Meiro Koizumi

Melodrama for Men - performance series Taking historical figure or event as the contextual background of each performance, the series of Melodrama for Men has been my research on relationship between aesthetic and political. If we consider the representation of History as a genuine battle field of politics, then it is artists' mission to present the complexity of how artistic representation really functions and what problem it can bring. By being honest to the aesthetic drive that built up within my creative consciousness, I have been trying to create intense rituals that presents the world beyond pre-existing politically engaged art works. It is an exploration to find a new constellation of political within realm of aesthetic, as well as a way to find my personal position within a country that is struggling to find a new identity within international politics. Melodrama for Men #1 Koizumi plays Vice Admiral Ohnishi Takijiro, known for instigating the Kamikaze attacks towards the end of the World War II. As he fiddles with a lump of clay sited between his legs, he begins to lecture on the inevitability of the suicide missions. The work is an art performance and its documentation, in which the artist attempted an abstract recreation of Ohnishi's intense harakiri suicide scene. This work deals romantically with the narcissism of nationalism. The speech was adapted from Ohnishi's dialogue from the film For Those We Love (2007), which attracted particular media attention because the Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara who is considered by some as a right wing populist, was the executive producer as well as writer of the film. Koizumi's intention was to use melodrama as an artistic device to evoke an unnecessarily high level of elation. He also had Mishima Yukio's decapitated head in mind when creating this work. (from Meiro Koizumi, 'Melodrama for Men # 1 - Koizumi Meiro' in: Koizumi Meiro, exh.cat Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2009, p. 53)