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ART BEYOND DOMESTIC Aug 28, 2021 Yutaro Midorikawa Introduction Art goes beyond something domestic. That’s why it is ART BEYOND DOMESTIC. This ART BEYOND DOMESTIC is a text for advocating ART BEYOND DOMESTIC, based on Noi Sawaragi’s text, ART / DOMESTIC 2021. “Domestic” First of all, what is “domestic”? “Domestic” in ART / DOMESTIC 2021 written by art critic Sawaragi refers to an exhibition. Sawaragi tries to redefine “domestic” like this. ‘In other words, “domestic” referred not to a sense of values running counter to the global age that everyone senses at a glance, but to convey the temperature, so to speak, or making people think about art at an extremely close distance.' Then he leads to a conclusion like this. 'Being “domestic” is one of the few means of resisting becoming global (ie, national).' And finally, Sawaragi “strongly desires” to ‘discover that heat once again as “ART/DOMESTIC.”’ Q1 As a test, let's think about a question. When we regard the desire as a desire of “Bad Place”, is it possible to say that it happens just only in Japan? (According to Sarawagi, it’s hard to summarize the Japanese art history after WW2 as an “overview of history” because the same problem always happens iteratively. Sawaragi calls the non-historicity of the closed circle “Bad Place”. artscape) As a response from me, it’s impossible. In the ninth paragraph of ART / DOMESTIC 2021, Sawaragi quotes a text by Takashi Azumaya, the curator of ART/DOMESTIC Temperature of the Time: “ART of Japan as a somewhere DOMESTIC”. However, it’s possible to say that you can substitute any country in “Japan”. Because art is made somewhere in countries and regions, even America, China, and Germany. Art is domestic in the first place (for example, most of the paintings in the history you can remember must be painted by the painter in the studio alone. It’s a very domestic action by the painter standing in front of the canvas). But art doesn’t end just as something domestic. There is art over something domestic. Q2 Then, the second question. Should art not be “global=national” but be “domestic"? As a response from me, it should be but should not keep being. The idea that is not “global=national” but “domestic” has any differences structurally from the dualism of global/national (or local). Art is similar to Aufheben by Hegel or Third Place by Homi K. Bhabha. Art is not A or B but C or C’. As Sawaragi mentioned, art should be domestic. But art doesn’t keep being domestic because it goes beyond domestic. What we must never forget is that it should be domestic at first to exceed domestic. Or, it’s possible to say that something extraordinary domestic becomes ART BEYOND DOMESTIC. Q3 The final question. How does art become "domestic" and goes beyond "domestic"? A supplementary explanation of MOCAF is going to be my response (the reason why this text is based on ART / DOMESTIC 2021 is very simple. Because MOCAF is mentioned in ART / DOMESTIC 2021 and I thought I have to write something. I’m a director of MOCAF btw). For a start, one can say that the condition of the MOCAF site and the people who gathered there on March 11, 2021, were “domestic” (the people were not passersby who gathered without notice, but people who gathered with complexly interwoven relations, circumstances, and reasons). One can further say that the people for whom something changed due to the MOCAF door opening were people who ventured beyond the “domestic” (there are probably people for whom nothing changed even though they are interested in art and people for whom something did change even though they are not interested in art). MOCAF is a museum, but one could say that the “peculiar” moment or space-time arising from that revolving door is ART BEYOND DOMESTIC. The reason why people regard art as something peculiar or uncanny is not it’s the already-known A or B but because it’s the unknown C or C’. You have to describe it like that because it’s located somewhere hard to verbalize. You can find in ART / DOMESTIC 2021 that “the beginning was also the end, in which sense this peculiar art museum opening ceremony that repeated like a revolving door a cycle in which the end is also the beginning”. A normal revolving door has its exit on the opposite side of the entrance. Or you come back to the entrance after turning a multiple of 360 degrees. You have these two choices after entering the revolving door. In the case of MOCAF, however, you can exit after turning 45 degrees or 600 degrees. That is to say, you can choose where the entrance is and where the exit is. A moment of silence at 14:46 on March 11, 2021, ribbon cutting, people start to enter into MOCAF, and then the revolving door was taken down on 16:00 and became firewood for the bonfire. Sawaragi mentions this process as “a peculiar idea” in ART / DOMESTIC 2021. There is ART BEYOND DOMESTIC here. Is it exaggerated if I say that MOCAF is trying to cut the non-historicity of the closed circle? The basic concept of most ceremonies after 311 is mourning or repose of a soul. At MOCAF on this 311, however, people enter a specific space by turning inside the revolving door after ribbon-cutting, celebrating the opening of MOCAF. 10 years after 311, we rotate the door at the place 10 km away from TEPCO, at the place a sound mocaf.7707-7708.1-1 floats with evoking chaos and release. Of course, you are right if you say they just rotate the door in the three dimensions based on the general Euclidean geometry. But is that true? Is there anything but the visible move? We might don’t have any means to prove something, not a physical move. And at the same time, we can’t prove there is nothing beyond there. If so, you can’t say that there is anything. You can’t prove that clearly but you can have a hypothesis: it is ART BEYOND DOMESTIC. ART BEYOND DOMESTIC is evoked when specific people do a specific thing. A door connecting to ART BEYOND DOMESTIC opens because there is something extraordinary domestic, not just domestic. Probably it’s a time-space universality and specificity cross. Probably there is something unforgettable even if the time passed. What was that? The world before entering into MOCAF and the world after entering into MOCAF are the same? Maybe not. Or the revolving door of MOCAF is not a revolving door repeating circulation but a turning door for ART BEYOND DOMESTIC located beyond sense. What’s behind the door? People who passed the door of MOCAF might (will) know that. Conclusion We have been following three questions and responses about “domestic”. As you already know, this text ART BEYOND DOMESTIC is not a negative opinion or a resisting means to Sawaragi's text ART / DOMESTIC 2021. Rather ART / DOMESTIC 2021 is an important premise for ART BEYOND DOMESTIC like “domestic” is essential for ART BEYOND DOMESTIC. I'm not sure if I could write something I have to write. One thing that I can say is that this is all I can write for now.