Brain-child Pot
Dieter Ronte
Some people say that her texts are chaotic, poetic or unclear. Other think her actions have a strong social impetus, that she does social work, so to speak, in an aesthetic field. Others, in turn, think you can't exhibit more than yourself - the artist as a self-exhibitor, as it were, a positive exhibitionist. All of the above may be true. Yukako Ando’s art is egocentric, is I-related, yet it has something of everything. What she never is, is indifferent. She is always engaged.
“How would it be if the world were like the fantasy of painted pictures? Then we would paint even more colorfully and more beautifully! ... In theory it should work, but... !?!?!?!?!?!?!?”
This sentence taken from her newest project, Inside Wall, hits the precise point of all her works. How would it be if the world were like the fantasy of pictures, if the world would correspond to these plans? Her contribution to the visual arts lies exactly within this conflict between utopia, self-knowledge and reality.
In Brain-child Pot she cooks a theoretical recipe for life, a plat du jour that is meant to be appetizingly prepared. Yet every day as a cook, she searches for a better taste. For her the kitchen is there, the ingredients inside her, yet she still doesn’t know how to finish the meal. The cooking utensils are topsy-turvy. As an artist and a cook Yukako Ando juggles.
As in all her other works, there is a strong sociological component. The issue with Yukako Ando is not scientific research but aesthetic engagement, setting up models, happenings and performances. These actions, which can be experienced in videos or in actual installations, shift between earnestness and gaiety, between the helpless and the masterful. And always she changes our view of the everyday. The feelings of the viewers are incorporated. In a way that goes unremarked, the recipient of these works is made a co-actor.