Showing posts with label Tetsumi Kudo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tetsumi Kudo. Show all posts

Monday, May 23, 2016

Kudo and Ionesco

We know Tetsumi Kudo and Ionesco fell out during the making of La Vase; looking at how Kudo went on to use Ionesco in his work. it must have been a very serious misunderstanding. Ionesco's head (right) plays a special part in Kudo's  Pollution-Cultivation-New Ecology programme.
First 'pollution' (deconstruction): here Ionesco moults or sheds his body parts which are hung around his head in a tiny cage, displayed as ornaments; also included a tiny crucifix, little chits with 'merci' written on them and what looks like a glass of Chimay. The caption for this work is 'end of some generation'  ie end of Euro/Christian/ Humanist generation; Ionesco's face is the face of this generation.
That is not the end of the story: after 'pollution' and 'moulting' cultivation can begin. Ionesco's parts reassemble, uncaged, democratically living alongside other organic and non-organic elements; his head is now growing but notice the electronic circuitry. Finally (below) Ionesco is free to develop in a hydroponic sphere part of a New Ecology flourishing, wired up, among plants, valves and reproductive organs. Amazing what can happen to an aging, surrealist intellectual. He'd be grateful.