1. CONTINUATION Almost ten years have passed since an artist ABE Mamoru moved to Fukuoka. For ten years he kept his solo exhibitions mainly in Fukuoka and Tokyo. He also participated in several group shows including one in China and one in Korea. In addition, he studied in England in the same period. In the decade, we experienced drastic movements which shook the world's economic, political and cultural structures which had been made after the World War II. including the contemporary art trends. But we have not seen any dynamic changes in Abe's works at least on their surface. There were some small but important shifts in them; He added several varieties in his materials, and some shamanistic elements to his basic method of "the installation." However these minor changes were already predictable in his starting point in the early 1980s and there were not any dramatic ones which might upset or flatter to viewers. Basically Abe is an artist who makes his works with quite simple methods and the following facts are supporting his creativity: The physical act to forge steel by his own hands, the material (steel) which remains steel even after it was hammered or welded, and the creation of his original space by installing steel dispersedly. Therefore a critic CHIBA Shigeo considers that Abe's works are connected with his own opinion of the installation "art as a genus." I believe that Mr. Chiba's insight into Abe's works is remarkable. However, the word installation' has become too general and almost meaningless today. It was criticized as a fad phenomenon of expansionism in the time of so-called 'bubble period' of economic prosperity. Now many of the young artists and the curators and questioning the notion of "the Japanese contemporary art." Some of them who were born in the 1960s are trying to reconsider the fundamental question "what is the art work?" and struggling to open the closed door of the Japanese contemporary art world by using today's urban environments and information networks. When we write about Abe's activities, we will realize that he has continuously offered the same question since more than ten years before even though they do not look the same. 2. After the death of work' and 'sculpture' Although Abe originally hoped to be in the theatrical world, he chose Tokyo University of Education. He was one of the last students of the university, which was soon reorganized and renamed Tsukuba University' by the government. That is, he started to study art right after the radical students' movement was gradually subdued. Then he went on to Tokyo University of Fine Art and Music in 1978. While he studied there, he would participate in various group shows including "Style" with IKAWA Seiryo, NAGASAKI Michihisa, ENDO Toshikatsu, KAMO Hiroshi and TOYA Shigeo in 1981 and also in a non-titled show in 1983 with KAWASHIMA Kiyoshi, SENZAKI Chieo and MIYAJIMA Tatsuo. Abe was surrounded by these artists who continued their works through the 1980s to reconstruct the notion of 'the work.' It was an experimental period for them to establish their thoughts and works through struggles with the 'Mono ha' school and 'Japanese Conceptuals, which were formed in the '60s and *70s in Japan. At that time Abe tried to accept materials for his works as various as possible and considered the relations between his works at solo exhibitions and ones at group exhibitions. Though he is called an artist of steel. he has actually tried various materials other than steel; wood, fabric, soil and plastics etc. In an experimental group exhibition by four members including TASHIRO Mutsumi, each member did art performances with using wood which they had brought from a forest. They collected materials in their own way, and then they made a work together with discus-sions. Unfortunately I have no documentation about it, but I can guess that Abe was seeking an exit from the point where the notion of the sculpture and "the work' had completely collapsed and from the idealistic conceptualism, self. righteousness and abandoning the way to create works which both the 'Mono-ha' and 'Conceptual's had practiced. 3. ALCHEMY It is quite interesting to know that Abe wrote a thesis about alchemy at Tokyo University of Education before he did that kind of fieldworks. The titles of his recent shows "the Philosopher's Stone' or 'Paracelsus' which are related to alchemy, show that his interest has continued since around 1980. Alchemy might have two contradictory sides: the chemical-positive side and the shamanistic one. However he has never treated his works like Sigmar Polke who would use chemical changes of the material itself on his paintings. He usually uses only one kind of material except in very recent works, even if he takes care for chemical changes in the control process of rust and steel . Instead, Abe seems to be interested in the fact that positivism and shamanism can be reconciled in one system. His works are more like the result of a physical and body-working pro. cess than that of alchemy, in other words, the result of a fool's will (ishi) than of a philosopher's stone (ishi).' Furthermore any energetic concentrated hammering on steel does not create gold which every alchemist dreamed. Steel is still and will always be steel. If so, why does Abe consistently stick to alchemy? As TANO Kinta pointed out, Abe has sympathy with views of the nature and the space, ' the living nature' and the space as a sensorium, which once existed in the begin. ning of the modern scientific view and then were neglected as magic and alchemy later. He is enchanted with the world of the dark science, the fanatic views which disclose the evil aspects of human beings and were neglected by the modern science. Human basic desires, to control matter and to possess space which can never be reconciled to dualism of science/shamanism or reason/desire, enabled Abe to keep such enormous power of continuation and development which I will write about in the following lines. 4. Place to hide = place to watch It was a turning point for Abe in Bogland, Ireland in 1990 that he created a non-permanent "earth-work" with. out any favorite material, without tools or machines and without any assistant for heavy works, almost without any means for an artist. He made a circle and a spiral with his own foot steps, a trench-like cave and drawings with plant sap there. With these actions he intended to mark his physical existence in a wide peat bog in a strange land. None of them can be called or meant to be 'an art work' in general terms. When Abe abandoned the system and space like 'a studio' and a gallery which are necessary for the existence of a work,' he recovered his primordial physic sense against wide open space, unique flora and raw mat rials, and he was also requested to do the same experiments as I mentioned at chapter 2. The effect of this experience would appear again and again in these two year as unusual 'installations,' for example, the corn-shape work in the garden of the Kuga Memorial Museum of A directly reminds us of 'Bog's Base 1' in Ireland. And in h work in Contemporary Art in Munakata in 1994, he trie to find and create a work similar to an Okinawa funeral hall which was somewhat unique. He also created a shag like a turtle shell or a halo of buddha in the Life Gallery Ten and Gallery Center Point which seemed to guard viewers and satisfy their desires to go back to the mother womb. And at the same time, Abe might be trying to create a privileged place where we can see the whole world. 5. Construction How can we see Abe's strange imbalance or his international abandoning of 'construction. The above mentioned artists who had exhibitions with Abe in 1981 and 1983 now tend to create sculptures which had centripetal force or esthetic space. Compared with these artists. Abe shows very specific character on his way of setting works; it intentionally avoids balanced setting, which was called "the landscape construction' by him, to fix and to authorize the direction for viewers. Every time he leans or stands steel, bridging steel sticks in space or setting steel boxes, he avoids a frontal or balanced composition. Even his recent symmetrical constructions since last year seem to be one of the methods abandoning 'composition' because it is the simplest mode of composition. In addition to it, the other specific point on his construction is that he always avoids showing volume or heaviness. The boxes which appeared in 1989 and after, especially in Ten Gallery in Fukuoka, were unusually centripetal elements for him. However these boxes never created closed space. The group of the boxes which still re. main in the Kuga Museum's garden clearly show that they are open steel mass; sideless, with open tops, and sunk into the ground. The boxes look to have a rich volume from the distance but at the same time, they look thin and weightless like paper craft too. These works, especially the one exhibited inside the Kuga Museum have a danger to be seen as 'very Japanese* and being understood as the stereotyped esthetic idea of "Zen.' The recent constructions of centripetal altar-like works also are in danger of losing flexibility of space to stimulate conversation with viewers. Why does he adhere to this theme, while he knows well about the danger? That is, he wishes to revive the viewers' primitive sense of space which must be maintained in their bodies. Then he likes to release viewers and himself from balance or volume which dominate viewers with shape and concept. 6. Steel Since 1980 Abe has always used steel for his work as linear element, flat planes or geometric figure. Those steel works do not look like towering independently. These seem to be keeping unstable balance almost falling down in the huge space. Also the surface looks like some man-made junk abandoned, bent, broken and rusted for a long period, not as if he made the form with his own hands. Naturally the steel was hot and burning while the artist hammered with all his might but the viewer can only see cold and tortured steel like a wounded soldier or an old man. According to Abe's comment, steel is almost a natural material compared with aluminum or stainless steel. A human being with iron in his blood has a close relationship with steel since long before the modern industry started. Therefore the metaphor, steel = body, appears but we must see the point that there is no healthy towering body or active muscles in Abe's work. His works at the Kuga Museum, the largest exhibition in these years, are already heavily rusted and seem some day to disintegrate and re. turn to earth, water and nature. Although he made some monuments, 'Some Artistic Vision' in Yahata and 'Gate of the Winds' in Munakata, these must be exceptional cases in his works. Neither exhibitions, works nor steel seem to aim at any eternal beauty. After his works gently evoke the viewer's sense of his/ her body. Abe seems to leave them weathered, even though they were results of his strong artist's wish and physical labor. Why does he continue so to speak 'anti-alchemy' action and keep to have exhibitions as if he showed a large clot of hiw own blood there? How can a lot of torturous steel bodies be called ‘Time-Space Paradise?’ I believe that it comes from Abe's unique view of his-tory. He has set his starting point on the radical question of "what is 'the artwork"?" around 1980. Then he maintains a strong recognition of belonging to human history which was confirmed by the relationship between his works and other historical matters; relations between humans and iron from ancient times, a shamanistic sense of place and an enormous intellectual effort and desire of alchemists. Also he believes that to create work means to stamp a seal on history to prove his own existence, and these recognitions and beliefs support his continuation. 7. Paradox In short, what Abe is trying to do is to get into a corner little by little by minor developments for several years is a practice of a paradox. To speed up extinction is to maintain time, to torture materials means to release materials, to abandon compositions means to construct, to hide himself from the world means to look through the world, to imitate alchemists means to replay the birth of modern science, to scatter his 'artwork' to 'action', 'material' and 'space' means to bring his 'artwork' into existence, to remain the same means to be change, a brilliant paradox, indeed. When Abe lives through his paradox in Munakata-city while equally watching the ancient culture of Okinoshima island, the modern steel industry in Kitakyushu-city and the frivolous and growing current city of Fukuoka city, he will raise the question again in this period, 1994, "What is the art works?" Reference CHIBA Shigco, 'Action and Metamorphosis' Pamphlet of solo exhibition, Ten Gallery. Fukuoka, 1985 TANO Kinta, "Living Nature' to 'Creating Scene" Pamphlet of solo exhibition, Ten Gallery, rukuoka, 1987 CHIBA Shigo, 'ABE Mamoru - Turning Action into Space* "Abe Mamoru 1980-1991- Ten Gallery, 1991 CHIBA Shigeo, "Recent works of Abe Mamoru: Like a Box' Pamphlet of solo exhibition, Gallery Center Point, Tokyo, 1992 KAWANAMI Chizuru, "Box from the Country of Celt, Brian CATLING: "A Voice of Stern Fragility (translated by ABE Fuminori). ABE Mamoru, Non title Pamphlet of solo exhibition. Temporary Space. Sapporo. 1992 Translated by ABE Fuminori