photo courtesy by Asian Improv aRts Midwest
Hiroshi Mehata/ Mehata Sentimental Legend
My National Treasures series
This series was inspired by the information I found on the internet about my surname "Mehata / 目秦".
How have mysteries and / or forged information in ancient history transformed into value and credibility over the course of hundreds of years?
This is a series of works that re-question the relationship between facts and fabrications in history, legends and time, using my surname "Mehata", which has a strong mystery element, which also has the theory of "descendants of Qin Shi Huang".
「The Emperor」(2020)
A Private treasure that has been passed down from generation to generation in our Mehata clan(目秦氏), which is said to be a clan of the descendants of Qin Shi Huang. The Artwork with such a fictional setting.
When the events of the 2nd century BC are forged in the 6th century, from a modern point of view, the forging itself begins to take historical value as "anciently forged materials remaining from ancient times".
Then, if the uncertain information of the 6th century is forged in the 21st century, what kind of values can it be regarded as from the viewpoint of the 30th century?
From the perspective of my contemporaries, it would seem like mere nonsense.
However, the value created by the passage of time may be in owning time itself, not in "facts".
It may be true of ancient history, myths, the origin of religion, and much more.
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「Forbidden 1848」(2020)
When two or more uncertain elements are layered on uncertain media, the structure becomes the same as "legend".
It is a privilege only for us modern people to had a special 100 years to feel nostalgia for monochrome colors, reel sounds, and record noise.
But it happens to be the same century of frenzy and war, so it also has a specific atmosphere of pain.
If a cultural heritage photographed with a monochrome camera does not actually have color originally, would the coloring function of modern technology misunderstand it as colorful?
It is Old but the condition is Newer than Recent.
Is the blood scary because it is red, or is the scary blood red?
Alloy foil, wooden panel, acrylic, urethane paint,
841mm * 1782mm * 3cm
「NNFT The Sacred Music」(2021)
5inch records,
The music on the only one-off cut of the record is a secret ritual piece that has been passed down in my family for generations. For a future or a past.
The work is intended to question the relationship of interference by time between suspicion and fabrication, whether by the First Emperor or Hatano-Kawakatsu.
Recognition drawing of Mehata surname (2024)