Takayama Readymades

Seems like the good folk of Takayama had ol' Marcel beaten by a couple of hundred years.

Way before Duchamp and his crew of Dadaists picked up on re-contextualization as a form of artistic authorship, people here were practicing something called kazarimono. It's another New Year's tradition (New Year's here lasts, like, 2 months) wherein household objects are displayed in front windows as objet d'art. But now because of changing architectural tastes (not everyone has the same kind of front window anymore...) it's held in the city cultural center.

Every year there's a couple of themes to interpret. Awards are given out in various categories. This year it's "bird" and "walking". So in the photos above, going clockwise, we have a woodpecker composed from wood planes, a digital thermometer standing in as a dove and lastly, a chicken, implied by wooden pegs, walking towards a bowl. These are not the award winners, they just struck my fancy. Next year the themes are "dog" and "smile"; we'll definitely be entering.

Civic sponsored Surrealism... that rates pretty highly in my book.