Published in the Weekly Volcano, Aug. 3, 2017
by Alec Clayton
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| Detail of installation by Masahiro Sugano, courtesy Feast Art Center |
Masahiro Sugano’s installation at Feast Art Center is as gutsy as
anything you’re likely to see, and I mean that both literally and
metaphorically. It is gutsy in the sense of taking chances and — slightly more
literally, as you will see — in the sense of the popular basketball-metaphor of
leaving it all on the court. Literally there are blood-red sculptural
intestines and hearts and spleens and other body parts all over the floor and
blood splatters everywhere.
Sugano is an award-winning filmmaker. His 2013 series Verses in Exile about Cambodian
deportations was broadcast on PBS online, and his documentary Cambodian Son won Best Documentary award
at the 2014 CAAMFEST and a Special Jury Prize at Cultural Resistance Film Fest
of Lebanon. In this exhibition, he exhibits artifacts from his more than 25
films.
the front of the gallery is a sculpture of a man, presumably Sugano, on
his knees and penetrated by a metal rod. The sculpture is crafted from wood and
mannequin parts. From here the artist “spills his guts” in a stream that
crosses the gallery floor to a rough wooden workbench laden with piles of
detritus from his career in filmmaking: reels, DVDs, books, clothing, a boot
and a United States flag. The significance of the flag, which some viewers may
see as a desecration, is that much of his art and many of his films are about
refugees to the U.S., their lives here, and
their treatment at the hands of our country, including the deportation of
Cambodian-Americans who have been here since early childhood, as documented in Cambodian Son, a film about Kosal Khiev, a
refugee from Cambodia at the age of one-year-old. Khiev became a well-known
poet and was deported back to Cambodia at the age of 32, a country he knew
nothing about and where he couldn’t even speak the language.
The gallery at Feast
Art Center is a long, narrow space with a doorway on one end and a window on
the other, meaning there are only two walls for hanging paintings, drawings and photos. Sugano
utilizes these two walls to display two lines of photographs, mostly film
stills documenting his many films. Included are photos of performance art
pieces by his wife, Anida Yoeu Ali, who curated this show. Also on the walls
are small and excruciatingly precise charts labeling each photograph with titles
and notations on what film or performance piece each is from.
The blood splatters
(red paint) is heavy on the floor and is slung up both walls. It is more
controlled than it might at first appear, heavy where it needs to be and
lighter where other things need to be seen. The splatters go under the
photographs and directionally lead the eye through the various parts of the
installation and serve as a visually unifying element.
In a written statement, Sugano states, “(Americans of all colors) cannot
figure out what to make of me — a Japanese dude doing something in the U.S. But
their eyes light up and the apprehension dissipates when I say I used to make
sushi. Sushi is absolutely irrelevant to me but to this day it defines me. I
fear sometimes that my filmmaking existence is as irrelevant to America. This
show is about the stuff I have been doing over 25 years and will be doing until
the moment I die.”
I suspect visitors
who take the time to carefully view this work will indeed figure out what to
make of this Japanese dude who has lived in three different countries and now
lives in Tacoma.
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