Japan: You call that “art”?

Blogger aiki_tachibana, in a post entitled “Don't call that ‘art'! ^[1]” [ja], reacts to news about a controversial art performance in Hiroshima on Oct. 21st. According to reports ^[2] [ja], a group of artists calling themselves “Chim←Pom” (チン←ポム) chartered a plane to fly through the sky and draw in smoke the characters for “pika” (ピカッ), meant to signify the atomic bombing. The work sparked a strong negative reaction with the public, and the leader of the group later apologized to A-bomb survivors. “I absolutely cannot understand,” aiki_tachibana writes, “the sensitivity to draw in the skies of Hiroshima a vapor trail [in the form of] ‘pika’ and call it ‘art’.”