Lot 673: AIDA MAKOTO

AIDA MAKOTO B. 1965 EDIBLE ARTIFICIAL GIRLS, MI-MI CHAN SERIES (SET OF 8) each signed, this set is 8 out of an edition of 60 and was executed in 2001, framed digital prints each: 28.5 by 40.5 cm.; 11 1/4 by 16 in.

Tetsuro Murobushi, 21st Century Prints: Makoto Aida Empty Soul, Japan, 2004

Aida Makoto, Monument for Nothing: Makoto Aida, Graphic-Sha Publishing Co., Ltd., Japan, 2007, pp. 96-101, illustrated in colour

Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo

The Edible Artificial Girls, Mi-Mi Chan series (Lot 673), executed in 2001, is one of Makoto's most notorious group of drawings. Under the artist's dexterous hand and impeccable eye, the most acute of erotic and sadistic imagery comes to light. A testimony to the artist's love of embracing the ludicrous, Aida Makoto goes as far as to wielding cannibalism in his allegory of a man's sexual appetite. In this series, Makoto takes the objectification of women to the extreme. Nubile, naked bodies of youthful, beautiful girls are but a unit of consumption, in this case, literal consumption as Mi-Mi Chan's are meant to be eaten. The artist is undaunted and confronts his own desires through playing out pictorially the fantasies of what probably is the majority of Japanese males. The commodification followed by the eventual submission of the cute, kawaii young woman constitutes a powerful force that drives the rampant subculture of contemporary Japan.

Much like the Edible Artificial Girl series, Girls Don't Cry (Lot 672) a photograph taken by the artist in 2003, demonstrates a similar kind of objectification and fetishism of women. Rather than an objectification of women, in general, this work portrays many different layers of objectification: the female, the female form, and female manga character painted on. From this image, the viewer is permitted the consumption not just of a 'real' woman, but also the uniquely Japanese

'ideal' of a woman. Makoto uses the body of the woman to create a three-dimensional portrait of a manga girl, a process which allows an onlooker to fetishize both the real woman and the manga character. By manipulating the natural curvature of a woman—breasts as the big, doe-like eyes, nipples as the pupils, navel as the nostrils and genitals as the chin dimple—Makoto experiments with understandings of perception. The viewer is succumbed to the constant tension of feeling drawn, even attracted to something, but at the same time, repulsed. Unable to fully understand what one is seeing, the viewer feels embarrassment and curiously almost simultaneously; a spectacle which causes even the most secure people to feel like they have been exposed.

The role and position of women in Japanese contemporary society has continued to be one of debate; Makoto, in his typically unforgiving method, confronts these social taboos and topics with zeal and with starkness. His relentless commitment to reality and doggedness toward revealing the underbelly of Japanese society make him one of the most enigmatic and unpredictable artists today. In every one of his images, he manages to conflate elements of aesthetic, satire, fantasy, violence and eroticism. While his works cannot but enhance and accentuate the lunacy of contemporary Japan, they ultimately contribute to a broader and deeper understanding of his native country.