Hanshin Art Project

Love and Prayers The George Ruth Hanshin Art Project
Nearly two years have passed since the Great Kobe Earthquake, also known in Japan as the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. The city has achieved a remarkable recovery in that time. However, even as the earthquake itself fades into distant memory, we are still pained by the knowledge that many of the survivors continue to endure very harsh living conditions. In August 1996, the Federation of International Art Critics held its national convention in the city of Rennes in the Bretagne region of France. The main topic for the convention this year was: "Remembrance in Modern Art." Many leading art critics and art directors gathered from around the country for the event. Among them was Georges Ruth of the Hanshin Art Project, to whom I expressed my concerns regarding the preservation of cities and their culture in a country so ridden with earthquakes as Japan is. A young female art critic from Macedonia, who had experienced firsthand an earthquake in her homeland in Skopje, came forward to extend her heartfelt sympathy. Her gesture was followed by similar and surprisingly moving expressions from participants from France, America, Sweden, England, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Estonia, Brazil, and Japan, among others. The Hanshin Art Project has as its the central theme "Light in the Ruins." The project was entirely organized by volunteers, most of them earthquake survivors themselves, and has also received support from diverse institutions, including Japanese corporations and museums, as well as the French foreign ministry, and other foundations. In the summer of 1995, French artist Georges Ruth was invited to the devastated Hanshin-Awaji region to take part in the project's cooperative effort to create works of art. Like the tremendous outpouring of voluntary aid that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Kobe Earthquake, the Hanshin Art Project, too, saw an unprecedented concentration of creative energy, thanks to the efforts of its many museum-affiliated participants and, reportedly, over a hundred students. As a result, even in the midst of the confusion and wreckage, Georges Ruth was able to realize a superb work of art that would also serve as a message to the whole world. It was this Light in the Ruins that was most needed by those survivors who had felt they could never recover from the shock, or get back on their feet again. The fact that this great sympathy was extended by people from all over the world, and from participants in the earthquake-hit area, is no doubt because the works generated by the Georges Ruth Hanshin Art Project touched on some very fundamental issues. Georges Ruth draws pictures inside buildings that are scheduled to be torn down, takes photographs of the works in that setting, and turns the photos into works of art. When Ruth first started working in this distinctive personal style in the 1980s, I felt in his works a strong affinity with prehistoric cave paintings. The immediacy of his works, which in itself may lead to different interpretations and misunderstanding, was one reason why Ruth was invited to take part in this complex project in the first place. We can sense in the artist's "naive" modeling of figures, so reminiscent of cave paintings and early human artifacts, a beautiful and universal prayer. The pictures give voice to a supplication which arises from an existence that predates the present-day lifestyle of humans, which poses a threat to nature everywhere. They are a supplication for such natural blessings as childbirth, or a successful hunt, or a bountiful harvest. I believe that this project, which was spun from the ruins of an earthquake-hit area in order bring light into the hearts of its victims, contains at its heart a prayer which returns us to the very beginnings of human artistic expression. This was the first time Georges Ruth has ever created works of art at an actual site devastated by an earthquake. As a cumulative expression of his works up till now, the Hanshin Art Project is, above all, a memorial completely and whole-heartedly dedicated to the area destroyed by the temblor, and to the people who were victimized by it. The eight photographs and three small works created by Ruth are still making their rounds nationwide, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. This is not necessarily because the organizing committee planned it that way. Instead, it is as if a prayer has been communicated; or as if a common love of art has reached out of its own accord╤in much the same way the volunteer participants who had been concentrated in the Hanshin area have since spread out all over the country. At the end of August, when the traveling exhibit returned to the Kobe Art Village, we donated all the works entrusted by Ruth to the Hanshin Art Project to the Hyogo Prefecture Museum of Fine Arts, as promised. There, the works created in this region, and with the prayers of its people, will remain and aspire to preserve a small remembrance of this place for visitors from all over the world.

Love and Prayers
The George Ruth Hanshin Art Project

Nearly two years have passed since the Great Kobe Earthquake, also known in Japan as the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. The city has achieved a remarkable recovery in that time. However, even as the earthquake itself fades into distant memory, we are still pained by the knowledge that many of the survivors continue to endure very harsh living conditions.

In August 1996, the Federation of International Art Critics held its national convention in the city of Rennes in the Bretagne region of France. The main topic for the convention this year was: "Remembrance in Modern Art." Many leading art critics and art directors gathered from around the country for the event. Among them was Georges Ruth of the Hanshin Art Project, to whom I expressed my concerns regarding the preservation of cities and their culture in a country so ridden with earthquakes as Japan is. A young female art critic from Macedonia, who had experienced firsthand an earthquake in her homeland in Skopje, came forward to extend her heartfelt sympathy. Her gesture was followed by similar and surprisingly moving expressions from participants from France, America, Sweden, England, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Estonia, Brazil, and Japan, among others.

The Hanshin Art Project has as its the central theme "Light in the Ruins." The project was entirely organized by volunteers, most of them earthquake survivors themselves, and has also received support from diverse institutions, including Japanese corporations and museums, as well as the French foreign ministry, and other foundations. In the summer of 1995, French artist Georges Ruth was invited to the devastated Hanshin-Awaji region to take part in the project's cooperative effort to create works of art. Like the tremendous outpouring of voluntary aid that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Kobe Earthquake, the Hanshin Art Project, too, saw an unprecedented concentration of creative energy, thanks to the efforts of its many museum-affiliated participants and, reportedly, over a hundred students. As a result, even in the midst of the confusion and wreckage, Georges Ruth was able to realize a superb work of art that would also serve as a message to the whole world. It was this Light in the Ruins that was most needed by those survivors who had felt they could never recover from the shock, or get back on their feet again.

The fact that this great sympathy was extended by people from all over the world, and from participants in the earthquake-hit area, is no doubt because the works generated by the Georges Ruth Hanshin Art Project touched on some very fundamental issues. Georges Ruth draws pictures inside buildings that are scheduled to be torn down, takes photographs of the works in that setting, and turns the photos into works of art. When Ruth first started working in this distinctive personal style in the 1980s, I felt in his works a strong affinity with prehistoric cave paintings. The immediacy of his works, which in itself may lead to different interpretations and misunderstanding, was one reason why Ruth was invited to take part in this complex project in the first place. We can sense in the artist's "naive" modeling of figures, so reminiscent of cave paintings and early human artifacts, a beautiful and universal prayer. The pictures give voice to a supplication which arises from an existence that predates the present-day lifestyle of humans, which poses a threat to nature everywhere. They are a supplication for such natural blessings as childbirth, or a successful hunt, or a bountiful harvest. I believe that this project, which was spun from the ruins of an earthquake-hit area in order bring light into the hearts of its victims, contains at its heart a prayer which returns us to the very beginnings of human artistic expression.

This was the first time Georges Ruth has ever created works of art at an actual site devastated by an earthquake. As a cumulative expression of his works up till now, the Hanshin Art Project is, above all, a memorial completely and whole-heartedly dedicated to the area destroyed by the temblor, and to the people who were victimized by it. The eight photographs and three small works created by Ruth are still making their rounds nationwide, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. This is not necessarily because the organizing committee planned it that way. Instead, it is as if a prayer has been communicated; or as if a common love of art has reached out of its own accord╤in much the same way the volunteer participants who had been concentrated in the Hanshin area have since spread out all over the country. At the end of August, when the traveling exhibit returned to the Kobe Art Village, we donated all the works entrusted by Ruth to the Hanshin Art Project to the Hyogo Prefecture Museum of Fine Arts, as promised. There, the works created in this region, and with the prayers of its people, will remain and aspire to preserve a small remembrance of this place for visitors from all over the world.

Aomi Okabe
Art Critic
Georges Ruth Hanshin Art Project Organizing Committee


Copyright(C)1996 AOMI OKABE/Hanshin Art Project