COBRA, Hiroyuki Nisougi, Emi Ohtaguro
"Hotel Appalachia"

2012.5.12 - 6.9
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Artists:
Emi Ohtaguro
COBRA
Hiroyuki Nisougi >>
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Exhibition Statement
To end a farce, another farce needs to be started. In order to preserve a sense of social solidarity in this country, we need to share such clown-like farce pretending ignorance about something we ought to know. Ironically, the clowns in the farce are nobody but us.
Sweeping an open secret under a rug, each clown plays funny noisy monodrama on a stage full of pitfalls. They enjoy playing innocence at first, but then clowns starts to fall into the traps when they started to forget about it. Suddenly but expectedly, the whole stage becomes calamity and disaster. We knew that this would happen, didn’t we? Do we call this “happening” a farce or a tragedy?
No matter how many people’s life the trap has taken or how many homes they hasve spoiled, clowns would deserve no mercy. They may say, “We didn’t know it would happen. They lied to us!” or “We knew it would happen. But they brought us profits. It was all right.” In either case, they will unlearn the pitfalls again without looking into it to find what is at the deep bottom of the hole.
Now, what is the most important is already revealed. However, we refuse to acknowledge it pretending like nothing happened and try to get back in a normal life. By feigning ignorance about the critical issue, we become accomplices, gain vested right and, consequently, create authority.
Needless to say, Hotel Appalachia does not exist in real world nor fictional world. There is no suitable location for the hotel in this fictionalized real world or realized fictitious world. Then three artists, Emi Ohtaguro, COBRA and Hiroyuki Nisougi, created this temporal hotel and stay there. They would express what they know and what they don’t without deception. For their innocent disobedience, they are fated to be excluded from the main stream, become losers and escape from the authority. Hotel Appalachia appears at any places and welcomes anybody but it has no exit.