CAMP: Yoshiko Shimada + BuBu de la Madeleine, Ming Wong, Watermelon Sisters [Yu Cheng-Ta + Ming Wong], Yuki Kihara

The artists participating in the group exhibition CAMP have a keen critical eye for social structures. With an established artistic practice behind them, these artists recognise the power of a certain sensibility be-yond pure intellect to move people's hearts and minds. CAMP is the one sensibility they all have in common - the exaggeration of style and of artifice in objects and people. Camp connotes a love of such unnaturalness. This aesthetic, often embraced by queer individuals, fearlessly and boldly expresses itself with a playful innocence, even in this time when conflicting ideologies are all around us.

Performing drag as Susan Sontag, who defined the character of 'Camp', 'Susan Wongtag' is a new alter ego for Ming Wong, who has taken a queer approach when portraying film characters in his previous works. Just as Greta Garbo is always herself, no matter what she plays, Sontag is always herself - intelligent and sophisticated in every image. In her strong consistency, she is Camp in her own right. But the more seriously Wong, who clearly has different elements from Sontag, performs her style, the greater the degree of Camp increases. Wongtag is an iconic figure in this exhibition, acting as a mentor to lead us into the world of Camp.

Yuki Kihara, a Samoan and Japanese descendant, became renowned for her solo exhibition in the New Zealand Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, entitled Paradise Camp. The works, in which the traditional Samoan third gender, 'fa'afafine' performs drag as Gauguin's paintings, poke a wry sarcasm back at the developed world, which still innocently views the South Pacific with a colonialist mindset. Her new series Chief's Daughter, titled after the popular pre-war Japanese song about the South Sea Islands, uses vintage dolls that racially exaggerate people of the South Pacific. The plump brown arms protruding ominously from the shells suggest an inauspicious future brought about by ocean pollution and climate change. The unique shells and campy dolls, once meant to symbolise a tropical paradise, have now become deformed and flippantly betrayed our selfish fantasies.

Yoshiko Shimada and BuBu de la Madeleine queer the 'Meiji era'. The Meiji era could be seen as a peculiarly Camp period in which the government earnestly mimicked the Western powers. The Rokumeikan is one of the iconic symbols of this era where men and women donned in Western-style clothing, performed in a 'ball-like' event. Collaborating for the first time since 1998, these two artists created a Nishiki-e style (Japanese coloured woodblock print) Sugoroku board game that starts from the arrival of the American fleet. This game has various Meiji characters exaggerated by the two artists as drag queens and kings. The game then progresses through the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, the modernization of Japan, and finally ends with the rise of imperialism. Through a collage of playful images, which not only makes us laugh, it also pushes us to reflect on the question: is imperialism a thing of the past? Is Western imperialism, which lies at the root of the Gaza issue and Japanese imperialism, truly over? In a Camp manner, these artists confront us with questions that we must face now.

The Watermelon Sisters, a double-act formed by Ming Wong and Taiwanese artist Yu Cheng-Ta, as queer sisters who have descended from heaven to spread love to those who struggle with boundaries and categories by mankind. Making their appearance at 'Roppongi Art Night' in 2024, they charmingly performed stereotypes of femininity through the history of pop culture. Wearing bright kimono and carrying Japanese parasols, they paraded through the streets in a stunning Japanese-style Camp with drag makeup and performed an old J-pop song. Looking at the smiles of the people watching them, we get a glimpse of the world the sisters are trying to create. Now that the colour of watermelons has taken on a special symbolic significance, their activities shine even more brightly as a message of solidarity with people who have been oppressed.

The world is currently in a state of turmoil due to the new imperialistic behaviour of powerful nations. However, despite the world's anxiety, the Camp, which does not favour tragedy, is pushing forward through the chaos in full ironic style, pursuing its own aesthetic. We are irresistibly drawn to these artists because of their independence, elegant strength, and because we cannot help but admire their sensibility. Despite Sontag's essay, Notes on 'Camp', being published 60 years ago, to this day, Camp continues to strongly fascinate us.

*The information on each artist's concurrent exhibition is as follows.