An encounter between an artist seriously joking and a playful and dilettante company executive brought about this Sanuki Museum of Soy Source Art. After watching the exhibition, I assume that most of you in the audience must feel tricked. "What? Did people of the older times paint with soy sauce? Was Kobo Daishi the originator of soy sauce art? Is Kamada Foods International, Ltd. collecting soy sauce art works, and investing a lot of money? Is someone called Ozawa Tsuyoshi an expert on the history of soy sauce art? Is this contemporary artist merely joking, or rather, trying to say something difficult?"

I want to explain to those of you who have such impressions how actually serious this artist and his patron were, but let me first tell you how they came to know each other.

Mr. Ikuo Kamada, an executive of Kamada Foods International, Ltd., visited the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, which opened in the spring of 1999. Mr. Kamada, with a graduate degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology, was interested in the architecture of this museum, and the redevelopment plan of the district as well. The first exhibition at the opening of this museum was 1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale. The exhibition was well organized, and showed works of carefully chosen artists not only from Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, but also from countries such as Brunei Darussalam, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Kingdom of Bhutan, whose art had rarely been seen, for they almost never were introduced to Japan.

At this time, Mr. Kamada had another point of interest; seeing works of XU Bing (born in 1955), a conceptual artist known for his works utilizing Chinese characters. Among those artists who immigrated to the USA after Tiananmen Square Incident, he is one of the leading and influential figures in Chinese contemporary art scene. I don't know why Mr. Kamada took interest in his works, but aside from him, he came to encounter another Japanese leading figure, Tsuyoshi Ozawa and his work, "Museum of Soy Sauce Art" in this Asian contemporary art festival.

"What? Soy sauce art…?"

I can easily imagine Mr. Kamada's bewildered face. Up to this moment, he had not known an artist called Ozawa, much less the fact that he paints works by soy sauce at all. Judging from the fact that he enjoys XU Bing's works, he must have known the stereotype of prim installation works in contemporary art, but it was then the chief executive of a soy sauce maker encountered soy sauce art. What a piquant happening!

Mr. Kamada, right at the museum, negotiated about buying this work. It must have taken him less than five minutes from "What?" to "Way to go!", but surely it is just like a president to decide so quickly and to negotiate. However, the exhibited works were not for sale, and so he returned from Fukuoka to Sakaide this time.

Then soon came the next move. Mr. Kamada gathered information about Ozawa by using all the connections he had. Through Ms. Masumi Sano, who runs a gallery in his neighborhood, he contacted Ota fine arts, a promoter already held Ozawa's exhibition several times by then, and approached Ozawa himself. If he wouldn't sell that, why not ask him to make another? Thus this Soy Sauce Museum of Art came into being, in the period of several months.

I myself also went to see the exhibition to 1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale all the way from Tokyo. For the museum was reputed to be a good one which focuses on Asian contemporary art, and Ozawa somehow started to attract my attention so strongly at that time. Moreover, at Mitsubishi-Jisho ARTIUM in its neighborhood, there was an exhibition called DOUTEI of Makoto Aida, one of the artists of whom I was all for, so I decided to make a day trip there by airplane. For reference sake, Tsuyoshi Ozawa and Makoto Aida were collage classmates and they call each other close friends. They are also members of The Group 1965, composed of artists born on the same year, and it draws much attention lately in the contemporary art world.

At the beginning of the catalog of this group we read the words by Hiroyuki Matsukage, the leader of this group; "All we have in common is that we were born in 1965." It is true that each member's style differs a lot. While Ozawa paints with soy sauce, Aida has been working on war paintings. Matsukage gives lives at museums in his rock band, and Tosa belongs to Yoshimoto company, which is a famous entertainment and theatrical agency, as a member of Meiwa Denki.

What I want to emphasize as a merit of this group is, however, not such diversity, but each one's sincerity. And the sincerity they have in common is maintained by their criticism of the strangeness of a system called "art".

Ozawa turned this Museum of Soy Sauce Art into a joke by making it look like a nearly dead, old Japanese "museum" standing besides a local national highway. He sets everyday utensils such as a fan and an electronic pot, which draw us back to everyday life. He puts a run-of-the-mill calendar and a thermometer as well. Then there sits a doll representing Kobo Daishi, who is paining soy sauce pictures using Buddhist implements in front of a replica of a Sesshu. The list of the works here rangers from "Gotoba joko zou" (Kamakura period), "Nanban byobu" (Momoyama period), "Daruma zu" by Soga Syohaku, to contemporary artists such as Mantetsu Goro, Sakamoto Hanjiro, Togo Seiji, and finally "avant-garde" artists of the postwar period, such as Akiyama Yutokutaishi, Kusama Yayoi, and Shin ohara Ushio. He diligently mocked what he understands as "Japanese Art History", by drawing pictures using soy sauce. Soy sauce as drawing material is our symbol of the need to rethink the forced system called "art".

As a scholar of art history who is measuring a cobwebby part of it, I should be angry with such a provocative work, but it made me laugh a lot when I knew the concept for the first time at Fukuoka, for I myself am also getting conscious of the whiff of lie in the systems called art history and museum. After several seconds, I felt a bit sad. When I saw this version of the work at Sakaide, it made me rather gloat, for Ozawa added an original porcelain-clad signboard of Kamada Foods International, Ltd. (He said he found it after looking around the local area).

Anyway, Ozawa is thus diligently joking. He seriously plays with it, receiving a certain amount of funds from the patron in order to create it. Mr. Kamada takes it seriously as well, and is trying to conserve this parody forever. This strange relationship must confuse the future Japanese Art History.

Since the time of "bubble economy", there have been built numerous vacant museums like mushrooms after a rain by support under the beautiful but devious name of "corporate philanthropy", but I think they will be weeded out sooner or later. Actually museums in department stores are closing one after another. I cannot imagine what will happen to this Museum of Soy Sauce Art after Mr. Kamada passes away, but I think it's a good thing to hand down the story of this wonderful indulgence. Because this strange space was created out of a will to express one selected value after a happy encounter, not an automatic production based on established values.

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