Koichi Enomoto
The Impure Land is the Pure Land
2025
Emakimono (handscroll) printed on washi in a kiribako (paulownia box)
325 x 30 cm
Edition of 16 copies signed and numbered by the artist, plus 2 artist’s proofs and 2 publisher’s proofs
This edition is the heart and premise of the exhibition. It takes the form of a long emakimono over three meters long, on which Koichi Enomoto has composed a vivid, dramatic, and critical epic. Created in the sumi-e technique, with the artist's typical virtuosity, The Impure Land is the Pure Land presents itself as a story of violence and resilience. On the right, where the reading begins, characters watch from a distance as a horde of warriors sack cultural objects (emakimonos, like the one before us), followed by murder and pillage. Banners rise up that read “I want to leave the Impure Land and join the Pure Land,” a maxim typical of Japan’s warrior times, whose fundamentalism still resonates today.
Past the fresco’s only empty, yet central, space, people flee the massacres and gradually take the path of healing, music, and the arts, in the form of a joyful, almost militant procession.
Here, the artist cleverly blends the ancient with the modern, and historical codes (notably the battle scene genre, typical of many scrolls) with a certain contemporary manga aesthetic. Yet this is not merely a reactivation of a forgotten tradition. If we remember that manga originated in the emaki medium, and if we consider the extent to which the theme of war has now become more relevant than ever, this work offers us a troubling topic of reflection on the tricks of History.
