Trèfle à Quatre feuilles dans les Alpes

 

The nuclear power plant accident at Fukushima Japan caused by 2011 March 11th earthquake and Tsunami was a terrible shock for me. As Japanese, nucleus disaster means more than anything. I had to have known how much it will be a serious, terrible and painful tragedy, especially as I had plenty of educations which came from nation historical experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not only the terrible disasters but it was a moment that the bare face of capitalism society was revealed. What we discovered was the crevasse of the society, consumer-driven future vision and its reality, as well as aware to the fundamental issue of our age of modernity. By cutting useless-looking sensibility, slowly but gradually, the society was allowed to join in the capitalist race of nuclear development competition.

After this painful incident, I had a lot of chance to think about "happiness", which is not consumerism "comfortable" but inefficient, incalculable, almost nothing under the capitalistic context.

The four-leaf clover is a symbol of luck. I have disposed several pieces of four-leaf clover-formed installations in different places in the Sentier mountain path in between France and Italy. While most of art pieces are aimed to "exhibit", this work is intended to "hide", while aiming to offer a joy to seek for visitors at the site.

Conceptually, the work is not only aimed to appreciate as an object of art piece, but the process of "finding" is anticipated. Moreover, even the outcome of "found" is not the goal of the project. My intention is to present a "meaningless" time and encourage peoples' own discovery. Because of this, I have not revealed the numbers and place of pieces I had installed. I trust that this "meaningless" action such as looking for four-leaf clover in a spacious green field, is indeed, an indispensable essence of culture and art, as well as I tust that it is the nature of concept that we can call "happiness".

© 2004- Jun'ichiro ISHII