” Written by Futoshi Hoshino

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· PDF (Japanese, 296 kb)

The Design of Love
Futoshi Hoshino

As far as I know, Goshi Uhira is one of the most promising designers in Japan. This essay is written in response to his first public exhibition as an artist, a series called Skin. However, to introduce this, it seems inevitable that I mention his past work of design.
Uhira started working as a designer around 2011, shortly after he graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan University. Since then, in a career spanning less than a decade, the young designer has produced extraordinary works that are unparalleled by his generation. It includes large-scale commission work for companies, but I will focus here on printed materials.
You can get a glimpse of that diverse work on his website. For someone like me who works in the field of art and humanities, the first thing that comes to mind is his book design including Akira Lippitt-Mizuta’s Atomic Light (Shadow Optics) (Getsuyosha, 2013), Bernd Stiegler’s Bilder der Photographie (Getsuyosha, 2015), and Toru Arakawa’s Donald Judd (Suiseisha, 2019). Uhira’s designs can also be found in a variety of scenes in Japanese contemporary art in the 2010s, including the logo for the gallery Aoyama Meguro (2013), the design of magazine Art Critique (2013–14), and the leaflet for AICA JAPAN’s annual symposium “Rights of Things, Lives of Art Objects” (2018).
The common denominator of all these works is the exquisite monochrome design. Famous designers usually have a style that is easily recognizable at a glance. On the other hand, few people, apart from a few other enthusiasts, would notice Uhira’s work in an instant. The designer’s work does not involve the consistent use of any particular typeface, nor does it include an exaggerated embellishment. There are only a few minor signs to be found there, apart from the almost total exclusion of non-grayscale colors.
In a word, Uhira’s design is “modest.” However, it does not mean that his work lacks any distinguishing features. Instead, the more one looks into the details, the more the designer’s deliberate choices can be found there. Regardless of the form, the basics are the same. The sensible reader must perceive that this is the result of handwork full of delicacy.
Therefore, at least for me, Skin did not come as a surprise. Perhaps there is no more appropriate subject for projecting such a delicacy than human skin. As the title suggests, Skin uses the surface of human bodies, including the artist’s own as its subjects. The textures presented in various gradations give us a glimpse of a world much larger than the scale of the human body. It is because the individual subjects are magnified to such an extent that it is impossible to tell which part of the human body they correspond to. It would be safe to say that we rarely get a chance to stare at others’ skin. At the same time, no object would be so finely textured, once you have gazed into it. The skin is always present as a surface that envelops each one of us, yet we forget about its existence in our daily lives.
In that sense, the skin is an analogy of design. It is only the enthusiasts who usually gaze at the design of books and leaflets. In many cases, the design does not explicitly claim to be itself. Of course, some designs try to attract consumers’ attention, but they are nothing more than false skin coated with an undercoat.
Uhira’s Skin is a perfect continuation of his previous work of design. One thing I don’t understand, however, is the content of the artist’s statement inserted in the Folio Edition of Skin (2019). This is a poetic interlude in two languages, Japanese and English, that did not exist in the book made public the year before (2018). What strikes me most is the frequent use of the word “love” in the passage, which is inserted somewhat abruptly into the work. What are we to make of this?
Of course, just because the subject here is human skin, it would be premature to derive the theme of sexuality from it. It is evident from the overall tone of the text that what the author is spelling out is a more universal “love.” Although it is not my taste to speculate about the intention, I believe that the reader almost has to respond in some way to these words.
Love is what delicacy is all about. More bluntly, love is as something to be designed. Make no mistake, “design” here does not mean making up something false, nor does it mean deceiving people by skillful means. It is nothing less than dismantling (de-signing) the stereotype and giving it a new form of what it should be. Of course, it will not be an easy task. The only thing that makes it possible is to give it the shape it deserves, with the utmost delicacy.
The artist says that “we are forever in pursuit of the visible,” but “love exists in the empty spaces. Where nothing can be seen, there is love” (Goshi Uhira, Skin, Folio Edition, 2019). It is probably true. However, we all know that when “love” lacks the corresponding reality, it degenerates into a hollow notion. Therefore, love must be designed—but in the most delicate way.

“An Intrinsic Kosmos” Written by Tomohiro Akiyama

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· PDF (Japanese, 628 kb)

An Intrinsic Kosmos
Tomohiro Akiyama

Goshi Uhira’s Skin is a collection of close-up photographs of human skin. Skin with various textures is pictured in a delicate gradation of black color. The subject of Skin does not have any extraordinary expression. Each image frames an isolated part of the human body which cannot be associated with the whole body. This invites readers to pay full attention to each tiny trimmed Skin, as if they were re-experiencing the artwork through the artist’s eyes.

How seriously have you ever faced your own, or someone else’s skin? We all have skin: skin defines the boundary between one’s body and its surrounding environment. However, it is often too close for us to pay serious attention to, except for the purpose of making oneself look good. Uhira’s Skin is an attempt to let us face skin, away from the purpose of controlling one’s appearance. This attempt could be considered as Kojikyumei, a Japanese Zen word, which means ‘a search for one’s true self’. It is inevitable for us to be obsessed by ego and various stereotypes. Kojikyumei is a process to dispel obsessions and be aware of the intrinsic nature of everything, eventually to transcend ego. Skin, in other words, is a trial of Uhira to re-discover himself. In fact, several images including the book cover are of his own skin. In this way, he is telling us the importance of reflecting on ourselves.

Knowing oneself means understanding the world surrounding oneself. Why? Because in order to better understand oneself, you must seriously think about questions such as ‘What is the universe?’, ‘What/how is a human being meant to be?’. In this sense, Uhira’s Skin could be an attempt to answer a classic, philosophical question of relations between ‘part’ and ‘whole’. The unique characteristics of these artworks can be summarized in the following three points.

The very first thing which attracted my attention was the fact that the skin is depicted in black and white (duotone in the process of printing), despite the fact that human skin would be reflected in various colors in our eyes. As a result of this conversion into grayscale images, color is no longer a symbol of difference among individuals (including racial implications).

This idea reminds me of Spiral Dynamics: a theory of the evolution of human consciousness. According to this, human evolution is divided into eight stages by the vMeme (value Meme), that is, value consciousness. From the beige color of the instinctive stage to the turquoise color which represents spiritual need, the eight stages are represented in different colors (recently, coral and teal have been suggested as examples of higher levels of existence). This theory is developed based on several researchers’ long-term work on racial problems, and has the intention to divert people’s attention away from the color of skin. Uhira appears to embrace a similar idea; he transcends the difference of skin colors by illustrating skins in grayscale, calling people’s attention to an integral view without discrimination.

In addition to his approach to ‘color’, the ‘pattern’ on skin itself attracted my attention. The mesh-like pattern that spreads over the grayscaled image looks like Indra’s net. Indra is a Vedic deity in Hinduism, i.e., the king of the highest heaven. Indra was introduced into Buddhism and called Sakra, also known as Dìshìtian in China, and Taishakuten in Japan. Indra’s net covers the palace in highest heaven; knots across the net are made of jade stones which reflect images of all the other stones. In other words, the countless number of gems form the universe, while each stone represents one independent universe in itself. Even in human skin, which is such a common object, inheres Indra’s net, and each knot across the net represents a numerous number of universes. When all these universes interact with each other, they form a much larger universe together. I found such a Kosmology hidden behind Skin.

Uhira’s work seems to not only be rooted in legendary stories and religious beliefs, but also in the latest findings of science. The cosmos, from its beginning through to this very day, has been generating various new connections: a particle connects with another particle, a cell connects with another cell, an organism connects with another organism, and a human being connects with another human being. It is within the great chain of cosmic correlation that everything exists together. Humankind, as a part of nature, is not an exception: it creates culture, and goes back to nature. We exist only in the context of this long history of cosmic correlation.

Finally, Uhira’s work not only gently embraces each individual person, but also firmly insists the importance of each individual’s independence. His stoic style underlying these artworks, colorlessness through grayscale, firmness in trimming which does not allow any of our imagination to go beyond the rectangular image, simpleness of layout, calls for questions such as ‘Have you cherished others’ existence?’, ‘Have you cherished your own existence?’, ‘How do you live your life?’.

This sternness reminds me of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. In 1855, he wrote a booklet called The Moment, and criticized the secularization of Christianity. ‘Are you somehow idly living from Monday to Sunday? Somehow getting out of the house, going to work, then coming back home again. Speaking to your families somehow, eating food somehow, going to bed somehow. Clearly, it is not a crime to live like this, but it is a sin. When Sunday comes, go to church and worship, and it would seem that the sin to live in such an ambiguous attitude is forgotten. Stop that kind of worship!’ Søren Kierkegaard insisted that people should quest for the true meaning of life. Uhira’s Skin, as was Kierkegaard’s The Moment, urges us to search for our true nature, and to think seriously about the Kosmos through our body.

Uhira’s Skin embraces contradicting concepts, including those such as ‘part’ and ‘whole’, ‘individual’ and ‘collective’, ‘gentleness’ and ‘firmness’. Without any doubt, Skin represents a holon. A holon is a unit that has characteristics of both part and whole. Skin, in a sense, cannot be more than a part of the human body. Skin, however, at the same time, is an infinite universe that includes many more universes. Like this, the world consists of many hierarchies in different levels with different directions, that form nested structures. Therefore, in order to better understand the world, we need to continue shifting our standpoint between a discriminating view (to distinctively accept things through comparison with others) as well as a non-discriminating or integral view (to accept everything as it is). Uhira’s Skin describes the great chain of being, and questions us about the meaning of life. Exactly in what way should I live my life?