Cultural anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss explains the title of his The View from Afar (Le Regard eloigne) as being inspired by discovering the phrase "distant eyes" in Zeami's "Fushi Kaden" (The Flowering Spirit). According to Zeami, a good actor must be able to see himself in the way that his spectators see him- through their distant eyes. In other words, the actor must attain an auditotium-centered mental state, becoming at one with the audience (kenjodoshin).
Izumi Kato is definitely an artist whose creative perspective is one viewing humanity through distant eyes. At a time when people's outlook in the world is increasingly globalized, Kato places humans in the middle of natural scenes, merging them into their surroundings. By doing so, he is attempting a fundamental reappraisal of a human existence that has been civilized and has gained a powerful ego. In his works, flowers and buds sprout from the tips of arms, legs, and other protusions from the human body, and the body grows roots. Kato believes that the souls and physical bodies of modern humans retain primitive scenery within them, and is continually attempting to draw out and expose the scenery.
This exhibition takes the form of an installation where Kato's sculptures and paintings, including a previously unseen series of paintings, run wild through the space. In this environment, it is easy to leap across the domain forming the boundary between self and other, and discover a different civilization that has stored up the "view from afar."
Izumi Kato “The View from Afar” is on view at Comme des Garçons Paris through September 11, 2011.
