Restroom Retrospect

In 1977, artist Ohtake Shinro (b. 1955) took a second leave of absence from Musashino Art University and traveled to London. Over the intervening year, he drifted through the city’s art scene, one day viewing graduation works at the Royal College of Art and the next brushing shoulders with David Hockney. It was during this sojourn that Ohtake produced the first of his signature Scrapbooks, a voluminous study in mixed-media collage that continues to this day.
By the early 1980s, Neo-Expressionism had taken the world by storm, stewarded by an illustrious coterie of international artists including Gerhard Richter, Francesco Clemente, and Julian Schnabel. Meanwhile, Ohtake was quickly rising to prominence for his powerful work brimming with unbridled creative energy, contributing to Japan’s own “return to painting” in the company of artists such as Yokoo Tadanori, Tatsuno Toeko, Usami Keiji, and Hibino Katsuhiko.
In this idiosyncratically titled essay (translated here as “Restroom Retrospect”), Ohtake reflects on his experience working at a luggage shop in Tokyo. At first glance, the essay reads as a nostalgic account of one of many menial part-time jobs taken in stride by a penniless art student. However, between the lines and drifting dust motes, the reader will find early flashes of Ohtake’s uncommon eye for beauty that would go on to ferry him from that musty attic stockroom to London and beyond, in pursuit of novel art forms all his own.
Originally published in the November 1997 issue of Nami, this essay was reprinted in Sude ni soko ni aru mono [What’s already there] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1999), a collection of texts penned by Ohtake between 1980 and 1999, corresponding to the start of his long and multidisciplinary career.

Title

Restroom Retrospect

Author

Ohtake Shinro

First published

1997

Translation

Alfred Birnbaum

Editing

Kiyoko Mitsuyama-Wdowiak, Meg Taylor

Design

Ian Lynam

Theme

Artists' Writings

First Posted Online

2022-11-29

Last modified

2022-11-29

© 2022 Ohtake Shinro + Bunka-cho Art Platform Japan

The newly published English translations on this website (https://artplatform.go.jp) can be used without permission only for the purposes of education, research, critique, survey, and the like. English translations cannot be copied for the purpose of sale or distribution. You must comply with the Rules Governing the Use of the English Translations.

Citation

Footnote/endnote: Ohtake Shinro, "Restroom Retrospect," trans. Alfred Birnbaum, Bunka-cho Art Platform Japan, posted November 29, 2022, artplatform.go.jp/readings/R202226.

Bibliography: Ohtake Shinro. "Restroom Retrospect." Translated by Alfred Birnbaum. Bunka-cho Art Platform Japan. Posted November 29, 2022. artplatform.go.jp/readings/R202226

Original Japanese Edition

Ohtake Shinro, "Uwajima bijutsu nōto—Furimukeba benjo," Nami (November 1997): 34–35. Reprinted in Ohtake Shinro Sude ni soko ni aru mono [What's already there] (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1999), 51–54.

大竹伸朗「宇和島美術ノート--ふりむけば便所」『波』（1997年11月）、34–35頁。再録『既にそこにあるもの』新潮社、1999年、51–54頁。

National Diet Library(NDL)

First printed: https://id.ndl.go.jp/digimeta/3362694
Reprinted: https://iss.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-I000002808714-00

ISBN

『既にそこにあるもの』：978-4104310012