Street Nihonga Reflections
Read an interpretive text about one of Mirikitani’s works that is part of the Entangled Memories section, written by his closest friends and documentarians, Linda Hattendorf and Masa Yoshikawa, together with curator Maki Kaneko. This text is reprinted from the exhibition catalogue, which features many more essays and analyses for those interested in exploring Mirikitani’s work in greater depth.
Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, untitled (white dragon protecting Mirikitani and friends), after 2002, Collection of Linda Hattendorf, Taos, New Mexico, EL2024.179
untitled (white dragon protecting Mirikitani and friends)
Hattendorf
One of Jimmy’s many collages, combined with a large drawing of a dragon. Jimmy did not draw dragons often. This one flies over a collection of images from the days after 9/11 in New York.
After I began to search for Jimmy’s family members in 2001, I reached out to Janice Mirikitani (1941–2021), then poet laureate of San Francisco, ironically running a homeless shelter at Glide Memorial Church there with her husband, Pastor Cecil Williams. It turned out that Jimmy and Janice were second cousins, though they had never met. She sent him books of her poetry, including "We, The Dangerous", shown here. When I read Jimmy some of her poems about camp, he said, “She’s just like me.”
There are many images here of artists Jimmy developed friendships with after he came in off the streets—artist Claudia Teller, activities director at the assisted living facility he moved into in 2002, as well as my friend artist Jessica Baker. On the right is an image of Jimmy working on his “Golden Eagle,” the first very large work he did when he moved into an apartment of his own. A photo of Jimmy posing with my family is here, taken in 2002 after our first Tule Lake pilgrimage.
As I study this collage, I can see that in some ways it is about family—Jimmy’s biological family as well as the community of artists and supporters that grew around him during our time together.
Yoshikawa
When Jimmy drew a dragon, it had to be a “white” dragon. Years ago, when he was young, he painted traditional dragons (we found a photo from Tule Lake or Seabrook period). According to Jimmy, a white dragon wards off evil spirits. Here is a story Jimmy told me more than a few times:
“An acquaintance brought a guy to meet me. The guy said, ‘My older brother works for a company in the World Trade Center.’ I drew a dragon for him and told him, ‘Take this dragon with you. It will protect you from evil.’ He was happy to have it and left for Japan to his family home on vacation. Just two days later, on September 11, his older brother burned to death in the World Trade Center. The younger brother survived. I felt so sorry for his older brother. Many people from the lower floors managed to escape and came here."
In 2009, when I told Jimmy that my mom had cancer, he drew a “white” dragon for her and gave it to me, saying, “Next time you go back to Japan, take this with you and hang it in her room so that she can get well.” (When Jimmy visited Japan in 2007, he stayed at my mom’s house in Tokyo, so he knew my mom.)
Also in this artwork, Jimmy wrote three artist names— Jackson Pollock, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Kenzō Okada, each with “five million.” According to Jimmy, they were “five-million-dollar worth” artists. Jimmy told me that he had met them and befriended them. Jimmy saw himself in the same league, a “five-million-dollar” artist. That’s what he believed. Well, maybe decades from now, Jimmy’s art might indeed be worth five million dollars. You never know.
Curator's Comment
While Mirikitani created collages throughout his “sidewalk time” and beyond, his collage work became more complex after he relocated to an apartment in 2002. During this period, he began producing intricate collages incorporating images of himself, Hattendorf, Yoshikawa, his reunited family members, and artist friends—some privately taken, others appearing in mass media following the release of The Cats of Mirikitani (2006).
This particular piece also includes images of his own artwork and that of others, featuring several well-known Nihonga paintings, a photograph of Jackson Pollock, and a list of three “five-million-dollar” New York artists, along with his own name. By integrating these elements, the collage emphasizes Mirikitani’s aesthetic heritage rooted in Japan as well as his identity as a New York artist.
Among the images of family, friends, artists, and artworks, we find photographs of destruction, political upheaval, and military power—forces that profoundly shaped his life. Black-and-white photographs of Tokyo after air raids and the Tule Lake incarceration camp appear alongside present-day cityscapes of Tokyo and the Freedom Tower in New York. One particularly striking and recurring element is the image of fighter jets, to which Mirikitani has added red dots, transforming them into “Japanese” aircrafts.
Juxtaposing joyful portraits of loved ones, American and Japanese artworks, and stark images of war, nationalism, and militarism—seemingly without a specific order—the work resists confinement within preexisting narratives. Rather, it reveals the interconnectedness of his personal life and political history, the inseparability of past and present, and the tenuous line between peace and war.
Overseeing this mesmerizing portrait of Mirikitani’s life and the complex events between the United States and Japan, a flying white dragon emerges—a potent symbol, its meaning left open for the viewer to contemplate.