Hidehisa Tachibana Exhibition: Dec. 13 (Sat) - Dec. 21 (Sun), 2025

Plastic Figures by Hidehisa Tachibana　　

　In the room the women come and go
　Talking of Michelangelo

　Those women appear in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." It is a scene T. S. Eliot presents to Prufrock without any preamble. Prufrock happens upon those two lines, but he never approaches the women Eliot has prepared. In the first place, Prufrock never looked the women in the eye. It is Eliot who sees the women. The moment Eliot writes them, that room encloses Eliot, and perhaps Prufrock, passing by with his eyes downcast, merely heard their voices. Michelangelo? Michelangelo, Michelangelo! Yet Prufrock remains cynical and hurries along. He was simply timid. Prufrock had no destination to begin with, and Eliot, who wrote it, could not see the end either. It is Eliot who "comes and goes."
　"(They will say: 'How his arms and legs are thin!')"
　"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is composed of his interior monologue. Though it is called a love song, the person who should be the focal point never appears.
　Every time I read that poem, I cannot help but be bothered by the "women." They appear and disappear abruptly, without any context.
　Prufrock especially detested snobbish socializing, but in truth, he was afraid of people. He was afraid of being swallowed up.
　The "women" are a question.
　No matter how much a man may pursue a question with no end in sight, the poem ends at 131 lines. Prufrock does not know this. He remains lost, as he has always been. Those women have long since forgotten about talking of Michelangelo. Michelangelo is not the issue.
　Just when you think you are pursuing a question, before you know it, you are being pursued by the question, cornered by it.
　I put the book of poems back where it belongs.
　In the room, it is I who am sitting.

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