| Hiroshi Kariya | Essay | Edward j. Sozanski | Contemplating, Creation, Rebirth

Memory: Ilya Kabakov's Wall (Progress photo album)

Kabakov's installation consisted of a sheetrock wall that covered the south end of the lower gallery and a free-standing U-shaped wall in the center of the room. Kariya demolished these walls, but before he did, he sectioned them 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 with chalklines into grids and marked with an identifying letter and number, much as archaeologists mark out a dig site.

Memory : Archaeologist's Marking (For The Future)

Kariya then assembled some of the larger chunks of the demolished Kabakov walls into a new, irregular wall. The leftover framing lumber is neatly stacked at the side, each piece numbered, and the debris, including even the dust from the demolition, is heaped behind it.

Memory Tomb: Kabakov's Wall Fragment

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Simple as it is, Memory Wall embodies the idea of reincarnation with surprising eloquence. Its post-Kabakov codings testify to its former existence, and its deliberately ragged appearance reminds the observer that it honors the spirit of reincarnation more than material perfection.

Memory: wooden fragment #26

(This fragment was revealed after demolition, used for Andy Wahol's previous exhibition)

But it does have a practical aspect. Kariya has stamped and numbered 800 small pieces of sheetrock that the ICA will sell for a dollar each, with the proceeds to be used to recoup the cost of the Kbakov walls.

On the opposite wall of the lower gallery, Kariya has installed a work-in-progress called 8000 Years Spring, 8000 Years Autumn. Forty-eight feet long by 8 feet high, it is made of pieces of used wood, each 2 feet long.

The pieces are stacked on the wall in six rows. The stacks vary in height, and most of the wood is tinted green (for spring) or red and purple (for autumn). Most also are marked with a simulated script that represents Kariya's "is the now" sutra.

The sutra writing also covers a series of large scrolls open to various lengths on the floor in front of the wall.

8,000 Years Autumn, 8,000 Years Spring

The visual effect of the wall array is something like an abstract codex or calendar. One recognizes it as a record of time passed, but it also alludes to the rhythmic cadence of language. Because sutra writing is abstract-it vaguely resembles Arabic or Persian-it communicates metaphorically, but its incantatory purpose is clear.

...The most ritualistic aspect of the total installation, Sutra Tomb, occupies the upper gallery. Here, Kariya displays a panoply of sutra objects-wooden discs (on which his sutra is written continuously in a spiral), pieces of driftwood, rocks, small jars of paint, and miscellaneous objects such as candles, seashells, postcards, bones and small paper scrolls.

Sutra Tomb

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Some of these items are organized systematically on a sturdy, wooden free-standing shelf, while others are laid out on the floor behind it. The observer isn't allowed to walk around or through the piece, so he or she experiences it as a succession of fragmented views.

To the left, a 20-foot-wide ring of 100 limestone fragments, each covered with sutra writing, circles through an adjacent gallery and links up with the central array; to the right, a ring of 100 piles of white beans, totaling about 100, a "grasp"

100 Stone Sutra

The arrangement does approximate an ancient burial chamber, where offerings are left to propitiate gods, but through the seeds it also implies dormancy and rebirth. Like 8000 Years, through, it cannot be deciphered by an outsider, nor do I think the artist intends that anyone should need to do so.

Literal translation isn't necessary; the spirit of the work is palpable from its form and constituent elements. If one were to come upon a similar display deep in a primeval forest or in a secluded mountain cave, as an artifact of a vanished civilization, one would understand its purpose intuitively.

The most distinctive quality of Kariya's work, aside from the patience and dedication it obviously demands, is that the process of making it-the "sacrifice" to which he refers in his wall text-is more consequential than the artifacts it produces. It is, in fact, its essence.

Piling 54 Stones: Begins and Ends

By coming upon this installation after the artist has completed his labor (or at least interrupted it), the observer unfortunately misses the main event, which is the artist focusing intently on his task. This art isn't intended as interpersonal communication; it describes a solitary, almost penitential search for communion with a cosmic unity.

One judges the quality of such a quest much as one would evaluate a religious mission, by the artist's persistence and dedication to his ideals. By this standard, Kariya has achieved the most meaningful goal to which art can aspire.

Edward J. Sozanski, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3.18, 1990

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