Pictures from the Floating World

On entering Barbara Bloom's installation, Pictures from the Floating World, one steps onto a darkly stained boardwalk that runs the perimeter of the cavernous, dark-green room. From a "sea" of red, an elegant, arched bridge rises, which bisects and spans the space. Floating on the crimson tide are wave upon wave of oriental faces, with identical male or female features. This armada of uniform couples look up with a collective stern expression. At the apex of the bridge is an internally lit vitrine; through the vitrine's upper surface projects a row of monocular viewing devices, focused on minute objects inside that have been secured to small translucent pucks. Spying into these lenses reveals individual grains of rice, engraved with images of fornication. These line drawings taken from Japanese woodblock prints represent the rites and rituals of spring, where acrobatic coital moments are depicted. Pictures from the Floating World is as much about the interaction of the body with a space-physical position and perspective, within an installation as it is about the representation of a culture from the outside. The voyeur's gaze is contrasted with that of the throng catching the voyeur in the act. European culture since the time of Marco Polo has portrayed the Orient as an exotic, mysterious, pagan, and therefore forbidden place. As oceangoing trade increased, and with the advent of interna- tional "tourism," the exchange of cultural artifacts contributed to the often-distorted conception of the Eastern "other." Bloom has appropriated stereotypical images from shunga prints that presented the erotic life of the geisha, and from vernacular architecture. These images refer not only to the history of contact between East and West, but to a contemporary rendition of this engagement. Western coom view oriental cultures with exotic expectation, informed through centuries of misunderstanding. Blooon acktowledges the importance of perspective both literally and metaphorically, requiring a reconsideration of the point of view.
Text written by Curator Bruce W. Ferguson and Vincent J. Varga for the exhibition catalog.