Tatzu Nishi on “‘Discovering Columbus”

Hi everyone,

This weekend, I went to Tatzu Nishi’s art exhibit at Columbus Circle and it was an amazing experience. According to nyartbeat.com, Nishi decided to do his first “public project” in the United States on a historic statue of Christopher Columbus that was created in 1892. I was really astonished to see how Nishi reinvented our perception of Columbus by situating this 13-foot statue of Columbus right in the middle of a modern, NYC-inspired living room. The room is full of nice furniture and when I walked into it, it was a bit breath-taking at first because  I wasn’t quite expecting to see a colossal statue in the middle of a fictional room. Nevertheless, it was an interesting art exhibit because Nishi made me rethink my perception of Columbus as a man of the past, with no connections to the present or to the future. The exhibit humanized him for me and made me think about the things I had read about him in Michael Troulliot’s book, “Silencing the Past: Power and Production in History.” Although I lost my brochure, I do remember reading that the original statue was made in Italy to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World. I always found that term “discovery” really biased because it implies that the Western perspective on history is the only view that is valid. I’m sure that the indigenous peoples would not celebrate Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas…

As Trouillot suggests, I would also agree that it was not Columbus’ discovery that changed the course of history as we know it, but it was his “accidental encounter” that did. Nishi helped me reflect on this idea a bit more and I am grateful for that.

Sofia