Aiming for Art That Acknowledges Each Person's Uniqueness
--TURN Art Project and the Possibilities of Individual Art -Part I-

"There's a French term, art brut, that translates to 'raw art' in English. The word brut means unprocessed or unmixed, and it describes art by people who haven't received a specialized art education.
"However, in Japan, it gives the strong impression of art that is done by someone with a disability. It's also known as outsider art, and I've had the strong impression that this inevitably depends on a variety of information sources."

Art brut, which was championed by Jean Dubuffet, is one of the currents that emerged from the European avant-garde ideology after World War II.

"Defining words is a difficult thing. For example, suppose a teacher with an arts education background goes to an institution for disabled people to do things like teach. In that instance, can the works of art that are produced there be considered art brut? So I looked for terminology that wouldn't raise the question of whether a definition was correct or not, and I discovered the word 'turn'.
"After I became responsible for general oversight of a joint exhibition by four Japanese art galleries that specialized in art brut in 2014, I spent a lot of time developing a concept with the art gallery curators. This was the name we selected and announced."

Exploring People's Innate Capabilities

The TURN joint exhibition has been given the subtitle "From Land to Sea (Exploring People's Innate Capabilities)".

This contemplation of Hibino's might have some partial overlap with his personal thinking...

"I also received an arts education at university, but rather than focusing on technical training or carrying on traditional techniques, I've always produced the art that I wanted to create, and that's the kind of artist I've always wanted to be."

Going Beyond the Age of Gratification Through Material Consumption

"When I started my art career in the 80s, there were companies -- particularly companies in the distribution industry, such as Seibu, Parco, and Isetan -- that were drawing attention for their innovative advertising exhibitions, and it was a time when they each had their own art galleries. I myself got my start in 1982 by winning the grand prize at PARCO's third Nippon Graphic Exhibition. That time was known as the age of perception, and places like Koen-dori Street in the city of Shibuya, which was a launching point for youth culture, functioned as a symbolic presence. Different genre categories -- literature, music, theater, fine art, and so on -- would mix together, and new artists that crossed these boundaries were emerging and creating a series of expressions that evoked the next new stage. You could think of this as a time when diversity was in the air from the very start."

However, this experience exposed the fact that such artistic expression was a contributor to the excesses of consumer society.

Art Can Likely Solve Social Issues.

"In another sense, the 80s could be considered the peak of material civilization.
As we entered the next decade, the 90s, the serious problem of global warming received great attention. Additionally, with the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and other natural disasters, were confronted with problems on a scale that had us considering what the earth would be like in 100 years or 1,000 years."

After that, there was The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale that took place in 2000, a major turning point for the era. Since then, this event has been held every three years, using rice terraces, towns with aging populations, and other depopulated areas referred to as marginal villages within Niigata as "an art gallery without a building". Also, the Setouchi Triennale was held in 2010.

"These festivals have allowed artists to create a value transformation by incorporating new value and drawing out the unique power of places that had previously been forgotten by the rest of the region due to marginalization, aging, and declining birth rates, of closed schools that had been deemed useless, of decommissioned facilities and houses, and of unassuming natural landscapes.
People began visiting those places, and some of them even moved there and lived there. I think we're starting to clue in that art can be part of the solution to social issues."

The transitions taking place during that era included the hosting of the TURN joint exhibition in 2014.
Major social issues that TURN had to confront in 2020 were the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on behavior and movement in order to prevent that spread.

In part two, Hibino talks about the future of TURN and his own art.

Read more on: Aiming for Art That Acknowledges Each Person's Uniqueness -- TURN Art Project and the Possibilities of Individual Art -Part II-