Five household drying racks, draped in T-shirts creased from the wash, looked as if they had been left by mistake in the Japanese stone garden at the entrance to the Kyoto International Conference Centre (ICC Kyoto).
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They were, are, in fact a work of art. Laundry, by Hong Kong-born Lee Kit, was a piece of defiant mundanity included in the public programme of Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK), an annual contemporary art fair in the Japanese city which ran from October 31 to November 3 this year in the shadow of major political events.
Phrases hinting at a heavy social and political atmosphere were printed on each T-shirt, including “He was the problem”, and “Progressive failure”. The artist had washed the T-shirts with detergent in a bucket he bought at the nearby supermarket.
They were a tired, sorry sight after heavy rain fell on the second day of the fair – an eyesore that destroyed the serenity of the Zen garden of the Brutalist landmark built in 1966.
Andre Chan and Chong Chin-yin, of Hong Kong-based Arts Collective, were curators of the art fair’s public programme. They called their selection “What the Map Doesn’t Say”.
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