Scrap metal skeleton sculpture
This scrap-metal skeleton sculpture, "Jibetarian," is on display at the National Art Center in Tokyo -- it's a student piece from Tokyo Zokei University. As Tokyobling notes, it has a haunting, moving aspect that I could look at for days:
Jibetarian - 芦村康吉 (Thanks, Robert)
The term is a pun on the word ji (ground, earth) and vegetarian. I think most of you have seen this kind of work before, but I can’t even begin to imagine how the artist balanced this life sized sculpture while crafting it. It is a massive undertaking - to so finely shape a person that it can balance all by itself. I felt moved by the open mouth and stare of skeletal figure, like a post apocalyptic corpse, a Hiroshima meets Pompeii figure, tragic, doomed and beautiful at the same time. Like a corpse withered by an atomic blast, mere moments before collapsing in a smoking pile of bones in a radioactive desert. Art at it’s finest, a fruitful composition of idea and execution.
the latest
latest episodes
The writeup says all that needs being said. I just wanted to add: 'great post'.
Japanese is quite famous for making up weird words, but as far as I (and my dictionary) know, "jibetarian" are young people, who can sit in poses like this on the sidewalk for ages.
(http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1E)
But they might well be vegetarians, too.
As to the balance aspect of the sculpture: In truth, a human skeleton can't really balance like a human being. You need all the muscles and guts to weight it properly.
Looks cool though.
Great! I felt badly not seeing the name of the artist - but the caption of the photo on Tokyo Bling includes 'by 芦村康吉'; an online translator spewed out "Reed village healthy good fortune" but not a transliteration. Somebody help, please.
Is the permanent display? If so, I'm amazed that the museum chose to place what amounts to an ugly green/white post-it note beside the piece -- it mars the whole atmosphere. Would it have been so hard to choose signage that blended in better to the tones of the floor?
Jane: I think the name might be something like Ashimura Yasukichi.
LOGAN: "I think there's a clog in the blast nozzle. There. Try it again."
BLAST NOZZLE: "BWWWWOOOOOOFF!!"
If that's a 'scrap metal' sculpture, then all metal sculpture is. Most steel is now produced by remelting scrap, but 'scrap metal' just doesn't seem particularly apt in describing this piece.
Ohh, that's incredible. I wish I could see it in person. Posts like these are why I read BB. Thanks for this.
Careful on the rest of that site! There's some major NSFW portraiture on other posts.
Seems more like a gibbetarian.
Thanks for pointing out a possible reading of the name of the artist. I have no idea why they didn't spell out the names in furigana or something like this. The sculpture was a exhibited as part of a huge joint exhibition by the five major art schools in the greater Tokyo urban area.
I agree that the word "scrap metal" might not be spot on, but it corresponds well to the imagery of scrap metal rather than something shiny and new.
A human skeleton would never be able to balance like this on its own, but I think the artist did a great job - I can't even begin to understand how it was done (even though some helpful people have given me private messages with rough descripitions). I guess you have to see it to believe it - I mean, a one degree difference in angle of the left arm would make the whole thing tip over!
The work is not on permanent display and the exhibition ended on March 1st.
The green "post it" is just the details of the work (title, artist, school, deparment) and all the works exhibited had them, color coded by school.
Oh yes, I had an image on the blog that was NSFW but thought better of it and hid it under a link, clearly labeled NSFW. The rest of the blog is quite family safe, unless you consider my terrible English - I guess that for a proffesional writer my whole blog is NSFW. I really need to get back and rewrite every single post. (Thanks for the warning Tenn!)
Teapunk, you are right about the word, but my sources included the word vegetarian as one being part of the eytmological make up of this term. Neverthelss, I have never actually heard it used in real life (see Japanse Wikipedia for more details). At the very least, the term refers to the posture of the metal skeleton.