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Light, Currency, Spectacle, and War: Kobayashi Erika's She Waited (2019)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Taro Nettleton
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Abstract

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In 2020, spectacle reigns virtually unchecked. That the Japanese government would increase the acceptable level of annual radiation exposure from one to 20 mSv to quickly manufacture the semblance of recovery and declare Fukushima safe for the Olympic Games hauntingly corroborates Situationist Guy Debord's argument that spectacle domination is the destruction of history. Against government decisions that count on historical amnesia, and against the spectacle's unlimited capacity to absorb hyperbole, critical art today needs to avoid replicating or attempting to exaggerate the spectacular. An installation by Kobayashi Erika recently featured in the “Narratives in Contemporary Art” exhibition held at the National Art Center, Tokyo, is exemplary in this regard and provides a rare opportunity to think about the 2020 Olympic Games critically and historically.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 5 , March 2020 , e12
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2020

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