User loginUpcoming eventsEvents
SearchRSS Feeds |
EventsFriday April 2, 2010
Start: 17:00
Start: Apr 2 2010 - 17:00
End: Apr 3 2010 - 17:00
In conjunction with the exhibition Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan 1950-1970, The University of Michigan Museum of Art will present a two-day international symposium and performance considering experimental art of 1960s Japan in a broader cultural and geographical context. The symposium begins with a keynote lecture delivered by Reiko Tomii, an independent scholar and leading authority on postwar Japanese art, followed by a special performance by Ei Arakawa, a New York-based The second day of the symposium features papers by an Generously funded by the Center for Japanese Studies and the Department of History of Art, this event is co-organized with University of Michigan Museum of Art and Department of History of Art, in association with PoNJA-GenKon, a listserv group dedicated to contemporary Japanese art (www.ponja-genkon.net). Keynote lecture with Reiko Tomii Performance by Ei Arakawa Papers Saturday, April 3, 9:30 am-5 pm All events are free and open to the public. University of Michigan Museum of Art -------------------------------------- ABSTRACTS When Artists Beat Historians: A Legacy of 1960s Japanese Art Continued What does it mean for an artist to play an art historian? Artist-historians are not a rare breed in post-1945 Japanese art. Notable examples include Murakami Takashi, whose Superflat trilogy represents his interest in both traditional and postmodern art practices; Ozawa Tsuyoshi, who, just like his senior Morimura Yasumasa, appropriates the entire art histories, both Western and Easter in his Soy Sauce Museum; Nakazawa Hideki, whose publications serve as an accessible entrance to art history with their “handmade” quality; and Sugimoto Hiroshi, whose art collections create a background to his art practices in the exhibition History of History. (Ei Arakawa, who will present a special performance following this lecture, also belongs to this artist-historians lineage.) Prefaced by these recent examples, this lecture will explore two pioneering artist-historians emerging from the expanded 1960s (1954-1974), who have continued to cultivate the model of artists taking on art history into the 21st century: Akasegawa Genpei and Hikosaka Naoyoshi. Both are gifted conceptualists and have recently developed in each own way remarkably populist-oriented practices of history-writing. Best known for Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident (1963-1974), Akasegawa co-authored (with an art historian Yamashita Y?ji) a series of Cheer Leaders for Japanese Art (Nihon bijutsu ?endan). A member of the radical Biky?t? group and known for his Floor Event project, Hikosaka initiated a collaborative “imaginary plan” of The New Imperial Museum for Super-First-Class Japanese Art, which will be published in March 2010. "Fluxus Nexus/Tokyo-New York" Since its beginning, Fluxus has been transnational with its open-ended ideas and practice permeating among like-minded artists across the globe. Fluxus included an unusually large number of Japanese artists such as Yoko Ono, Ay-O, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Sigeko Kubota, Takehisa Kosugi, and Yasunao Tone. Through frequent travels and correspondences, these artists bridged vanguard communities in Tokyo and New York, infusing Fluxus concepts and events with new artistic developments in Japan. This paper examines the history of Japanese reception of Fluxus as just as importantly, its continuing legacy into the 21st century. "Introducing the Art under the Nuclear Umbrella: 'The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture' at the Museum of Modern Art, New York" This paper examines the introduction of postwar Japanese art to the United States in the 1960s, focusing on the exhibition "The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture," organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Shown at eight different venues in 1965–67, the exhibition, featuring works by 46 Japanese artists, was the first large-scale exhibition of postwar Japanese art in the country. Behind this promotion of Japanese modern art was the patronage of John D. Rockefeller III, who attended the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1951 and was since committed to foster cultural exchange between the two countries. His agenda was at once cultural and political: JDR III believed in the importance of improving Japan’s image in the U.S., so that Japan could play its economical and political role in the Cold War regime. The exhibition "The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture" was part of such cultural exchange program, as it originated from MoMA’s International Program, not its curatorial department. In fact, archival documents at the museum reveal that William S. Lieberman, co-curator for the exhibition, organized the show out of obligation rather than his curatorial will. This raises a critical question about the overseas reputation of postwar Japanese art: was it a mere product of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War era, born and flourished under the protection of U.S.’s nuclear umbrella? This question has much critical resonances today, when the end of the Cold War regime and the rise of Chinese art are drastically changing the geopolitical map of the international art scene. "The Voiceless Voice: Orality and Sixties Japanese Culture" In 1972, critic and curator Nakahara Y?suke published a short essay titled "The Voiceless Voice." In it, he posited two trajectories of manga: one descendant from animation and the moving image (epitomized by Tezuka Osamu) and one that embodied the oral ghosts of the popular theatrical form kamishibai (represented by Shirato Sanpei). Using Nakahara’s text as a point of departure, this paper will explore connections between a nexus of phenomena in 60s-early 70s Japan – the labeling of television animation as "electric kamishibai," playwright and filmmaker Terayama Sh?ji’s valorization of live speech over the dead letter, and the appraisal of emaki within art historical studies as a visual aid for etoki oral storytelling – that shared an oftentimes nostalgic investment in orality as a vitalizing, populist, culturally legitimizing force. "Away from Center: Radical Times in Art History" Sometimes, even the passage of time cannot tame the unruly. Getty Center concerns over nakedness led to the cancellation of a rare US screening in 2007 of Kato Yoshihiro’s White Rabbit of Inaba (Inaba no shirousagi, 1970), planned as part of the “Rajikaru!” series which accompanied the Getty Research Institute’s “Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art” exhibition. Likewise, in 2009, when Kato and Asakawa Haruka adapted Zero Jigen’s ritual march for a hybrid Tokyo performance that would include the same White Rabbit footage, some players kept their underpants even as the film exposed a far looser relation to corporeal privacy. This paper is concerned far less with the imperiled nudity of today’s Japanese male, and far more with the politics of historiography. Surveying the differing conclusions that Burger, Huyssen, Suarez and Rancière draw about avant-garde politicality, I interrogate specifically how art historical approaches to Japan’s 1960s have struggled, often unsuccessfully, to denominate the political intensity of the period. My queries consider two areas: 1) questions of periodization and 2) questions of mediatization. In considering the implications of theoretical models of vangardism for the Japanese 1960s, I look for alternatives to disciplinary orthodoxies of both time and medium within the work of Jonouchi Motoharu, the Sogetsukan, and the anti-World Expo hanpaku movement. Saturday April 3, 2010
End: 17:00
Start: Apr 2 2010 - 17:00
End: Apr 3 2010 - 17:00
In conjunction with the exhibition Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan 1950-1970, The University of Michigan Museum of Art will present a two-day international symposium and performance considering experimental art of 1960s Japan in a broader cultural and geographical context. The symposium begins with a keynote lecture delivered by Reiko Tomii, an independent scholar and leading authority on postwar Japanese art, followed by a special performance by Ei Arakawa, a New York-based The second day of the symposium features papers by an Generously funded by the Center for Japanese Studies and the Department of History of Art, this event is co-organized with University of Michigan Museum of Art and Department of History of Art, in association with PoNJA-GenKon, a listserv group dedicated to contemporary Japanese art (www.ponja-genkon.net). Keynote lecture with Reiko Tomii Performance by Ei Arakawa Papers Saturday, April 3, 9:30 am-5 pm All events are free and open to the public. University of Michigan Museum of Art -------------------------------------- ABSTRACTS When Artists Beat Historians: A Legacy of 1960s Japanese Art Continued What does it mean for an artist to play an art historian? Artist-historians are not a rare breed in post-1945 Japanese art. Notable examples include Murakami Takashi, whose Superflat trilogy represents his interest in both traditional and postmodern art practices; Ozawa Tsuyoshi, who, just like his senior Morimura Yasumasa, appropriates the entire art histories, both Western and Easter in his Soy Sauce Museum; Nakazawa Hideki, whose publications serve as an accessible entrance to art history with their “handmade” quality; and Sugimoto Hiroshi, whose art collections create a background to his art practices in the exhibition History of History. (Ei Arakawa, who will present a special performance following this lecture, also belongs to this artist-historians lineage.) Prefaced by these recent examples, this lecture will explore two pioneering artist-historians emerging from the expanded 1960s (1954-1974), who have continued to cultivate the model of artists taking on art history into the 21st century: Akasegawa Genpei and Hikosaka Naoyoshi. Both are gifted conceptualists and have recently developed in each own way remarkably populist-oriented practices of history-writing. Best known for Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident (1963-1974), Akasegawa co-authored (with an art historian Yamashita Y?ji) a series of Cheer Leaders for Japanese Art (Nihon bijutsu ?endan). A member of the radical Biky?t? group and known for his Floor Event project, Hikosaka initiated a collaborative “imaginary plan” of The New Imperial Museum for Super-First-Class Japanese Art, which will be published in March 2010. "Fluxus Nexus/Tokyo-New York" Since its beginning, Fluxus has been transnational with its open-ended ideas and practice permeating among like-minded artists across the globe. Fluxus included an unusually large number of Japanese artists such as Yoko Ono, Ay-O, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Sigeko Kubota, Takehisa Kosugi, and Yasunao Tone. Through frequent travels and correspondences, these artists bridged vanguard communities in Tokyo and New York, infusing Fluxus concepts and events with new artistic developments in Japan. This paper examines the history of Japanese reception of Fluxus as just as importantly, its continuing legacy into the 21st century. "Introducing the Art under the Nuclear Umbrella: 'The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture' at the Museum of Modern Art, New York" This paper examines the introduction of postwar Japanese art to the United States in the 1960s, focusing on the exhibition "The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture," organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Shown at eight different venues in 1965–67, the exhibition, featuring works by 46 Japanese artists, was the first large-scale exhibition of postwar Japanese art in the country. Behind this promotion of Japanese modern art was the patronage of John D. Rockefeller III, who attended the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1951 and was since committed to foster cultural exchange between the two countries. His agenda was at once cultural and political: JDR III believed in the importance of improving Japan’s image in the U.S., so that Japan could play its economical and political role in the Cold War regime. The exhibition "The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture" was part of such cultural exchange program, as it originated from MoMA’s International Program, not its curatorial department. In fact, archival documents at the museum reveal that William S. Lieberman, co-curator for the exhibition, organized the show out of obligation rather than his curatorial will. This raises a critical question about the overseas reputation of postwar Japanese art: was it a mere product of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War era, born and flourished under the protection of U.S.’s nuclear umbrella? This question has much critical resonances today, when the end of the Cold War regime and the rise of Chinese art are drastically changing the geopolitical map of the international art scene. "The Voiceless Voice: Orality and Sixties Japanese Culture" In 1972, critic and curator Nakahara Y?suke published a short essay titled "The Voiceless Voice." In it, he posited two trajectories of manga: one descendant from animation and the moving image (epitomized by Tezuka Osamu) and one that embodied the oral ghosts of the popular theatrical form kamishibai (represented by Shirato Sanpei). Using Nakahara’s text as a point of departure, this paper will explore connections between a nexus of phenomena in 60s-early 70s Japan – the labeling of television animation as "electric kamishibai," playwright and filmmaker Terayama Sh?ji’s valorization of live speech over the dead letter, and the appraisal of emaki within art historical studies as a visual aid for etoki oral storytelling – that shared an oftentimes nostalgic investment in orality as a vitalizing, populist, culturally legitimizing force. "Away from Center: Radical Times in Art History" Sometimes, even the passage of time cannot tame the unruly. Getty Center concerns over nakedness led to the cancellation of a rare US screening in 2007 of Kato Yoshihiro’s White Rabbit of Inaba (Inaba no shirousagi, 1970), planned as part of the “Rajikaru!” series which accompanied the Getty Research Institute’s “Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art” exhibition. Likewise, in 2009, when Kato and Asakawa Haruka adapted Zero Jigen’s ritual march for a hybrid Tokyo performance that would include the same White Rabbit footage, some players kept their underpants even as the film exposed a far looser relation to corporeal privacy. This paper is concerned far less with the imperiled nudity of today’s Japanese male, and far more with the politics of historiography. Surveying the differing conclusions that Burger, Huyssen, Suarez and Rancière draw about avant-garde politicality, I interrogate specifically how art historical approaches to Japan’s 1960s have struggled, often unsuccessfully, to denominate the political intensity of the period. My queries consider two areas: 1) questions of periodization and 2) questions of mediatization. In considering the implications of theoretical models of vangardism for the Japanese 1960s, I look for alternatives to disciplinary orthodoxies of both time and medium within the work of Jonouchi Motoharu, the Sogetsukan, and the anti-World Expo hanpaku movement.  
|
