ART REVIEW : Toshikatsu Endo’s Ritual Simplicity

At L.A. Louver, Toshikatsu Endo’s first U.S. solo show features a massive staircase of wood, scorched until it is black. Some of the stairs have been hollowed out and filled with water; water also fills several glass vials positioned underneath the stairs.

Here, Endo displays his longstanding commitment to elemental forms and materials. This commitment is often framed in terms of Japanese aesthetic and spiritual values--Shinto attitudes toward nature, a Zen spareness, etc. While this perspective on Endo’s work is relevant, it is dangerous to isolate the artist within an essentialist fiction of “Japanese-ness.” In our transnational world, such static purity is impossible. Endo’s connection to Western art, especially Minimalism’s perceptual gestalts and fidelity to materials, must be acknowledged.

The current piece, however, subjugates all else to the symbol. In both Western and Eastern cosmologies, the staircase conjures the quest for knowledge or the passage toward death. But translating such a symbol into sculptural terms proves at best limiting, at worst didactic. The most compelling aspect of Endo’s art has been its ritual simplicity. What dominates here is a theatricality at odds with the artist’s broader program.

* L.A. Louver, 77 Market St., Venice, (310) 822-4955, through Nov. 13. Closed Sunday and Monday.