I recently had the pleasure to experience the best art exhibition that I’ve seen in my life. And no, I’m not just being dramatic for the sake of this blog post, I literally left the space feeling reborn after the transformative two hours that I had just endured. I loved it so much I even bought the exhibition guide for like 5000 yen, something that I never, ever do. The exhibition responsible? Iro and Toshi Maruki: Understanding The Hiroshima Panels at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.
Let’s go back to where it all began, the fateful week in 1945 that would change the world forever. The US successfully ended WW2 by dropping two a-bombs on Japan, fulfilling the global desires for vengeance for Japanese atrocities during the war whilst successfully gaining their surrender. And yet, despite how world-saving the USA appeared, was it really representative of a post-war world that they were supposedly fighting for?
The Japanese military fucked up during their Asia campaign, indisputably destroying great swathes of life in the Asia region. Mass rape, murder, torture and looting were rife, as is often caused by the aggressor in war. The US response causes us to question, to this day, what the best response is to a nation seen as implicit in the suffering of millions. And yes, this suffering happened on atrocious levels on a crazy scale, but does that justify the mass murder of thousands of innocent civilians who’s true knowledge of the war was shielded by a militaristic government? Is war really as simple as the good/bad divide?
Let’s dismiss politics for a second, and like the Marukis, consider the individual and collective suffering of the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagoya that were impacted by the a-bombs. First there’s the initial blast, which killed tens of thousands of people instantly, leaving many of those left behind with serious burns and symptoms of radiation exposure, of which thousands of more died days or weeks later from these injuries. Then there’s those that were so badly exposed to radiation, that they developed aggressive cancers that cut theirs, and sometimes their children’s, lives short. Just imagine that shit happening in your town, to your family and friends. There’s no doubt about it, it was a heartbreaking mess, the horrific but inevitable result of war. Can we really justify this innocent suffering as necessary? Iri and Toshi Maruki question this too, in their explicit and tear-jerking images.
The Hiroshima Panels are a series of fifteen folding panels produced collaboratively by Toshi and Iri Maruki depicting, as John Dower calls it, ‘hell in our times’. The images are a reflection of the pain, suffering and hope of the victims, drawing on their personal connections with the city- they visited just three days after the bombs were dropped and resolved to create their own interpretation, using art as the speaker. They consider the historic memory of everyone- not only the masses of Japanese victims but also American prisoners of war and Koreans that suffered as a result of America’s nuclear missiles.
The panels are a collaboration of the Maruki’s styles- Iri’s Japanese and Toshi’s western. Traditional Japanese ink painting merges with western renderings of the nude, and although little colour is used, the black tones of their materials emphasize the emotion of the images. If colour is used, it is often only red, reminding us that the fires produced by the bomb made its aftermath a literal hell.
Using the universally popular subject of the nude, they depict scenes of adults, children and babies collectively suffering after the catastrophe. Despite the overall rendering of the group, which we often imagine when we are given statistics of victims, each image draws on individual experience. For the majority, this means unimaginable physical pain, death, or attempts to rescue loved ones. And yet, in these scenes of darkness and fire, we are offered a glimpse hope in the survivors depicted. The detail given to the individual makes the images more harrowing and relatable, causing us to question the experience of the individual during this terrible tragedy.
It all seems pretty straightforward right? The artists produced images that appeal to people’s sensitivities, resulting in not only greater understanding of the events, but also huge amounts of compassion towards the victims, regardless of their identity. The first tour of the works received varied feedback- in their first showing in Tokyo, they were criticized by some as unrealistic. Despite this, some agreed- another observer stated that they weren’t an exaggeration, he could place himself in the scene (Dower, War, Peace and Beauty). Maybe response was down to personal experience and memory.
When they were first shown in Hiroshima, few people went to see them. It appeared that regardless of their attempts to help heal the country, many victims preferred not to remind themselves of the great pain they and their loved ones endured. This made me wonder, should we even memorialize tragedy at all? If it means nothing to the victims, or is simply too painful to remember, should it mean anything to us as an outsider?
I’m reminded of a quote shown at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum that resonates with why I continue to study history, spoken by Li Xiuying, a survivor: ‘Remember history, but not with hatred’. I think that this is so important and meaningful when looking at these images, particularly coming from a subject of Japanese aggression during the war. Yes, so much fucked up stuff happened at the hands of the Japanese army, but the Hiroshima panels give us empathy for suffering. The victims shown in the works were not directly implicit during the war, and we can look on them remembering the terrible events with an understanding that things have and continue to change. They give us an emotional desire for a better world.
Iri and Toshi Maruki continued to produce works evoking historical memory of the war, including ones of the Nanjing Massacre, the Battle for Okinawa and the Holocaust. They remind us of the role of victim and victimizer. Regardless, in every image we get both suffering and reflection, for example ‘Relief’ shows a mother and boy praying among the drama. We are reminded to remember and reflect, in order to stop such atrocities from happening today.
And yet, why can’t photographs taken of the events themselves achieve such emotion. The Hiroshima Memorial Museum does just this, showing images of those burned and killed by the bomb. Of course these graphic images evoke similar emotions, and act as historical documents of the events, and hardships, caused by the event. They will forever be important reminders to us not to fuck up again.
Art goes beyond that. The Hiroshima Panels may not be literal renderings, but they add further emotional layers to the event. They go beyond hard to look at photos of scars, turning tragedy into art, making the viewer enter a deep meditative state of reflection. The scale of the images increases this- they’re around the same height as me, and I could literally place myself in the scene as I was standing in front of it. This added layer of viewer experience may be necessary to illicit greater emotional reaction. Probably why I felt so transformed after I got to go and see them.
To quote Toshi when she was working on their Okinawa mural, ‘People are still human, no matter how brutalized they may be. We do paint dark, cruel, painful scenes. But the question is, how should we portray the people who face such realities? We want to paint them beautifully’. This humanness is what makes the images so important- the connection the viewer is able to make with victim. Once one gets to see these images, their historic memory will be forever changed.
Thank you Iri and Toshi, for doing beautiful justice to such terrible events, and making sure we remember history with empathy, rather than with destructive desires.
Info: John Dower, War, Peace and Beauty: The Art of Iri and Toshi Maruki
I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside! Photo credits to The Museum of Contemporary Art Hiroshima, www.hyperallergic.com and The Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels. Click through credits on images.
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