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Student art exhibit at Kranet goes off with a bang — literally
By June Xu, Daily Falcon
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series of local art reviews from the Daily Falcon’s Arts & Culture desk. All opinions belong to the individual student reporters and do not reflect the views of the DF.
There were puffs of frog-scented air. There was do-it-yourself communion. And there was a small, but real, actual explosion.
This Sunday, students from the school of the arts gathered to present their year-end projects in a public exhibition at the Kranet Museum. The exhibit was the culmination of a semester’s worth of work for ARTS 532, the senior capstone class.
“We emphasize giving students the time to delve deep, to develop their own body of work,” said Miya Koyama-Grigsby, the professor who teaches the class. “I’ve seen some really distinctive voices come into their own this year.”
Immediately upon walking into the gallery, visitors were treated to an intriguing sniff into the mundane. Hinata Hyuuga, an arts and chemistry double major, created a series of custom scents meant to distill the essence of certain elements or creatures. Among the line-up were tiny atomizers of essence of concrete, red bean, and of course, frog.
“I have several family members who are blind,” said Hyuuga, “So I’ve always been curious about alternative ways to experience the world.”
Some smells, like the one named “warm lightbulb,” were astonishingly realistic. Others like “frog,” which smelled like damp water and wood, were more conceptual. As scent is so subjective, it would have been helpful to have more of a description of what she was trying to achieve beyond the simple titles.
The other half of the gallery was filled with ink paintings depicting the inside of a church by Sai Shimura, an arts major. Upon reaching the center of the tableau, visitors were provided edible ink and rice paper and encouraged to draw their own body and blood to consume, in a reshaping of the traditional communion ritual.
“Growing up in a strict religious orphanage, I didn’t get to make a lot of decisions for myself,” Shimura explained. “The first choice is the hardest. I give thanks for that.”
The stark contrast of the black ink created a somber and contemplative atmosphere. Unfortunately, the edible ink was difficult to manipulate and also tasted disgusting, but perhaps that added to the penitent atmosphere.
The last part of the exhibit required visitors to gather outside. Deidara Iwa, an arts major, had sculpted a huge flock of ceramic falcons that he placed on the ground of the Kranet parking lot.
“Each bird is an important memory from my time here,” Iwa said, before he rummaged around, lit a match, and – bang! The birds exploded. People screamed and ducked. “True art is destruction!” Iwa yelled.
The experience was shocking but exhilarating. Who hasn’t wanted to explode something, especially during finals? The moment of destruction felt like a celebratory cleansing – a fitting way to end the school year, as we shed our time here.
“Who hasn’t wanted to explode something, especially during finals?”
“Stop it,” June groaned, pleading, and tried to ignore her deskmate’s remarks by picking studiously at her keyboard. “Listen, is it ‘less than’ or ‘fewer than’? I always forget.”
Amy swiveled in her chair. Over her shoulder, June could see the beginnings of a scathing copy edit email: “A NOTE ABOUT HEADLINE STYLES –” before Amy clicked her tongue in annoyance. “It’s ‘fewer’ for stuff you can count,” she said. “The AP’s gotten more lenient about it, but you don’t answer to them.”
“Thanks Amy,” June said. “You’re right and perfect and I only answer to you.” It wasn’t necessary to have perfect AP style on a story pitch, but she was trying her best, alright. Being just okay wasn’t going to net her a full time job as a reporter on the arts and culture desk, the possibility of which her editor had been dangling in front of her ever since she started as a temp employee.
“The moment of destruction felt like a celebratory–”
“Oh my god,” June put her head in her hands. “I didn’t send you that article so you could make fun of my college opinions!”
“No, you sent it to me so I could make fun of your dangling modifiers. You like to use those.”
June pouted. “It’s really awful what happened, though. I’ve been thinking – I could probably contribute to the coverage if they do a profile. Who do you think I should talk to on Metro about it?”
Amy sighed. “Probably Kakashi. They put him on all the high profile stories, even though he’s technically on Investigations now.” June and Amy shared a look at that, before heaving a collective sigh.
June had spoken to Kakashi exactly once, when she’d tried to set up a coffee chat to network in the hopes of scraping together enough institutional goodwill to leverage into the aforementioned job. He’d shown up fifteen minutes late to a thirty minute time block, ignored all her questions in favor of talking about a random book series, and tipped their server outrageously. But he’d won the newsroom’s only Peabody once for an investigation into military misconduct on the nearby base, so he was basically untouchable.
The cursor on her word document blinked as June typed in “talk to Kakashi?” on her to-do list. She sighed before tabbing back over to today’s pitch doc, which read:
- Fewer than 40 lesbian bars exist across the country. Let’s spotlight Alice, a local institution
- Peg: Pride month
- They’re an arts space as well as a bar
- The Ame memorial and the role of public art in healing
- Peg: 10-year anniversary of its unveiling is next month
- Man on the street style interviews; can reach out to a public art expert and Konan Uzumaki, the original artist
- Local ghost hunting group offers free exorcisms – pitch to culture?
- First person/personal? Ride-along?
- Can talk about my childhood ghost experience
She was deep in an internet rabbit hole about potentially haunted local buildings when her editor poked his head out of his office for the first time that day.
“June!” Jiraiya barked. “You have a sec?”
“Yes, what’s up? Do you have edits for me on the theater thing?”
Jiraiya grinned. “Nope.”
As far as she could tell, Jiraiya had been at the paper for longer than June was alive, probably. Right when she’d started as a temp, June had gone to a retirement party for Tsunade, the old managing editor, where Jiraiya had kicked off the toasts by saying that he’d miss flirting with her tremendously. Tsunade had responded by immediately dumping her champagne on his head.
“Is this workplace harassment or like, boomer shit?” June had hissed to Amy, her only friend at the time, as everyone around them chuckled. “Worse,” Amy sighed. “You don’t want to know.”
“First of all, I’ve nailed down my sabbatical dates,” Jiraiya said, as he futilely shuffled some papers around on his desk, which was perpetually covered in huge stacks of local book and film screeners sent for review. Something fell off with a clunk. June got up from her chair to help, but he waved her down. “I’m gonna be out for a month starting in March.”
“Does it still count as a sabbatical if you do it every year? Isn’t that just a long vacation?” June asked.
Jiraiya laughed. “Ha! Not if I’m writing a book during it.” As if writing a novel in a month wasn’t also an insane statement. “Anyways, perk up. A real big swing of an opportunity just landed in your lap.”
June perked up, sitting up straighter, then felt annoyed that she’d done what he’d asked. Ugh. “Yes?”
“When you were in college, you wrote a story about the gallery bomber, right?”
Visions of dangling modifiers and Amy’s nasal voice saying, “Who hasn’t wanted to explode something, especially during finals?” floated through her head. “Oh god, yeah,” June said. She wanted to melt into the chair. How had Jiraiya heard about it? “The story wasn’t focused on him. We were in the same year at KU and I got assigned to write about the senior art show that he was in.”
June scratched her arm, trying to cast her mind back to the haze of senior year three years ago. She’d ditched her media law class in order to make it to that show, which had netted her only C that year for violating the attendance policy. Writing for the student newspaper had been excellent for her resume, but very bad for her grades. “I got a quote from him. And he blew up some sculptures in the parking lot.”
“Which you complimented.”
“I guess?” June shrank. Jiraiya had also clearly read her article. Great. She should just send it to everyone in the newsroom at this point, like that time Gai, the ed reporter, hit reply all with an image of his nose attached, and the subsequent pile-on crashed their servers. Her phone background was still set to Amy’s nose selfie. “I was in the middle of finals season, you know?”
Jiraiya, who looked like he definitely didn’t remember what that was like, shrugged. “Well, guess it left an impression on him.” A small thin object landed on his desk with a thwack. “Your press pass,” he said. “They caught him this morning. Metro tried to angle for a statement or interview, but apparently –” he leaned in, a conspiratorial grin spreading across his face, “– he’ll only talk to you.”
June blinked, gobsmacked. “He knows who I am?” And then, with a sinking feeling of realization – “He read that article too, didn’t he.”
“Probably,” he shrugged. “So here’s the plan. Clear everything else on your calendar. They can let you in first thing tomorrow morning to see him. You’ll have a police escort. I pulled some strings, so you’ll get someone good. Friend of a friend.” He winked.
June nodded, her mind spinning. “What angle should I take? Uh, I’m – most of my experience is in arts reporting. You don’t want me to ask about his process, right? I mean, he killed people.”
Jiraiya snorted. “You’re still a reporter, aren’t you? Treat it like a profile. Ask him about his life, his motives. If he wants to rant about art, let him. He wanted to talk to you, so he probably has something he wants to say, but don’t let him intimidate you,” he leaned in closer, affecting a stage whisper, “And it’ll be an exclusive, so if you do a good job, it might be enough ammo to convince you-know-who to scrape together a budget line for another spot on the team.” He winked again.
It was the world’s most blatant manipulation, but unfortunately, that didn’t stop the bait from working. She really wanted to work here, dammit. Nowhere else was hiring and this was the only paper in town that hadn’t gutted their arts section. Also, as a temp, she didn’t get health insurance.
“Got it,” she said slowly. “One question. If we do a big splashy exclusive. Isn’t it a bit unethical to platform a guy like him?”
“June!” Jiraiya chortled. “Oh June, June, June. You’re a good cookie.”
The next morning dawned bright and unforgiving. June clutched her coffee as she stumbled off of the bus in front of the county jail. She blinked, first in a haze of sleep deprivation, and then again in disbelief. There was a very pretty man in a police uniform standing in front of the building.
“Hi, I’m June,” she waved as she walked up. “Are you Itachi?”
He turned to her and blinked slowly before answering. “Yes. Nice to meet you.” This close, June could see the enormous bags under his eyes and his pale sickly skin, but he still had the great bone structure that had made her do a second take earlier. It was relatable, honestly – June had gone on a research binge that lasted until late in the night, so she was currently only staying upright with the help of caffeine. She was in the kind of jittery state where she was too aware of how her skin was touching her clothes.
Itachi glanced at his watch. “We’re early, but that’s fine. Come.” He turned to start walking up the sidewalk without waiting for a response. Jeez, why was she surrounded by overbearing men?
After getting waved through security – the guard made her leave her scarf with him, as it could be a strangling hazard – they were led to a large waiting area. A hulking beast of a man walked into the space. He must have been almost seven feet tall.
“Yo,” he grinned, showing a wide row of gleaming teeth, “I’m Kenichi. I’ll be your tour guide today.”
Did he have more teeth than normal? The thought occupied June’s mind as she shook Kenichi’s enormous hand. She felt, briefly but acutely, like she was a prey animal caught in the gaze of a huge predator. She distracted herself by trying to get another glimpse of his teeth as he talked. After Kenichi left to, in his words, “get our fiery guest ready,” it was dead silent in the waiting room. June lasted a couple minutes before she turned to Itachi.
“So,” she asked. “You’re a police officer. What do you usually do at your job?”
Itachi turned to her. How did he still look good under the harsh fluorescents? “I’m a detective sergeant. I lead the investigative unit.”
“Wow, that sounds important,” she blinked. Based on his young appearance, June would have guessed that he was a new recruit. “So why are you here, escorting me? This seems below your pay grade.”
“Jiraiya is … a family friend,” Itachi said. He looked bored, or at least placid as he spoke. “And I need to be here for other business as well.”
“Okay. What other business?”
His black eyes bored into hers. “You lack focus. You should concentrate on your interview.”
“Uh, sure.” June sputtered, caught off guard. “But do you mind if I ask you some questions later?”
“I cannot speak on any ongoing investigations. Talk to our spokesperson.” He turned away, dismissing her.
What a jerk. She reviewed her notes in silent, stewing humiliation until Kenichi came to get them again. He led them down a narrow hallway before stopping in front of a nondescript door. June swallowed, trying to fight down her fear. She needed to get this right.
Inside, Deidara sat slumped on a folding chair in front of a table. His hands clinked as he fiddled with his handcuffs. The harsh overhead light, combined with his long blond hair and pale prison jumpsuit, bathed him in a ghostly glow.
“Yo,” he said, looking directly at June. “Long time no see.”
“Hello,” June returned. In his mugshot, Deidara had cockily smiled at the camera. Now, he mostly seemed bored. June watched as he held up his wrists for Kenichi to uncuff. He looked older than she remembered, his face thinner. But then again, it had been a couple years since college.
“We’ll be right outside,” Kenichi grinned, “Scream if you need anything.”
June glanced past Deidara to the black pane of one-way glass set in the far wall, behind which Itachi presumably stood. Then the door clicked and they were entirely alone.
“So,” she leaned back in her chair, trying to match his posture. “How’s your day been?”
“Fucking awful,” Deidara yawned. “I’m sharing a room with some asshole religious maniac. He woke me up at 4am with his praying, yeah. So I told him to shut up and that his god sounded stupid, and then he fucking jumped me!” He gestured at his cheek, where a bruise bloomed purple.
“That’s unfortunate,” June said. She squashed her first instinct, which was to ask who’d won the fight. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” he sneered. “I’ll punch his head in next time, yeah. See if his god saves him then.”
June swallowed. She was suddenly aware of how terribly sheltered her existence was. Never had she heard someone say a threat like that before.
Deidara, when she’d first interviewed him, hadn’t been known for violence either. By all accounts — which, granted, weren’t many, as he had few friends and no living family — he’d been an average, if combative, art student. Unlike his cohort, he’d eschewed graduate school after college, and instead worked odd jobs while making art. He’d shown his sculptures at a couple local galleries before landing a prestigious residency at the Kranet. And then, during the opening night of his solo show, he set off a massive explosion that killed 16 people. Barring the Ame incident, it was the worst mass casualty event in the city’s history.
Sam, one of the paper’s arts reporters, had been caught in the blast. June had never met him — apparently, he’d been injured and had quit the paper, contributing to the circumstances that had led to June’s hiring. June had actually planned to go to Deidara’s show later on in its run, but — well. The Kranet had yet to reopen.
After all the literal smoke and flames had died down, the police had managed to link the explosion to Deidara, but he’d vanished into thin air. No one knew how’d he’d done it, or why. And then he blew up a house on the other side of town, and another. Five more people had died.
Looking at Deidara across the table, June felt a strange queasy frisson of fascination. He’d done terrible things, and now he wanted, presumably, to tell her about them.
She placed her recorder on the table. “Mind if I record our conversation?”
“Go for it, yeah.”
Click. “Mm. So, I have to ask. Why’d you want to talk to me, specifically?”
Deidara looked at her. “Do you make any art?”
Thrown off by the question, she paused before responding. “I did a lot of photography in college, but I haven’t been able to make time for it since.”
“What kind of photography? What were you interested in?” His eyes were shining, intent.
June chewed her lip. “My photo professor called me anti-archival once. I was obsessed with the failure of memory. Spent a lot of time destroying and retracing my film negatives.” She smiled, remembering late nights suffused with the smell of chemicals.
“See! You get it,” Deidara crowed as he leaned forward. “I knew it. I could tell from the way you wrote about my art. You understand the truth of it.”
“The truth?”
“That art is an explosion! The moment of destruction, of transformation — all that effort, time, life, gone in a bang!” He gestured, his arms going wide. “That’s the crux, the pinnacle of everything. Who gives a shit about permanence? Everything changes. Always. There’s beauty in that.”
June nodded slowly. “That’s what I wanted to get at with my photos. That even if you freeze a moment in time, it doesn’t preserve it. The memory in your mind fades and changes.” Then, wanting to shift the subject, she continued, “Was that what your last show at the Kranet was about?”
Deidara laughed. There was a manic gleam in his eyes. “That Smith bitch, I showed her. I showed them all.”
The fine hairs on the back of her nape stood up. “You mean Parvati Smith, former museum director?”
“Yeah. Uppity hag. I gave them a proposal, yeah, when I applied for the residency. It said in there that I wanted to blow shit up, and they were cool with that!” Deidara sneered. “But nooo, right before opening night, she comes up to me and says I can’t do it. Liability, whatever.”
“Liability, my ass. She just didn’t understand. Her and those assholes on the board – I saw them, that night, whispering to themselves, looking down their noses at me, laughing. So,” he continued, smile growing wider, “I blew that smug look off their faces.” His face twitched. “Uh, didn’t mean to bring the whole place down though. Forgot about my extra stash downstairs. But that bang — ” he smiled dreamily, “— it lit up the whole night sky.”
“And the explosions after?” June asked hollowly.
Deidara shrugged. “I got Smith that night, but some of those fucks made it out without a scratch. I had to finish it. You understand. Those last finishing touches, yeah.” He laughed.
June stared. She felt distinctly dislocated, her voice coming out of her from the bottom of a well. “I see. So, to sum up: you felt like Smith, and the rest of the Kranet board, were disrespecting and restraining your artistic vision.”
She swallowed. Her throat was dry. “So you decided to prove yourself to them and retaliate by blowing up the museum — albeit somewhat on accident — killing both Smith and bystanders, and then killing the rest of the board in targeted attacks at other locations.”
The callousness of Deidara’s anger struck her. June still remembered, with stark clarity, sitting on her couch, the awful plunging in her gut as she read the news of the explosion. So many dead. She’d been a regular visitor to the Kranet in college, enamored with their contemporary collection. When she needed a moment of peace, she often sat on a sagging armchair on the second floor, where she could gaze upon a piece called Wave. The artist had woven scrap metal into a quilt like form that undulated across the wall. In late afternoon, the sun’s rays reflected off of it into a thousand small flecks of light.
Deidara smiled. “Exactly. I knew you’d get it.”
Now Wave was melted into a horrible twisted hunk of metal. June had seen pictures. What a terrible waste.
She took a breath, then continued. “Can you walk me through the events of that night as you remember it?”
“Rough conversation?”
June jolted up from where she’d been zoning out over her phone.
Just got out of the interview. He gave me everything: motive, method, life story, her last text read. I can have something for you to look at by EOD.
Great! Jiraiya had responded, followed by a kissy face emoji and a thumbs up emoji. Gross.
“Yeah, little bit,” she sighed as she chucked her phone into the depths of her bag.
“I can rough him up for ya,” Kenichi smiled. June couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Even seated a respectable four seat lengths away, his bulk seemed to swallow up the small space of the waiting room.
June grimaced. “That’s alright. Sorry for keeping you.” She realized she had no idea how long she’d sat there zoning out. “Do you know how long Itachi will be? I was hoping to catch him before he left.”
Even if he seemed like a jerk, Itachi was pretty high up in the local police department. It probably wouldn’t be extremely relevant to her usual beat, but you never knew when getting an in would be useful. Today’s events definitely proved that. At the very least, she could leave him her business card.
“Not sure. He’s interviewing the guy too, but he usually doesn’t take long.” His voice warmed, as if curling around some inside joke.
Huh. That was more info about Itachi’s deal than she’d managed to glean in an entire morning spent with the man in question. “Have you worked with him a lot?”
Kenichi chuffed out a short laugh, his voice coloring even further around something she couldn’t name. “You could say that.”
June squinted at him, puzzled. She opened her mouth to probe further, when —
BANG.
The world exploded. June blinked. The ceiling was hazy with smoke — the ceiling? She was on the floor. Her head hurt.
Something was ringing a high pitched sound into the air.
“Ma’am?” Someone was calling out. She opened her mouth to answer — bad idea. Now she was coughing.
Some crunching sounds. Kenichi’s face filled her vision. “Aw,” he said, “hold on,” and then the world tilted and wobbled ferociously as she was lifted up. Her stomach swooped alarmingly but held still. Good. She hated throwing up. Kenichi’s chest felt like a brick wall.
“You’re really strong,” June slurred out between coughs. “My stuff. Gotta …” Everything was so bright.
“I’ll get it,” Kenichi rumbled.
“‘Kay,” June mumbled, and passed out.
She awoke to muffled voices. Her head still hurt. The rocking motion of her body felt bad.
“… think he’ll manage to outwit you this time?”
Ah, Kenichi was holding her as he walked. Her stomach flopped with each step.
“No. He’ll realize the futility within a week.”
Was that … Itachi?
“Of course. And then you’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse?”
Another step. Crunch.
“Man, I didn’t think he’d do this though. This has got to be the most exciting recruitment yet.”
“I’ll inform our leader of today’s events. You call it in.”
“Sure — aw, man.”
“Sorry,” June rasped. She’d tried to puke to the side, but she had a sinking feeling she’d managed to get her sick all over Kenichi’s arms instead. “‘M gonna pass out again,” she announced, and did just that.
“Ready for your visitors?”
“No,” June sighed. She felt like dried-up ass. At least they’d dimmed the lights in her hospital room to help her headache. “But let them in anyways.”
Her nurse, who had a fantastic head of bright pink hair, nodded and left.
“June!” Amy burst into the room. “Oh my god. You look awful. How are you feeling?”
“Thanks,” she sighed, “Pretty bad. But apparently I just have a concussion. They’re letting me go home tomorrow morning if things look okay.”
She squinted over Amy’s shoulder, where Jiraiya had manifested like a boil. His left cheek looked suspiciously red.
“Did you harass the nurse?” June asked.
“You wound me, June,” he whined. Amy rolled her eyes.
June concentrated on the important facts. “They’re a little dusty, but I have all my notes and the recording of the interview.”
“That’s great,” Jiraiya said as he pulled up a chair. “Take all the time you need to rest first.”
Amy chimed in. “Yeah, you literally got caught in a massive explosion.”
“At least no one died this time,” June sighed. “Right?”
Jiraiya nodded. “And Deidara’s in the wind again, so we don’t need to publish immediately.”
“And again, massive explosion,” Amy emphasized. She slanted a stink eye towards Jiraiya.
June nodded, her mind catching on Jiraiya’s statement. “I’ll rest, don’t worry. But — Jiraiya, can we talk about something that came up? Related to the piece.”
“Well, I guess that’s my cue,” Amy shuffled closer. Her exasperated face softened. “Can I give you a hug?”
June nodded, and then she was enveloped in a cloud of vanilla perfume and soft hair. “I’m glad you’re alive,” Amy whispered. She sounded choked up. “I’ll be back tomorrow to pick you up.”
June felt a rush of similar relief cracking open in response, bruised and tender. “Me too,” she whispered. Her eyes felt wet. “Thanks for — thanks, Amy.”
It took her a moment to get the tears under control after Amy left. When June looked up, Jiraiya was looking at her with a fond, sad smile. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think this would happen.”
June huffed out a short breath of laughter. “I mean, how could you predict this?” She sighed. “But anyways. When Kenichi — he was the prison worker — was carrying me out of there, I overheard him chatting with Itachi. I think they thought I was passed out, and I was pretty out of it, but I definitely remember them talking about recruiting Deidara for something. It seemed like they were working together.”
As she spoke, Jiraiya’s face grew darker, until he looked the most serious she’d ever seen him. It was jarring.
He let out a deep breath. “You have good instincts. But some things are better left alone.”
She watched his face carefully as she answered. “So something is afoot.”
No reaction. “You should focus on recovering and then the profile, in that order.” His face was stoney like a grave. “I already lost one reporter to this guy. I don’t need another. You understand me?”
Jiraiya’s tone brokered no arguments. “I understand.”
He looked at her, still bearing that strange serious countenance. “Thank you.” And then his face split like a trick, back into the silly perverted editor she knew. “Text me when you’re out. And tell Sakura she has a mean right hook.”
“Who?”
“Your nurse,” he winked.
“Gross!” June groaned. “Get out of here.”
As she watched him walk out of the room, June realized something: Jiraiya’s slumped shoulders, the long exhale he let out — he was relieved that she’d backed off.
June frowned. With a warning like that, it’d be stupid not to listen.
But, hell. What was going on in this town?