／ This area — taking the stairs up from the exit of Ikejiri-Ōhashi Station on the Den-en-toshi subway line and heading toward Mishuku along a gently sloping road, with an expressway running overhead, so that the whole place feels somehow like another subway (the pace at which time flows here is also markedly different) — I am making my way to the venue of Ishii's exhibition, reflecting (in multiple layers) on Ishii's paintings, noticing, almost suddenly, the building's show windows that serve as motifs in his paintings and the potted foliage plants beside them; was it because I had read Ishii's paintings and Ishii's texts, or had I already felt it, latently (or perhaps latently-as-in-a-latent-image), before that — something that Ishii's paintings excavated, that Ishii's texts cast light upon, or perhaps that was cast into light — turning left at the Mishuku intersection, almost immediately there is the building housing SUNDAY and CUPSULE, descending the stairs, becoming a body that descends stairs, dragging the thought of descending stairs behind me like a shadow; come to think of it, last year I saw Ishii's work at several venues, including Alpha-M, which was also underground, an exhibition that made it newly and explicitly clear that Alpha-M is underground (the first part curated by Takaishi, the second part curated by Ishii, if I recall correctly — Takaishi's exhibition peered into the underground beneath the underground, while Ishii's exhibition led one around to an unusual back side before entering the venue, as if stepping behind a mirror…), all of this held in bodily memory — and before or after that, there was Mitsukoshi, and then the Tokyo Gallery in Ginza, both of them on perhaps the sixth floor, floors so high above ground they could be called the sky, and so I may never yet have seen Ishii's paintings on a basement or ground-floor level — and the paintings hanging there — crucified against the wall, as it were…… — floating in the void, I find myself, as if for the first time, unexpectedly struck by the strangeness of this.
／／／ The strangeness of a painting being vertical. The paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, the Aboriginal painter (one of my all-time favourite painters) — perhaps she had never intended them as paintings to begin with — were laid horizontally as they were made, and were most likely complete in their horizontal state. Just as a ceiling painting mediates the exchange between those who gaze up through its surface and the sky above, inviting the eye and thought toward the sky beyond the ceiling — a painting laid horizontally on the ground invites the roots of, say, a yam depicted within it to extend into the inner depths of the painting's lower stratum (now in the literal sense), drawing the gaze and thought of the viewer, or something like prayer, toward the painting-as-earth, toward its underground depths.
／／／／ In Ishii's paintings, is the ◎ placed at the centre a dead end, or is it a mirror, or is it a hole? I try to think of a way to pass through that hole and out to the other side of the painting. A way to reach the back of the mirror. Like going around to the back of a building, to a different entrance.
／／／／／ The painting surface exists as the expression of what lies on the reverse side (or inner depths) of the painting, or as something that covers those things; and what is covered at that moment exists as something like the subconscious soil of Ishii and of us — so: a drainage pipe seen from the side, or the rings of Saturn…
／／／／／／ The ◎, which is a dead end for the roots of a plant, the bottom of a flowerpot, acts as a mirror, routing the roots of our gaze and thought through it, or causing them to linger there, and this time turns us into clods of earth (which explains why one finds oneself unable to move in front of Ishii's paintings).
／／／／／／／／ Here — at least when one comes during the day — outside light reaches this far down, so that this place could be mistaken for the surface; yet it is underground: a peculiar topos that is an aboveground-like underground. When one descends the stairs and steps inside, the potted foliage plants are already upside down, as if the perceptual heaven and earth had swapped places in the course of descending the stairs.
／／／／／／／／／／ Anaglyph and anagram. Each splits light from image, splits word from language, boring a hole into the image.
／／／／／／／／／／／ Equally slight, intention equally alike…… equal to what? To no-intention, or to sub-intention,
／／／／／／／／／／／／ If a stone and fire are a question…… then a painting is also a question, and a hole is also a question,
／／／／／／／／／／／／／ A burrow — slipping in through the gaps between dispersed images. There you burrow, you dig.
／／／／／／／／／／／／／／ Burrowing into the burrow of a painting, as an attempt at burrowing, you try lying down on the floor. Lying there, you try looking down at Ishii's painting. Verticality and horizontality are churned together, and you find yourself thinking about things like ⟨vertical-horizontality⟩ and ⟨horizontal-verticality⟩. And then the ◎ becomes ever more hole-like, and begins trying to swallow you up from beneath your feet.
／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／ Now, lying down, you look up, and the painting by Ishii that exists there exists as a ceiling painting, and the ◎ now soars into your sky like an exit. The dispersed sky, a sky you have never seen — the fact that you had been gazed at by the sky,
／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／ Fallen into the burrow, you feel now as if you yourself have been split into red and blue. And that is why this painting looks this way, you feel. A glance from your early childhood grazed your mind, but whether that ⟨childhood⟩ is your own or humanity's, you feel somehow unable to tell.
／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／ You are beginning to realise that it was you who had been contained in that flowerpot in the sky.
／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／ Shut inside the flowerpot that is the painting's space. Now, wondering how to escape from this Lewisian, labyrinthine burrow-room of a flowerpot — a flowerpot playing absent host as an underground dweller — you are thinking about whether it is possible to dig your way out.
／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／ You imagine what is playing absent host beyond that ◎ (what is burrowing there). Like a stone equally slight, like a stone cast into a well, unmoving, you are, everywhere and wholly, playing absent host (all the while burrowing……).