Maywa Denki is not your usual art exhibit.
The machine-meets-fish “Nonsense Machines Naki” premiered Friday night at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, kicking off the month-long exhibit celebrating the art produced by the Maywa Denki factory in Tokyo, Japan. The exhibit runs until Nov. 20 at the art museum.
The exhibition at the art museum features innovative sculptures, musical instruments, personal adornments, tools, toys and audio and video recordings produced by Maywa Denki president, Nobumichi Tosa, and his brother, Masamichi Tosa.
Viewing the 26 products in the “Naki” series, viewers find pieces such as “Ring Ring,” which looks like a cyborg-inspired armband intended to hit, slap, or bruise the wearer’s arms with a non-permanent stamp that looks like fish scales.
Also included in the collection is “Rai-Rai-Ken,” a conceptual device resembling a Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ sword that shoots a sword into the sky when the rod is struck by lightning.
Another piece, the “Uke-TEL,” is a “fish cage” which looks like a bird cage. Attached to a telephone line, the “Uke-TEL” has many needles suspended from the cage top that drop into a fish pond below when a user dials a telephone, endangering the fish.
The Maywa Denki factory originally supplied vacuum-tube-era electronic parts to large companies like Matsushita and Toshiba until it went bankrupt in 1979. More than a decade later, the Tosas, sons of the original founder, re-established Maywa Denki as an “art unit.” As a hybrid electronics company (“denki” means electrical machinery), the Tosa brothers started building noise machines that are part musical instrument, part fish. They titled their first product series “Naki,” which loosely means fish tool.
“Maywa Denki is a wildly successful and completely unique Japanese art phenomenon,” Kate Wagle, professor of art and department head, said in a press release. “We believe the excitement and spectacle of this exhibition and live performance will interest a broad audience of all ages. We suspect that even those who may not yet consider themselves interested in ‘art’ will find this event to be irresistibly innovative and exhilarating all at once.”
The Maywa Denki exhibition consists of three major events, including a monthlong exhibition of “Nonsense Machines Naki,” a public talk by an artist and a reception at the art museum on Wednesday, November 16, from 5:30-8 p.m.. The exhibition’s third major event includes the first live performance on the West Coast featuring the group’s one-of-a-kind musical instruments at the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts Jaqua Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 18.
“The museum exhibition will run concurrently with a showing of 18th and 19th century Edo period Japanese prints providing museum visitors with a uniquely contrasting exploration of Japanese art of the past and present,” Lawrence Fong, associate director of the art museum said in a press release.
The Maywa Denki exhibition and events are sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and Yoko M. McClain. Additional support comes from the Department of Landscape Architecture Kyoto Study Program, Lundquist College of Business and Center for Asian and Pacific Studies.
Museum admission is free for members and University students, faculty and staff members with ID. Children 13 and younger can also get in for free.
Tickets for the Nov. 18 Maywa Denki performance are available through the Shedd Ticket Office by calling 434-7000 or at 868 High St. Tickets cost between $15 and $25. Group and youth discounts are available. The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts is located at the corner of Broadway and High Street in downtown Eugene.
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