1998 II

  From My Visiting Sobye to His Exhibition "Roll Call"  by Ichiro Hariu   Intimate guests of Toho Gallery probably know already as follows. Several years ago, a Norwegian unknown painter sent me a letter asking for any gallery to organize his solo exhibition in Japan, and when I went around galleries showing photos of his paintings enveloped in his letter, the owner of Toho Gallery agreed to have his exhibition, because he found there inner realism of Munch's direct descendant lacking in Japan. This painter is Reinhardt Sobye, he showed already five times in Toho Gallery, and his works have been purchased by several museums and artists, especially Odakyu Museum decided to organize his big retrospective exhibition in 1999. But everytime only his works and his texts for catalogue have been sent, nobody from Japan did meet the artist until last year.
While I went around international artfairs in Europe last July, I attempted to visit Norway and meet Sobye, At the Oslo airport, I noticed intuitively a person among waiting people as Sobye, who is almost 2 meter tall, his face as well as his body long and slender, with glasses and thick traces of whiskeys on both cheek. He took me by his car to a terrace cafe in front of a park in Oslo, and then after one hour driving toward north, arrived a house in a provincial town. He told me this house is the sister's of his divorced wife, but because her family is now in summer resort, so he can stay here together with me over night. Then we walked to a chinese restaurant in this town. I asked him why he sent me his letter at first, he answered he sent it actuary to more than ten art critics in european countries and USA, but his exhibition has been realized only by Toho Gallery. According to Sobye, paintings have now a good sale because of recent prosperities by domestic production of oil in Norway, but the main supports of his living are given from Norwegian collectors emigrated to west european countries. When I showed him the catalogues of Venice Biennale, Documenta X, and Muenster sculpture project etc, I have seen, he looked not at all interested in photos of exhibited works, only murmuring "Can you read all these texts in German, Italian and French etc.?". It was bright after dinner too because of the midnight sun, for me enough to snap him, and he also took picture of me.
But then, I was surprised by arriving of the triptych including a portrait of me among the works for Sobye's exhibition of this time. Its original title "Wisdom gives Man the ability to see the writings on the wall" is too long, so I changed it a little in Japanese. Looking at its subtitle "Portrait of Mr.Ichiro Hariu between horses from the Kingdom of death", some guest of Toho Gallery asked to the owner, why between horses from the Kingdom of death or hell? Sobye's text in this catalogue does not explain it directly, but I guess terms and languages which he criticizes with emphasis in this text, and the contemporary arts bound by them as exhibited in international artfairs are horses from hell, on the other hand, his own paintings exploring the lonely inner world of a old woman, who has lost speech by brain haemorrhage and has been abandoned by her family are suggested by the writing on the wall.
The famous maxim of German-Jewish philosopher and aesthetician Theodor Adorno is "After Auschwitz, it is barbarous to write poetry still". I don't know if is there another version which Sobye, used as epigram in Adorno's books or not. However I can understand since Sobye, advance to criticize the contemporary civilization, he must return always to Nazi's KZ as its prototype. My old friend, already dead French thinker from psychoanalyst Felix Guattari, in one of his books cooperated with also suicided French philosoph Gilles Deleuze, mentioned that all developed capitalism societies have already the structures of paranoiafascism. Probably they stressed the difference between it and Nazi type schizophrenia fascism, but I am recognizing fully from japan's domestic and abroad recent situations, there are no solid and safe structure for capitalism societies beside fascism of both type. I hope audience to dip up Sobye's thought from this exhibition, that the only way for art to resist against it is, though seemingly roundabout, nothing but to penetrate into souls of abandoned social weakers and degenerates.