Two Lucky Dragons [2009-2010]
Encounter after the passage of 50 years
Lucky Dragon and Lucky Dragon Concept Maquette, which were originally made for Suito Osaka–Aqua Metropolis Osaka–2009 were transported to Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art for the group exhibition Munasawagi no Natsuyasumi (The Presage in Summer Vacation) (2010).
Yanobe made Lucky Dragon based on Daigo Fukuryu Maru (also known as Lucky Dragon 5), a Japanese tuna fishing boat, which was exposed to and contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States’ thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll in 1954.
Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art had a series of work “Lucky Dragon” by a Lithuanian-born American artist, Ben Sharn, which was also based on the same accident in 1954. After the passage of over 50 years, two Lucky Dragons by two artists encountered in the museum.
As the title Munasawagi no Natsuyasumi (The Presage in Summer Vacation) subtly implies, the exhibition, held at the time when the cautiousness toward danger of nuclear power was fading, became the symptom for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11th of March, 2011.
