Yasuko Toyoshima Web Site | WORKS / ReportCard

Report Card (1998-)

This work of art is an installation, which consists of original, personal report cards I received while I was under compulsory education, when I was a school child from 7 years old to 15 years old (from 1973 to 1982).
I exhibited them on the wall simply at an art 'Exhibition', without changing anything about them.

At schools in Japan, the teachers hand 'report-cards' over to each of their students / their parents at the end of every semester.

The students are rated by their teachers on how mach they could understand and how goodly or badly they performed in class. The teacher has to judge them on the result of some kind of test and their attitude.\\ It became an authorized evaluation of the student. It became an objective view for the student.

The report card contained highly secret personal information for children and the family. On the other hand of course, their value and meaning is different depending on the family's policy, and their viewpoint of their values. Some of them would not care at all regardless of the result. It is also said that their reaction upon receiving the report card would be different dependant on the result; they would be proud of it or would be ashamed of it.
In any case, the report cards in this Japanese case, are a common experience that everyone experienced and they do not need to open it to the public although it brings a negative or positive value to the student. They could merely read it, accept it and keep it.

The report card case is similar to the acceptance of ART in our society and its surroundings.
Art is not obeying authority, but resisting authority. It is in another layer or it is in a more mixed complex layer. However, living in this world, Art is put into a place to be evaluated by people, by others. It means art is what is made by people, by 'others'. Art is what is seen, valued and judged by others, within a period of time and space, as if the value would fluctuate dependant on the period of time and the person's viewpoint.

What I did in this work of art, was to give me a chance to observe / watch people who gave me a value/result..the score, looking at their works ; the report card that they hand to their students. This reversing practice brings us a phase in which the person who makes a decision would be 'made ' by the people who were judged.

Being open to the public, by exhibiting them to an audience, is to reverse our places.
Simply, I exhibited them at an 'Exhibition'.
My plot was, as suggested by their judgment and decision, coded by my 'decision' in advance without my intention, and vice versa.!
I aimed to MAKE a model of a 'revolving' movement, involving a kind of reflection, a kind of rebellious spirit; these kinds of raw materials.