Interview #1
大森 悟 先生 （女子美術大学教授）
Professor Satoru Omori (Joshibi University of Art and Design)
内容: 生前の中西との関わり、東京藝術大学での最終授業について、
女子美術大学での企画展「光の種子 後期 中西夏之に就て」
Topic: Relationship with Nakanishi, his last lecture as a professor in Tokyo University of the Arts, The exhibition ”Natsuyuki Nakanishi, I wish I cast seed toward the sun ” at Joshibi University of Art and Design
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English version is below.
Q1.中西夏之との出会い
中西先生は、博士の時に作品を見てくれたと思う。流石に博士課程だと、こちらも自立して制作だったり、研究をしているから、制作過程や作品を見せていた。その時にやはり他の先生とちょっと違うとすれば、パッとはじめにわかりやすくということではなく、自分の言葉で話し出すから、そこにまずこちらも「語っていることとは何なんだろうな」というところを一回咀嚼して理解するまでにちょっと言葉に詰まるときもあったかもしれない。
Q2.中西の授業について
僕が助手で戻ってきてやってた授業というのが多分、上野の不忍の池に行って、輪っかを持ってボートに乗って、すれ違うというやつだったと思う。
一緒に助手をやっていた大竹くんというのがいて、彼が「なんとなくそういうことやっているんだよ」というようなことを話してくれて、なんか不思議な授業をやっているねって。
でもやっぱり、色々なことをしているけど、その授業がそこ（作品）にどのように直結していって何を学生とやっているかというのは断片的にしかわからない。なので、自分の中での記憶の作り方というか、中西先生のやっていることとか考え方っていうのがそういう風に全部が関連付いて分かってくる訳ではなかった。
やはり何か独特の授業を形成しながらやっているんだなと。
それはどちらかというとフィールドワークなわけですよね。だからフィールドワークをやって、一体何を学生たちと一緒に表現しようとしているのかなという最後の授業の結果っていうのは僕も聞かずに終わっている。
Q3.中西との関係性で見えたもの
当時大月にアトリエがあったんだけど、大森にもまだ一部そういう機能を持たせていたから、両方行ったり。で、行くと話がは盛り上がるんだよね。だから、そんな人っていうのはなかなかいないわけですよ。毎回話始めると、多分六時間くらいはすぐ経っちゃうんですよ。
みっちり話すんだけどそれを結構やったりして、それだけ刺激的なんですよね。
そして、ものすごく中西先生の中での作品、この作品はとか、過去やったことはとか、その作品に関わるところの間あいだの出来事、っていうのも結構話が出てくる。そうしてみると、人間『中西夏之』が見えてくるんですよ。というのは人がやっぱりどこを記憶するかっていうのは結構その人の性格もあるかもしれないし、そのモチベーションの高まりとか見えたりするから、割と感情的な部分も見えたりしました。それは結構あって、（中西先生の中で）波があるんだけど、それをフラットにスーッとしていくときにできてくる作品というのが見えてきた。やはりそれだけ実はこう、同じような本当に静かに何かをこう継続的にやっているんじゃなくて、若い頃の表現なんか見ていると分かるけれども、非常にいろんな高ぶりを作って揺らしながら、制作をしていくっていうこともあったりする。それがちょっとこう、僕が接した1990年代後半とか2000年とかっていうのは少し違う様相に作品化するというこうしていたんだなと分かった。
Q1.Meeting Nakanishi
I think Nakanishi-sensei gave me his opinion for my artworks when I was a Ph.D. student in Tokyo University of the Arts. Because I was in a Ph.D. course, as expected, I was much more independent than a B.F.A. student. So I showed him my artwork and my process.
One thing that was a little different from other other professors. was he didn’t choose to talk in a way that’s readily understood. He had his own words, own expressions. So, I needed the time to understand his thoughts, thinking “what does he want to say?” So maybe I also wasn’t able to put into words some of the things I’ve thought until I took time to carefully understand them.
Q2Nakanishi’s last class as professor in Tokyo University of the Arts
When I came back to university as an assistant, I remember his class was… he and his students went to the Shinobazu pond at Ueno and they had done an experiment in which they got on some boats with some big wheels and passed by each other. At that time, I had worked with Otake-kun who was also an assistant and he had told me about this class, his experiment, so I had said to him “you have an interesting class”. However, they had experimented a lot, but I could understand only a fragment of the idea of how the class was directly linked to his artwork and what he tried to experiment with the students. So, I hadn’t understood, or at least composed my memory too well of what Nakanishi-sensei was experimenting or his way of thinking in relation to all things about him. We’d talk a lot, we’d do a lot of that, so it was stimulating. In other words, it was more of a fieldwork. I ended up not asking what he was trying to express with their students by doing fieldwork in his last class.
Q3.What I understood from my relationship with Nakanishi
In those days, he had an atelier in Otsuki city, but he still had a part of his atelier in Omori, so we went to both.
And then, our discussion heated up. So I think it’s rare to have such a person. Every time we were deep in conversation, about six hours went by quickly. As expected, I thought he was working on something unique, composing his class by experimenting. In these conversations, there were many mentions about Nakanishi sensei’s works: “this work,” “this experiment in the past” etc… and what had happened in the intervening years in relation to his works.Then, I could start to see the person “Natsuyuki Nakanishi”.
This is because, after all, where a person remembers something may have a lot to do with that person’s personality and sometimes people might notice the other person’s motivation, so I was able to see some emotional aspects.
Such things happened often, he had ups and downs, but when he undulated(made flat) gently it, the results were completed as artwork. As I thought, in fact, he doesn’t just work on something quietly and continuously, like a simple repetition. If you look at the expressions during his youth, you can see that he created a lot of highs and lows, that he moved himself as he was making his work.So, when I interacted with him in the late 1990s and 2000s, I realized that he was making his work in a slightly different way.
2019/6/5
インタビュー: 井上潤美、権祥海、諏訪部佐代子、掘由紀江
Interviews: Masumi Inoue, Sanghae Kwon, Sayoko Suwabe, Yukie Hori