Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

We are saddened to hear of the untimely death of Japanese filmmaker, Koji Wakamatsu. Our associate Yoshitsugu Yubai had interviewed  Wakamatsu for RE/Search’s forthcoming new edition of Incredibly Strange Films [which is still in production]. Here is part of that interview.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==

— How did you enter the movie world?—

(Wakamatsu)   I entered the movie world by accident. When I was 20 years old, I was a juvenile delinquent. At 17, I ran away from the country to Tokyo, then  entered the world of Yakuza when I was 20 years old. Then I got arrested and went to jail at 22 years old. There in jail, I was bullied by cops – it was raw deal. The cops treated me inhumanely. Therefore, I meditated how I could best get revenge on them. If I used violence on them, I would have to go back to jail, so, I thought the best way to get revenge on them would be in an imaginary world, by writing novels or making movies. I thought about my abilities. Then, I decided to leave Yakuza world to be a movie director. I started out by carrying lunches for TV productions, and when I was 25 years old, there was an offer to be a director. I directed my first movie in 1962. In a word, if I kill people in an imaginary world, it is just imagination and I am not guilty of killing cops – as many as I want! So, I thought it was the best way to take revenge against authority. I had never planned to work in movies – I just thought it was the best way to get revenge against cops and authority.

— In my image, the Yakuza world is not connected with art. When you were Yakuza, were you interested in art? —

(Wakamatsu)  No, not at all. If I had not been arrested, I have no idea what I would be doing. I might be in jail, might be dead, or might still be Yakuza, maybe would have become a Yakuza boss. Now, when people shoot a film on location, they must pay their respect to the Yakuza who control that area, for example Shinjuku. My [Yakuza] boss had ordered to me to guard the camera, and that’s how I discovered filmmaking. My entry into filmmaking was  as a bodyguard of cameras, protecting equipment from crowds. Besides that, I had only watched movies on my time off. But I resented the power of cops who had bullied me, and I could kill cops in movies. I am not an artist.

— When you started shooting film, did you start it by yourself or with friends? —

(Wakamatsu)  At the time, the field of movies and television was absurd. I quarreled with an actor but I could not hit him because I was on probation. If I hit him, I would have to go back to jail. While I was thinking about leaving the filmmaking – going home and starting to farm, someone asked me to direct a movie. I did not think I had  talent, but I wrote screenplay and shot the movie. The last scene of the movie was killing cops -  it was a great hit. From then on, I got many commissions. I was lucky. My break into directing came from my anger – and a lucky meeting with the right people.

— How do you get ideas? —

(Wakamatsu)  Anger and questioning of affairs of the world. I have shot over a hundred movies and written most of the screenplays.

— Your movie titles are very beautiful.—

(Wakamatsu)  I deceive audiences by titles.

— Were the 60s a very special period for you? —

(Wakamatsu)  In Japan, campus activism was getting big. In America, the assassination of Kennedy, the U.S. -  Japan Security Treaty, and Vietnam War. The world was chaotic and there was no end of material for movies.

— Did you get along with the underground  scene and hippies in 60s? —

(Wakamatsu)  Yes, I was invited to an underground film festival in Brussels, and attended it. I had visited N.Y. to see underground scene during 1967 – 68 and I became acquainted with Andy Warhol. I mostly hung out with people from underground scene.

— Are you acquainted with Tadanori Yokoo? —

(Wakamatsu)  I have often drunk with Yokoo in Shinjuku. The colors of Yokoo’s posters are like a rainbow. I would call his posters images of LSD.

— The psychedelic movement – Love and Peace and Yakuza seem so opposite. Did you feel discomfort or a gap? —

(Wakamatsu)  No, not really. I have many friends who are extreme left wing, extreme right wing and foreigners who live in Japan. I do not discriminate – Yakuza and hippies are same for me. I do not like discrimination.

— Please tell me about Yakuza. Foreigners are interested in that. —

(Wakamatsu)  Yakuza is not cool at all. When I had normal job, a friend died in the field. His parents came to get him. If it happened today, they would receive life insurance. But after that happened, I decided to become a Yakuza – to live thick and short. I started out becoming a gangster. For example, I would bodyguard the cameraman or  the prizes of a Pachinko parlor. After 2 years, I had a follower, but he was beaten by another group of Yakuza. I went to seek vengeance, to beat them up. But the gangsters told the police about it and I was caught. Yakuza is terrible because they disturb you. Yakuza fashion is different from other people. They show they are Yakuza by fashion. I have never made a Yakuza movie because it is wrong to think Yakuza is cool.

— Are there any movies or genres you’ve influenced by? —

(Wakamatsu)  I have never been influenced. This was not an influence, but Godard taught me that my movies do not need to be realistic. The movie can be a mess, but if the idea is strong, it will be a good movie. Godard’s movies are a mess, too. That’s why I shoot movies based on my own thoughts.

— Are you interested in painting? —

(Wakamatsu)  No, not really. I just started to go to art museum, first to look at paintings when I visit foreign countries. I am not interested in scenery at all.

— Do you have any favorite painters? —

(Wakamatsu)  I like the Goya paintings in the Prado museum. I especially like his painting “Saturn Devouring His Son”. I thought it was incredible. I have visited the town where Goya was born. It’s 2 hours from Madrid.

— You treasure the element of Eroticism. —

(Wakamatsu)  Everybody has eroticism. Appetite, sleep, sexual desire… and violence. Therefore, eroticism is not shameful, and it is an important desire.

I have always loved RE/Search.

Ever since I saw a picture of V.Vale all in black, surrounded by mysterious-looking records in BRUTUS Magazine vol. 328 when I was 13 years old, I have always admired him. When I first met Vale, I asked him who was his favorite painter, and his answer was “Bosch!” I felt for the first time, that the world had no boundaries.

There were connections. History starting from the Beat Generation to the Hippie Movement, and then to Punk, and encompassing Dada & Surrealism, William S. Burroughs and J.G. Ballard. All of Black Humor interacting to form Industrial Culture.

Punk was not just a childish style but also an Art Movement as serious as Dada & Surrealism. And we must realize that Pop was not simply a pretty art form, but also something that carries along dark madness behind it. Clovis Trouille painted a colorful kitschi-ness, contrasting a sex party with Christ and saints in full blackness. Here is the borderline joining “Pop” and “Surreal” and this is the core of the “Incredibly Strange” aesthetic of RE/Search.

Painters, photographers, filmmakers, writers — whatever the medium, the great artists (many featured in JUXTAPOZ magazine and published by Last Gasp) who are attracted by RE/Search’s magnet should be called “School of Incredibly Strange.” I think it is time for us to think about the world-wide connection of the underground scene by putting RE/SEARCH in the center of the table — taken as seriously as Surrealism and Pop Art.

We know that the Contemporary Art History which we are taught in this society is an end product of Duchamp’s misunderstood “Anti-Art.” I believe that the “School of Incredibly Strange” is the true descendant of Duchamp and Warhol. I wish to repaint the false Contemporary Art History with works of the “School of Incredibly Strange.”

– Yoshitsugu Ranpeki

Was there any strong movement that describes society after Pop Art? You cannot find such a movement, even if you pore over the history of Contemporary Art. However, the answer is closer than you think: It is Punk. I know existent art history cannot deal with the Punk movement as an Art Movement, but Punk does not have to mean the Sex Pistols — i.e., a victim of corporate media.

There was a strain of Punk which displayed early on slogans like “Punk is Dead” and “Anarchy and Peace.” They called themselves “Crass.” People who viewed the artwork of Crass saw intense monochrome images. The group penned the song “Nagasaki Nightmare” as well as showcasing collages made with photographs of Nagasaki after the dropping of the Atomic Bomb — collages made by Gee Vaucher.

U.K. British Pop Art founder Richard Hamilton made the signature Pop Art collage “Just What Is It that Makes Today´s Homes So Different, So Appealing?” Pop Artists like Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein painted the world view of “Before” the Apocalypse. Pop Art’s primary content involved the future of mass consumerism — that was the primary subject matter. But this was “Before.”

The “After” apocalyptic monochrome images were created by Gee Vaucher. Those images are shouting, “Daily life which is colorful and happy is at an end. We get invoved in the games of Capitalists and die beggars in the colorless black-and-white world that has soaked up radioactive fallout.”

There is a whole history of Punk Before Punk. Dadaist John Heartfield created his grievous collage images against Nazism in Germany, the period of Hitler’s tyranny. Today, Gee Vaucher exposes monstrous worlds that lie behind the media landscapes of false “Happiness.” She shows us scenes nobody wants to see:  the pornography of dead soldiers dying for their country, Margaret Thatcher covered with excrement.

There is an absolute reason to fear these images because they shriek out the truth. People who control the world disseminate images of counterfeit “Happiness”, “Beauty” and “God.” Such brutal people uphold a marketplace advertising vulgar superficial beauty, thus destroying the history of art itself. If “Happiness”, “Beauty” and “God” are the official corporate subject matter, true artists must raise an objection to those.

The Living Spirit of Punk, Dada & Surrealism must continue to exist, unlocking and freeing the dominant spirit of Anti-Authoritarianism from the official false history of beauty. Those who have time to worship trifling Contemporary Art are free to try mental masturbation with the pornographic image of a dead fallen soldier in war (“Still Life with Nude”) by Gee Vaucher. . .

(edited by V. Vale)

From where “Art” starts, and where will it end…
Why did the Art that was supposed to create turn to destruction after the 19th century? Why did Van Gogh have to beat each brushstroke on the canvas? And why did Picasso have to demolish the faces of his many girlfriends?
A large wall that no one could ever break fell down when a man named Marcel Duchamp turned a urinal upside down and signed it. It was not only an event that overturned Art history, it was the moment that the human mind in modern society broke through the wall of propriety. If you go to MOMA NY, you can see how, even though Picasso demolished the painting, his paintings are decisively beautiful. But Duchamp‘s “Art ” is nothing less than rubbish. And that is the meaning of Duchamp’s accomplishment. Because his art satirizes the behavior of the capitalists who worship the “Art ”.
The tombstone of Hubert van Eyck which was carved “I am the greatest artist” was blown up during the First World War. And from the 24-piece Ghent Altarpiece “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb”, 2 pieces (“John the Baptist” and “The Just Judges”) were stolen by a man.
The panel “The Just Judges” portrayed Hubert himself. In the year 1934, the grisaille of “John the Baptist” was safely returned. The same year, on his unexpected death bed, the criminal admitted that he knew where the “Hubert” panel was. Although all kinds of investigation took place, the “Hubert” panel has never been found. There’s even a theory that the painter Hubert van Eyck is imaginary and did not really exist.
Maybe the existence of Hubert van Eyck, who left no certain products, but was said to be the best painter in the world, is the imaginary Readymade objet d’art created by Jan van Eyck.
A Mere Shell Of A Lamb
The painting “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” has an inscription that says, “ A very great painter Hubert van Eyck began the piece, and his younger brother Jan, who has great skills, finished this difficult work.” This “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” is a masterpiece suitable to be called the ”Mona Lisa” of religious paintings.
But this painting is actually the most magnificent anti-Christianity painting in art history! When we look at the upper panel, we find a vertical line through the center of father/God or child of God/Christ, that fuses the image of God to the crown at his foot, and then to the Holy Ghost which appears as a dove in the lower panel. It continues to the Christ as a lamb of God, to the fountain of life which has a statue of an angel. From the fountain of life, a devil opens his mouth and blows water toward the drain. This is the vertical center line. But the shade of the drain is missing the center line. This must be a denial of the Mighty God and child of God/Christ. As this painting was decorated and intended to be realistically detailed, the lamb of God who plays the lead role in this altarpiece looks empty and ludicrous.

The lamb is ridiculous, just like Duchamp’s Readymade objet d’art. And the red-costumed martyrs are like a photograph of Diane Arbus who stirs objects to relieve them, and then rips their masks away. I think that the white flower blooming on the upper side of the martyrs should be the real lead subject of this altarpiece. The motive of the “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” is not the Atonement of Christ, but praise to Nature, affirmation of Life itself.

Translated by Hironobu Mukai
Edited by V.Vale

現在、RE/SEARCH でインターンをしている日本人、弓場井宜嗣のブログです。

四月二十九日（火）

朝、ウェアハウスに行って倉庫整理をする予定だったが、中止してVALEとPRANKS 2を届けに、LAST GASPへ行く。RON TURNERの息子、COLINに会う。彼の部屋には、所狭しと大量の本が並ぶ。特に、日本の漫画が目立った。小池桂一、日野日出志、花輪和一等。その後、SUBTERRANEAN RECORDSへ。SRLの元作業場の真横に、隣接している建物の中は、埃だらけで、DUCHAMPのアトリエを、MAN RAYが撮影した 「Elevage de poussiere」を思い出して、一人でうける。その後、RE/SEARCHに戻って、NEWS LETTER LIST を整理する。夕食後、VALEは真夜中まで、CRIMEのBassistであるMICHAEL　A. LUCASが書いた DEVIL BORN WITHOUT HORNSを、これでもかと言う程，爆笑しながら読んでいた。