Garden Sculpture Down In The Dump - preservation of garden sculpture is at center of controversy over dump site - Brief Article

Art in America, Oct, 2000 by Sumi Nakamichi

A garden sculpture located in a suburban Tokyo forest, the work of the noted Japanese artist Isamu Wakabayashi [see A.i.A., July '93], faces destruction as the regional government proceeds with development of a controversial landfill--or, in plain language, a dump. Wakabayashi's work was part of a strategy to stop the dump, but a petition campaign to preserve the garden sculpture is now reduced to one hope: a last-ditch appeal to the Tokyo governor.

The Green Constellation of the Unicorn (named by poet Gozo Yoshimasu) is Wakabayashi's 700-square-foot landscape work in the woods of Hinode township. The sloping site features a small stream and a footbridge, newly planted trees, a narrow stone stairway, and natural stones used for seats. The plantings are to mature over a 20-year period.

The landfill controversy began about nine years ago, when the dump was proposed and local citizens became concerned about the possibility of environmental pollution. (Tests at an existing dump found high concentrations of heavy metals, plastic additives and dioxins in the ground and water.) Approximately 2,800 people joined together to purchase 5,000 square feet within the 148-acre Hinode dump site and created a land trust in an effort to stop the project. The trust then invited Wakabayashi to create a work there.

Wakabayashi's design was presented to the trust's representatives in 1995, just before the government approved the landfill and work started on the site. But it was built the next year, which has been a factor in its legal status. The land trust has criticized the insensitivity and "miserable" attitude of the government toward protection of a "cultural property"; as holder of the copyright on Wakabayashi's work, it maintains that removal of the site-specific garden means its destruction. Two groups dedicated to preserving the work (in addition to the citizens' movement against the landfill) include artists, curators, scholars and critics. They have collected about 14,000 signatures and statements from Japanese and foreigners, including Issey Miyake, Frank Stella, Mark di Suvero, Walter De Maria, Sandro Chia, Bill Viola, Rosemarie Trockel, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Meier and the late Leo Castelli.

The dump's developers have maintained that the garden sculpture is irrelevant because it postdates government approval of the landfill. So far the government seems to have agreed, because last October, expropriation of the land was approved. The landholders have refused to abandon their property, however, and have petitioned the minister of construction to reverse the decision. He has not responded, but on Aug. 8 government officials announced that the land will be seized in mid-October.

The garden's defenders immediately took their appeal to the Tokyo governor, Shintaro Ishihara. He is not only a politician but a well-known novelist, and he has sometimes supported the arts. The hope for a solution to this environmental and esthetic dilemma now lies with him. If he allows the order to be executed, it will be the first time a local government has expropriated land for waste-disposal facilities in Japan.