Txema NOVELO

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Txema NOVELO

Participating Program	Institutional Recommendation Program
Activity Based	Mexico City
City	Tokyo
Period	2024.1 - 2024.2

Purpose of the residency

My last research project for the TOKAS artistic research residency was about the time that Taro Okamoto spent in Mexico City in 1967 painting his masterpiece mural The Myth of Tomorrow. Since the time when Okamoto was an ethnography student at La Sorbonne in Paris, he developed an admiration for ancient indigenous cultures. The influence of the Jōmon people from Japan was evident in his work, but he also professed a deep admiration for cultures like the Mexican Aztecs or the native ethnicities of Oceania.
Based on a Mexican clay folk sculpture called The Tree of Life that he owned and is exhibited permanently in the living room of his house memorial in Aoyama in Tokyo, my research aimed to find a relationship and a parallel to his monumental sculpture from 1970 The Tree of Life featured at the interior of the Tower of the Sun in Osaka.
All of this research was in order to make a film telling the way the Mexican cultural exposure ultimately influenced on his art this time.

Plan during the residency

• Scout one more time the locations that will be featured in my film entitled The Two Trees
• Shoot the film with the help of a French crew through my producer in France, Emmanuel Chaumet with funds by the state production company ARTE.
• Create also a photographical memory using analogue medium format still photography that ultimately could become an exhibition or a book.

Activities during the residency

Shooting the first batch of moving images for my upcoming film entitled The Two Trees in the cities of Osaka, Kawasaki, and Tokyo. This first approach was meant to grab the first images from Taro Okamoto's monumental works (the Tower of the Sun in Osaka as well as The Myth of Tomorrow in Tokyo and the Tower of the Mother in Kawasaki) but also to make a documented photographic journal for a Mexican magazine on what I call now "The Taro Okamoto Route" comprising these Japanese cities in the current global context.
Considering for example that the Tower of the Sun was commissioned to Taro Okamoto at Expo 70 in Osaka, I find it very interesting also how the legacy of this modernist Japanese master is still present one year before the new Expo 2025 in the same city of Osaka opens up, 55 years after the original World Fair.

Outcome of the residency

My future film explores the deep relationship that Taro Okamoto established with the Mexican culture not just in his artwork but also in his theoretical texts, first through his appreciation for the Pre-Hispanic Aztecs, but also for the contemporary through his admiration of the Modernist Mexican Muralists. Because of this, I placed specific emphasis during my shooting on showcasing the Mexican influences on his works. In the case of The Myth of Tomorrow, it is very clear how the influence of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros played a role in the color palette of Okamoto's masterpiece. But also easily recognizable is the traditional, historical, and symbolic role of the Mexican "Dead" that strikes the eye seeing the skeleton figure at the center of his mural. I will have to come back in June of this year to Japan to shoot this time the different interviews with academics, scholars, and experts.
The Tree of Life which was conceived as the organs of Taro Okamoto’s Tower of the Sun was inaccessible to the public after the closure of Expo 70. For decades the massive internal sculpture went into deterioration until in 2016 a massive restoration project began. In March 2019 the Tree of Life was once again brought to life and for the first time in almost 50 years, people were able to admire this fascinating sculpture. To admire the Tree of Life, it is to experience the deep trance that one undergoes through the 5 different stories of ascension, to put it mildly. Watching this incredible masterpiece was without a doubt the most impressive episode of my residency.

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