all about laughter

so i finally made my way into the mori art museum, and what a delight it was. we probably spent 3 hours and could have stayed longer. it explored humor in contemporary art beginning with ancient japanese art 3000 b.c. through the edo period and then into the 60s through the present time with the subject broken into 4 categories-"anti-art and avant-garde laughter," "everyday laughter," "the flip side of laughter," and "deviant laughter." there was over 200 pieces by over 50 artists from around the world, many installations and video. i can't even begin to explain the many pieces, but some that stick out in my mind were a piece that was a bunch of dirty laundry that you look into and see a video of a guy spitting out coins, washing laundry with meat, eating cat food with his cat, and using a fish in his mouth to slurp though a straw, smoke, and brush the fish mouth afterwards. the artist was kimura taiyo. another one was a whole room of 100 g.i.joes, asian, american and english businessmen crawling on their bellies all over the plastic grass into buildings and each other, capturing the way they globally transcend boundaries, bumping into each other, bunching up in one place, bumping into walls, and running out of batteries, an ironic metaphor of reality. the artist was torimitsu momoyo and the original piece from 1990 had a full sized business man crawling the streets of tokyo and new york. and my favorite was of a teacher who taught spoon bending to the young students and the video was of each of the kids performing this feat, it is such a treat to watch their faces go from surprise to pride, to laughter. the artist was yamamoto takayuki. and another fave was a fat house talking about whether he is art or architecture, or wheter architecture is art. "can i be fat and also be art?" "are there fat houses?" by erwin wurm.
this museum was one of the best places i have gone in tokyo. the exhibits change regularly, so you can visit several times a year. a real treat for sure.

tomorrow back to asakusa, for i did not have the time to peruse the streets before. instead of a temple visit, we will walk the old edo streets.

i am finished teaching mysore. my body is happy. lots of pain. i have one led class on sunday, it's new moon day and there is no mysore. and that will be it for me. i leave the students to their teacher, who will leave again in a month and another teacher will come for 3 months. i wish them well. and a party on sunday night. sayonara.

there will likely be one or two more blog entries, then i will give the link to my home blog if you want to continue with the journey as i try to run my own astanga school in chicago.