The Dynamic Nature of the Modern Art Genre

“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.”

The above quoted lines of Tom Stoppard from his book “Artist Descending a Staircase” clearly indicate the nature of the artists found in the modern world (Huang). However, Mika Tajima is one of the rare artists who combine both skill as well as imagination in her works (“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima”). It is to be noted that the genre of art is a very dynamic one and it has been subjected to rapid change in the modern times. Traditionally the genre of art encompassed only the literary works and paintings. However, in the modern times, the genre of art encompasses various spheres of interior designing and other aspects of the modern life as well. It is here that the art works of Mika Tajima comes into prominence (Huang). The art work of Mika Tajima includes the designing of furniture and architecture. She uses the conventions of Modernism and the concepts of abstract art to create her moving designs. Her art works also make use of the concept of space to render a beautiful stimulation of the human emotions. This essay intends to study the life and the art works of Mika Tajima through the political, social, cultural and various other diverse parameters which affect the creativity of an artist (Huang). 

Mika Tajima, currently residing in the city of New York, was born in the year 1975 in Los Angeles, California (“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima”). She completed her MFA degree from the Colombia University, School of Arts, New York in the year 2003 (“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima”).

It is to be noted that the artist employs the various genres of art like painting, performance, dance, music, video and others to portray the diverse performing subjects like speaker, dance, factory worker, designer, filmmaker, musician and others in a mesh of spaces in “which material objects outline action and engagement” (“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima”). Mika Tajima is often considered to be “something of a saboteur” (Huang). According to Huang, “These days, it is fashionable in painting, as elsewhere, to avoid making basic aesthetic decisions, especially where composition is concerned. Randomness, natural decay, audience participation or existing systems are among the strategies employed, while the results range from fatuous to brilliant”. This provides a pertinent account of the art work of Mika Tajima. It is to be noted that her present works extend the process of her interrogation of the man made environment as well as the “maximized performer to the global flow of life energies sought by unraveling systems” (“Mika Tajima — Art21”). Some of her works composed in association with the various “New Humans” artists like Judith Butler, Vito Acconci, C. Spencer Yeh, Charles Atlas and others have drawn much international critical acclaim (Walkerart.org). Her works have been put into exhibition in some of the most reputed galleries of the world like the “South London Gallery, London”, “Art in General, New York”, “Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm”, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art” among various others (“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima”). The figure provided below shows Mika Tajima at one of her art exhibitions-The turning point in her artist career came with her appointment as an art critic at the Yale University, in the year 2014. She was also a part of the “2008 Whitney Biennial” (“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima”). Her works take into consideration the international social as well as political conditions to create moving artistic designs.

A Rare Artist who Combines Skill and Imagination in Her Works

The art works of Mika Tajima uses the concept of space to portray the concepts of action as well as employment of the present day world. Therefore, many critics consider the works of Mika Tajima to be abstract and beyond the comprehension of the common folks. According to Bill Watterson, “People always make the mistake of thinking art is created for them. But really, art is a private language for sophisticates to congratulate themselves on their superiority to the rest of the world. As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” (“Mika Tajima — Art21”). This particular concept of Bill Watterson can also be applied to the work of Mika Tajima, who also seeks to attain this particular level of sophistication through her art. Mika Tajima, as already mentioned is an abstract artist who takes the help of the negative entropy in a bid to achieve the richly hued style of her paintings and other art works. She also takes the help of the various endangered technologies and the various weaving machines for the creation of her various art works. It is to be noted that unlike the traditional musical artists her art works are the templates “for softly optical Jacquard patterns that suggest waves of both sound and light and also have a quaint, modern, wall-hanging numbness” (“Mika Tajima — Art21”). On the contrary, for the creation of her furniture arts she takes the help of various shiny plexiglass materials in the form of box frames. It is often seen that these plexiglass boxes have a retro-modern kind of air about them in various vibrant colors of yellows as well as sunset-sunrise color combinations. These color combinations are derived from the various Rothko clouds as well as the “West Coast Finish Fetish art”, which has become the hallmark of her furniture arts (Huang). It is to be noted that several critics consider her to a modern day representative of the art form of Jackson Pollock (“Mika Tajima — Art21”). The works of Mika Tajima has not much of artistic beauty as per the various critics but they do signify a rather promising trajectory. Another feature of the work of Mika Tajima is her ingenious use of the concept of space in her paintings and her furniture works. It is to be noted that in her more recent art works she is also trying to portray the human spirit in the form of her painting and furniture works. The theme of most of her work is the construction of the various performing objects in space. In some of her works, she also tries to portray the chaotic nature of the modern day man-made world. In some of her works like “Negative Entropy” (2014), she also tries to portray the relationship between the various workers and the machines which they use (“Mika Tajima — Art21”). The figure provided below is a part of the “Negative Entropy” series of Tajima- 

The Life and Art Works of Mika Tajima

In the opinion of Andrew Maerkle her works achieve “Alienation through Beautification, Engagement after Alienation” (Smith).  The inspirations of her work are the international social, economic as well as the political factors admist which she was brought up and also the influence of the art group “New Humans” (Smith).  In an interview with Ian Wallace, she speaks about her inspiration about the creation of various furniture art works in the words, “After the financial crisis in 2008, I was really thinking hard about my own way of making objects. If I was going to do a gallery show, it made sense for me to acknowledge the setting of the commercial gallery space as a kind of evacuated showroom….paint trapped in transparent shells and cubicles with no entry or exit” (Smith). Her art work mostly applies to the logos of the audience as most of her art works seek to portray the condition of the modern man in the realm of the machines and the relationship between them. It is to be noted most of her works do not apply to the pathos of the audience however they certainly belong to the realm of ethos. It is to be noted that many critics consider that there is a certain element of uncanny beauty in her works.

In an interview with Ian Wallace, Mika Tajima said “I think a lot about how we live with the legacy of those practices—I’m interested in the inversion and contradictions inherent in these past artistic projects. For instance, how did certain strains of Modernist rationalism ultimately work against human freedom and desires? Some of my works use historical source material to examine our contemporary way of seeing the diagrammatic, particularly in interior corporate architecture—the naturalized spaces of work and life” (“Artist Mika Tajima On Shaping The Human Body Through Sculpture”). This seems to a fitting description of her art works. In most of her art works it is seen that she tries to utilize the various strains of the various Modernist and several other artists of the past to create moving designs which clearly outlines her interest in the theme of “inversion and contradiction”. An example of this particular “inversion and contradiction” style used by the artist is evident in the various “folding screen pieces” created by her- 

Yayoi Kusama when asked about the nature of her art works said, “My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings” (“Artist Mika Tajima On Shaping The Human Body Through Sculpture”). The same concept can also be applied to the art works of Mika Tajima. Speaking about the nature of her own art work she says “Because I make objects, I think of myself as a sculptor; I work with space and how we’re shaped by our built environment, how objects dictate our experiences. The collaborative work came out of me thinking about how to demonstrate the other possible identities of an artwork” (“Artist Mika Tajima On Shaping The Human Body Through Sculpture”). This statement by the artist is a penetrating account of her own art work in which she tries to provide an account of the various ways in which the physical objects around us tend to dictate our emotions as well as emotions just like the “objective correlative” theory of T.S. Eliot  (Negative Entropy). It is to be noted that all these ideas of the artist make a clear impression on the logos of any clearly thinking person and seem completely logical. As already mentioned, the work of Mika Tajima tends to puts emphasis on the emotions evoked by the mechanical world around ourselves and therefore, the logos part of her work is the most significant.

Mika Tajima’s Unique Approach to Abstract Art

There is a mixed opinion among the people about the significance of Mika Tajima’s work. Most of the people consider the work of the artist Mika Tajima to be against the precepts of religion as her art works try to depict the disorder the modern world. Most of her art works are directed to depict the mechanistic world thereby defying the precept of religion which states the world to be a creation of God (Negative Entropy). The work of Tajima takes into consideration the various changing social requirements of the people and thereby offers compatible art and furniture works as per the changing requirements of the people and their aesthetic level (Huang). Most of the art works of Tajima are made from renewable as well as bio-degradable materials and thereby takes into consideration the changing environmental norms (Negative Entropy). Most of the art works of Tajima takes its inspiration from the changing political context of the world. For example, many critics consider her art work “Negative Entropy” to be a representation of the chaotic political landscape of the modern world (Huang).

The art work of Mika Tajima connects most with the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. The lines of the poem, which apply most to the life and the art work of Mika Tajima are listed below-

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

……………………………………….

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

It is to be noted that just like the traveler in this particular poem by Robert Frost, Tajima also had two options at the very beginning of her career- to follow the path of the artists who had come before her by following the artistic road which they had followed and secondly, to take the road which was less travelled by (Chilvers). She, obviously, took the artistic road which was less travelled by or explored by her other contemporaries or the artists of the past.

Therefore, from the above discussion it becomes clear that Mika Tajima is one of the most significant artists of the present times. Her art work clearly outlines some of the dilemmas faced by the present day people and the themes which are most significant to the people as well as the other artists of the present time. It is a reflection of the influence wielded by her in the art world that her works have been put into exhibition in some of the best art galleries of the world. 

References

“2016: The Year According To Charles Atlas.” Walkerart.org. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.

“Artist Mika Tajima On Shaping The Human Body Through Sculpture.” Artspace. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.

“Mika Tajima — Art21.” Art21. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.

“South London Gallery.” South London Gallery. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.

“Yale University School Of Art: Mika Tajima.” Art.yale.edu. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.

Chilvers, Ian. The Oxford dictionary of art and artists. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Cohn, Don J. “Mika Tajima: Aural translations.” ArtAsiaPacific98 (2016): 60.

Frost, Robert. The road not taken and other poems. Penguin, 2015.

https://www.mikatajima.com, Mika. “Mika Tajima » Negative Entropy.” Mikatajima.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.

Huang, Vivian L. “Modern, Modular, Model: Mika Tajima and a Racial Good-Enough Environment.” Journal of Asian American Studies 18.2 (2015): 165-192.

Li, Jennifer S. “Mika Tajima and Jean-Pascal Flavien.” ArtAsiaPacific 101 (2016): 144.

Smith, Roberta. “Mika Tajima: ‘Negative Entropy’.” Nytimes.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 7 Mar. 2018.