The theme of "Fragile Art" is destruction and reconstruction. I placed five-inch-tall plaster versions of the Statue of Liberty on the streets in New York. After pedestrians kicked and stepped on them, I collected the broken pieces, assembled them back into their original form, and photographed them. I made the broken statues' posters from the photographs and posted them in the streets in New York.
HOW TO LOCATE
Look for Fragile Art posters around Frankfurt in August
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Misa Namekawa Is New York based Japanese artists. She got BA:Human Sciences from Osaka University in Japan in 1981. She learned drawing at the Osaka Municipal Institute of Fine Arts from 1981 to 1984 and studied copper printing under a renowned copper printer, Mr. Shigeru Kimura from 1983 to 1993.
Namekawa's main work in Japan was copper printing. After she came to New York in 1995, she started drawing and also the project "Fragile Art" in 1999. She has had annual shows in New York and Japan since 1982.
STATEMENT
The plaster statues which were kicked and stepped on by pedestrians represent me. I related my own transformation to the transfiguration of the plaster statues. Through printmaking, drawing, and painting, I have explored who I am since arriving in New York in 1995. Living in this international city made it impossible for me to remain the same. Parts of me changed from exposure to the variety of people and cultures. I wished to interact with them through my art, and started this project in 1999. The plaster statues were changed by pedestrians just as I was transformed by the people of New York.
Therefore, I would like to show "Fragile Art" to pedestrians. This project could not have been accomplished without them. I had been posting the broken statues' posters in the streets in New York since April, 2002. Now, I cannot help stopping posting because of a notice that the Statue of Liberty may be targeted by terrorists. I don't want people relate these posters with terrorism.
Although I couldn't imagine the tragedy of the World Trade Center when I started my project in 1999, I was thinking about the transformation of the world for the 21st century. By simulating a historical deformation of the Statue of Liberty, I try to rethink the meaning of the freedom that we recognize in it. Over time, the statue will deteriorate. The ideas attached to it will also be forgotten or transformed. Our descendants, who will have new conceptions of freedom, will see the broken Statue of Liberty as we see Venus de Milo.
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