Vegetable Weapons


'Tsuyoshi Ozawa Tsuyoshi Ozawa

Following in the footsteps of Dada and Fluxus artists, Ozawa adapts subcultural visual languages to suggest political and social transformation, and uses humor and interaction to break down stereotypes. In Museum of Soy Sauce Art, 1998 – 2000, he used soy sauce as a drawing medium to create parodies of historical Japanese masterpieces. The ongoing work, Vegetable Weapon, begun in 2001, presents photographs of people holding foodstuffs arranged in the shape of a gun. Each of these “weapons” is composed using the ingredients of that person’s favorite local dish. That a gesture of conflict can become an opportunity for sharing suggests that enmity and friendship sometimes represent two sides of the same coin.

Text: Yukie Kamiya