T. I. F. Stories
By Tatsumi Shinoda (Selection Director for Tokyo International Forum Artwork)
Artworks Gathered in “Ship of Diversity” 5
John Duff
The form was made by glass fiber and then colored. The light was confined inside the slightly transparent work.
Although the color of his works is somber and dull, it has an interesting taste. The form is responding to it but is not showy. It is probably the artist’s most favorite color and size.
I feel a moving energy from his work. It is like a pet which was ordered permanently to “Stay.”
Duff’s living space and atelier was in an old building located in a small alley of China Town in New York. People who come and go on the large streets and small alleys are all Asian.
I am a bit surprised at his strange living place, but we finished our errands, and then Duff brought me to a place located in China Town. What was it like? It was a cafe bar, but there were no Asian people at all. It was like a bar which you can see in Western movies. I thought he was never easy in China Town and then understood the diversity of his works.
His atelier was decorated just with a plastic cover in an aging large room next to his living space. He is always drinking cranberry juice which is supposed to wash away the poison of chemical sprays.
Looking pale is a characteristic of New York artists. Duff, however, was brought up on the West Coast. He showed me pictures of his then-family which were in the catalog of his early age personal exhibition. The atmosphere of the picture looks like one of his works which the Tokyo International Forum obtained.
In the old picture which was taken in a living room, a fishing net which I thought was hanging from the ceiling, was actually sticking up from the floor. A series of spindle forms reminds me of the work in the Forum.
The net reflected his works is not at all disconnected from Duff, himself, since he was surfing in his boyhood on the West Coast. He must have included the stuck-up net as he saw it at the beach.
Duff’s works are crossing his time of memory and current space-time.
[Trays of Roberta]
Location: At the wall beside an escalator, 1F of D Block
Photo: Sadamu Saito + Toru Misawa
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