Yuji Agematsu’s Brooklyn studio is unmarked and offers no doorbell. When I visited, I buzzed one of his neighbours, who agreed to knock on his door for me – a request this neighbour seemed to have fielded many times before. A few minutes later, Agematsu appeared, a cigarette wagging from his lips and a shuffle to his gait. He lit up and we spoke about the weather and the changing Dumbo skyline around us. Then he dropped the butt, smashed it into the sidewalk, and we headed upstairs.
Before we entered his studio, I could hear the light tinkle of Morton Feldman’s spare piano work For Bunita Marcus (1985) coming from his stereo inside. This piece would continue to play on repeat for our entire two-hour conversation, a loop-based approach to listening that Agematsu often uses while working.
Inside, the room was filled from floor to near-ceiling with stacked grids of white boxes. Even the vast, wall-sized windows had been occluded, leaving only a thin crescent of daylight to peek through at the top. On closer inspection, I noticed that each box was marked with the date, time and sometimes, location where Agematsu had collected the treasures inside.
In contrast to this stark ambience were several discreet piles of filthy street debris, a mixture of chewed candy, strips of tar, dirt clods, hairballs, dead bugs, used wrappers from all varieties of products. Some of these objects were unidentifiable masses of pulp; some were organised by type, like rubber bands and cupcake wrappers; and a few “very rare objects”, as Agematsu called them, had been separated and studied. These included a ragged sheet of plastic, half of a used pill casing and a strip of mouldy newspaper. This sundry urban jetsam had all been carefully hand-selected by the artist on his daily walks through streets of New York, which are the central activity of his 30-year practice.
Soon he will place all these findings in a smooth, clean box and slide it atop the towering archives that surround him. This is the beautiful paradox of Agematsu’s work: some of the most foul, ephemeral objects in contemporary art are also the most meticulously documented. He sketches them, describes their shape – ‘cobra’, he wrote beside one – and as he’s collecting, he notes the colour of the sky, the temperature, and maps the walking path that lead him there. His goal, it seems, is to document the sensorial totality of a moment.
When he displays his objects, he often arranges them in the clear cellophane sleeves – ‘zips’, he calls them – from the cigarette packs he’s smoked, creating miniature terrariums of decaying, organic curiosities. The exhibitions are elegant and tender, each one a gesture of compassion toward the city and the consumerism that drives it.
But Agematsu hesitates to think of himself as an artist. He didn’t show his work until the early ‘90s, and then waited until 2012, when he was fifty-six years old, to exhibit again. He sees his activities closer to the tradition of experimental, improvisational music, which he studied with the free jazz drummer Milford Graves and Tokio Hasegawa (of Taj Mahal Travellers). He continues to work with sound, in the form of field recordings – perhaps the aural equivalent of his documentarian objects and occasional photographs – which play on loop in his exhibitions.
Agematsu was born in Japan and left for America in 1980, but his accent remains thick and at times hard to parse. As we spoke, I became transfixed by the pacing and tone of his voice, the way he regularly dropped the unnecessary articles of English. He repeatedly mentioned the difficulties he’s had in communicating in the States, which is perhaps why he’s turned inward to create a private vocabulary of notation and materials. Agematsu has spent decades documenting American life, but to do so he’s remained resolutely apart, from the artworld, the language and even technology, so he can stay in touch with the culture everyone else has forgotten.
Ross Simonini: Are you always collecting?
Yuji Agematsu: Oh, yes. Anytime. Anywhere. It’s a reaction between my brain and an object. I select: this one is good, this one is bad. Like practice. It’s related to my daily life. I always carry a bag. I encounter the object and start to collect.
RS: It’s improvisation.
YA: Accidentally. Spontaneously. I like spontaneous music. Free music. Noise. This is like noise music. I’m collecting the noise of the city. Sometimes I make field recordings to pick up the noise. I like the feeling, sensing the city’s skin. So I don’t wear gloves. Nothing.
RS: How does touching the dirty ground affect you?
YA: I’m fine, but I lost my teeth. Because I’m always touching the objects and then smoking cigarettes. I got mould in my teeth.
RS: The work has physically transformed you.
YA: Mould is everywhere.
RS: Are you more careful now?
YA: My teeth are already gone. I don’t care. I don’t care. A long time ago, in the 1990s, I had a show at a small gallery, and a guy came in and he said to me: you’re collecting the germs and viruses of New York City. He was researching for the AIDS virus. He said, don’t stop, because you’re building up your own immune system.
RS: You’re documenting the history of New York’s bacterial community.
YA: I would like to collaborate with specialists and donate pieces to the laboratory someday. My activities aren’t just art. You see people who are always trying to maintain art materials, but I’m challenging the conservation. With me, conservators throw their hands up.
RS: Almost all your walks are in New York, right?
YA: Most of them. I go to South Bronx, which is kind of nice these days. Brooklyn is over but South Bronx still feels like the early 80s. Very interesting. I hate the East Village now. I used to like it. I like Chinatown. But I came here from another country and my English is very bad. It was so hard to communicate. How could I survive in this city? So I started to collect objects, because I realised where I belong to. Just as a human being.
RS: It’s a way of touching the place.
YA: But it also collapses nations. My main language is Japanese but I haven’t been to Japan in a long time. I have an American passport. All the time, we identify each other as German, Japanese, American. I just want to create as a human being. I don’t even like my name.
RS: Would you ever show anonymously?
YA: But I would still have a gallery, which has its name. It’s hard to break through our existence. Or the institutions: MoMA! Whitney! They define art. But I’m a little bit out. I’d like to be more understandable for people – what I’m doing. It takes time.
RS: You began as a musician, far outside the artworld, studying with the percussionist Milford Graves.
YA: Milford said, you have to know your own heartbeat. That’s your fundamental thing. You have to know yourself. That’s why I started walking around the city and touching the ground. Instead of playing the musical instrument, I wanted to be expansive. But I like texture, you know. Each object has a sound.
RS: What’s the noise of these cupcake wrappers over here?
YA: Sandy. [makes sandy noise] It used to be a wet sound, but then it dried.
RS: So your street activities came out of music.
YA: I guess so, yeah. I have to keep moving. Walking means moving. Milford always said, Dance or die. Keep moving. Don’t think too much before you move.
RS: How much time do you spend in the studio?
YA: Eight hours, these days. At least five. Including walking, it’s nine hours. I start from my apartment in Crown Heights and walk to the studio. Or I take the subway and get off at 42nd Street. Then I go into the studio. Always doing something.
RS: Do you see art as a fulltime job?
YA: I’m trying. I quit my job last June. I’d been a full-time worker for a long time but I’m sixty-two now and I have a lot of things to do, so I decided to be full-time for myself.
RS: How’s that going?
YA: Ah, you know. Totally no stress. Relaxed. I’m happy to just sit here and listen to music and draw. I’m really happy to be up here.
RS: You’ve been consistently making work since the 80s, but not showing.
YA: It’s been continuous. But having a show is a secondary thing. Getting to society. Having a show is secondary. It’s collaborative work, with the gallery, but fundamentally, I do my own self. Motivation for each person is different. But ultimately: do something. You have to have a job.
RS: Does it affect the work when you show it?
YA: Yeah, ’cause it has to be fun. You have to hear the other person’s opinion. Whatever they say. [laughs] I’m an ordinary man and I have to deal with person-to-person. But having a show is not bad. I’m not a sociable person, but sometimes it’s good to talk with someone through my objects. I just don’t want to compete. No competition.
RS: When you say you’re an ordinary man…
YA: Just a human being.
RS: Do you see your collecting as ordinary?
YA: Each person has a different behaviour. This is my behaviour.
RS: When you were a boy, you did the same thing, collecting, but those were natural materials.
YA: I was born in the seaside, so there were lots of shells and interesting objects. Each area has its own objects.
RS: But now, everything you touch in the city is made by humans.
YA: It’s all commodity. Gadgets. It’s the consumption of our own life. We spend money and in exchange we get gadget materials and the object collapses and we throw them away. That’s the cycle. It’s ordinary. People call this trash but I’m always confused: who is going to decide what is trash? People are interested in trash. This is trash, they say, but that’s totally wrong. I try to avoid the term ‘trash’. I’m just observing details very carefully. People don’t want to see trash. We don’t want to look back. Not think about it. But why not look one more time?
RS: Are you intending to document human consumption?
YA: Totally. It’s crazy consumption. We used to use paper. Now it’s all plastic. To me, it’s still beautiful, though. Human beings are good at creating consumption. This is my lifework.
RS: Do you think much about other art being shown in the world?
YA: It’s too fast. Moves too fast. I don’t pay attention. I used to hang around galleries. But not now. Now I totally belong to my own activities. Art is secondary. I don’t even know what art means. There is only art history. I guess art is a function of how you communicate with the people. It’s how you get into society.
RS: But you don’t reject society.
YA: No, no. I’m just a human being. Most important thing is to find out ourselves. Who am I?
RS: Collecting helps you to understand yourself.
YA: Yes. I’m encountering another existence.
RS: When you find an object, will you change it? Or do you try to preserve it, maintain its integrity?
YA: I try not to manipulate. But when I grab the object, I’m already starting the fabrication. When I touch, my finger makes a shape. It’s impossible to not change it when you put it in the bag. You’re shaping things always.
RS: You sometimes note the location, but not always.
YA: Yes, when an object is very interesting to me. When it’s rare, and specific to me. Very important. Then I’m very careful. It’s a special moment to me.
RS: Which is why you record the time, as well.
YA: I realise what I’m doing, standing there on the corner, wherever I am. I realise that my ear is getting open. I hear the street noise. I know what’s going on in this neighbourhood. It’s a realisation of my environment. It makes me aware of where I belong to.
RS: Is that a moment when you’d make a field recording?
YA: Recordings are purposeful. I go there to make a recording. I can’t do both. Dealing with a machine is different than the picking up. I can’t record automatically. I’m not good with the machine. I don’t want to use the iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone. I can’t use computers. I used to use a DAT [Digital Audio Tape]. So easy. Just push it on. I have a nice digital recorder now but I don’t know how to use it.
RS: You’ve used these cigarette sleeves for years, so that your own trash is also a part of the work.
YA: Yes. Very fragile, thin material. Like a skin, you know. I smoke a pack a day of cigarettes and it’s a kind of recycling. I didn’t have enough money to buy art materials. And now cigarettes are so expensive.
RS: You’ve made your smoking a part of your work.
YA: I don’t care if smoking is good or bad. I’m not afraid of smoking. We’re going to pass over one day. Health insurance is very expensive, though. That’s why people have to take care of their health.
RS: Do you have a fear of death?
YA: I don’t know. Just let it go. I try not to think about it. I think about health insurance because I’m looking for an inexpensive one. I’m fine now but I don’t want to bother people.
[Agematsu opens up a sealed plastic bag, pulls out a notebook and begins flipping through his daily maps.]
RS: When you walk, are you trying to engage with the city in a specific way? I’m thinking of the way the Situationists would walk against the design of a city, to subvert it.
YA: I know the Situationists. Really respect. Very cool. But I’m totally wandering. It’s hard to break through the structure of the city. I was arrested one time. Right after 9/11 the city was so crazy. I was just shooting video. They say, ‘trespassing’, but I don’t know about that. I just wanted to get in. My eyes became like a camera lens. These days, the undercover cops know me well.
[Agematsu opens a second notebook, the size of his palm, filled with scribbled drawings.]
RS: When are you making these?
YA: I always draw very fast. The key is how to transfer all my information from the brain.
RS: It looks like musical notation.
YA: Correct.
RS: With a lot of writing, in both Japanese and English.
YA: I like a mix of drawing and writing.
RS: Do you read much?
YA: The same book. Over and over again. By the Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata. He created his own style and his writing is very interesting and fun for me to read. It’s like Beckett. Slow to read. It erases my own existence to read that kind of book. You can’t memorise what’s going on. What happened? It’s almost impossible to understand. You’re suspended. Totally confused.
RS: You read on a loop, like the music we’re listening to.
YA: What is the difference between seeing and reading? In my writing there is no meaning. I write a Japanese character but it’s more like drawing. Reading is to get information, to build up the knowledge.
RS: Is your work a way of building knowledge?
YA: Yes. I’m able to read these objects. I came from another country. Kind of strange to transfer languages, so I don’t use language that much. I just look at the sky. How can I describe it? What kind of blue is that? It’s impossible to transcribe. I like just seeing.
Originally published in ArtReview in 2019
Also:
My first NYC solo show, The All just opened at Anonymous Gallery. If you are around, take a look.
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Earlier this week, I substacked an essay on the painting process of Eddie Martinez in honor of his new show at Blum and Poem. This was originally published in his 2013 monograph for PictureBox Books. You can read it here.