Avant - Garde - Art - in - Postwar - Ja (Tiene Muy Buena Nformación Histórica, Leer Con Cuidado)

AVANT-GARDE ART IN POSTWAR JAPAN:
THE CULTURE AND POLITICS OF RADICAL CRITIQUE 1951-1970
BY
ALEXANDRA MUNROE
A dissertation submitted in partialfulfillment
o f the requirements for the degree of
Doctor o f Philo sophy
Department o f History
New York University
September 2004
Professor Harry Harootunian
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Munroe, Alexandra
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation expands upon my research of postwar
Japanese avant-garde art that I have conducted as a museum
curator for much of my professional career, and which has
been published in various exhibition catalogues,
specifically Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the
Sky.1 I am enormously grateful to my chief academic advisors
1 Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against

the Sky (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with
the Yokohama Museum of Art, The Japan Foundation, The
Guggenheim Museum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) .
The exhibition opened at the Yokohama Museum of Art (February
5-March 30, 1994) then toured to the Guggenheim Museum SoHo
(September 14, 1994-January 8, 1995) and the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art in association with the Center for the
Arts at Yerba Buena (May 31-August 27, 1995) . An abridged
version of the catalogue was published in Japanese, Sengo
Nihon no Zen'ei Bijustu (Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art
and Yomiuri Shimbun, Inc., 1994). Other publications that
feature portion of texts presented here in revised form are:
Alexandra Munroe, "Obsession, Fantasy, and Outrage: The Art
of Yayoi Kusama" in Bhupendra Karia, ed. , Yayoi Kusama: A
Retrospective (New York: Center for International
Contemporary Arts, 1989); Alexandra Munroe, "With the
Suddenness of Creation: Trends in Abstract Painting in Japan
and China, 1945-1970" in Jeffrey Wechsler, ed. , Asian
Traditions/Modern Expressions: Asian American artists and
Abstraction, 1945-1970 (New York and Rutgers: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc. in association with Jane Vorhees Zimmerli Art
Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 1997);
Sandra S. Phillips, Alexandra Munroe, and Daido Moriyama,
Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog (San Francisco; San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art and Distributed Art Publishers, 1999);
iv
at New York University, Harry Harootunian and the late Kirk
Varnedoe, for their encouragement, support, and intellectual
guidance that has ensured the completion of my graduate work
while maintaining full-time administrative and curatorial
positions here and in Japan.
My scholarly and curatorial research has benefited from
relationships with numerous teachers, colleagues, gallery
directors, artists, and critics both in Japan and the West.
I feel extremely fortunate to have known so many brilliant
individuals whose stories, thoughts, and insights have
contributed in myriad ways to my work. As it is impossible
to acknowledge everyone who has influenced my research over
the course of some twenty years, I name only those whose
contributions were most significant.
My most devoted intellectual partner on this project
has been New York scholar Reiko Tomii, whose mastery of both
Japanese and Euro-American modern art history and postmodern
critiques is outstanding. Dr. Tomii assisted me in the
translation of several texts, and our discussions that
followed stimulated ideas that helped shape this project's
thesis. In Japan, I owe profound thanks to Asano Taro and
and Alexandra Munroe with Jon Hendricks, YES YOKO 0N0 (New
York: Japan Society, Inc. and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000) .
Kashiwagi Tomoo of the Yokohama Museum of Art, who supported
my research and encouraged the somewhat controversial
narrative of postwar Japanese art which I presented under
their institution's auspices. This work has also benefited
from the intellectual stimulation of the following scholars,
critics and curators: Asada Akira of Kyoto University
Research Center; Chiba Shigeo, formerly of the National
Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; architect and critic Isozaki
Arata; Karatani Kojin of Hosei University, Tokyo; Kasahara
Michiko of the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo;
Kawasaki Koichi of the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History;
critic Kobata Kazue; Komoto Shinji of the National Museum
of Modern Art, Kyoto; Kuroda Raiji of the Fukuoka Art Museum;
Minami Yusuke of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT) ;
Minemura Toshiaki of Tama Fine Arts University, Tokyo; Ono
Masaharu; Osaki Shin'ichiro, formerly of the Hyogo
Prefectural Museum of Modern Art and currently at the Museum
of Modern Art, Kyoto; Sakai Tadayasu of the Kamakura Museum
of Modern Art; Satani Kazuhiko, gallerist; critic Shinoda
Tatsumi; Takashina Shuji of Tokyo University; Tatehata Akira
of Tama Fine Arts University, Tokyo; critic Tono Yoshiaki;
Uchiyama Takeo of the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and Yaguchi
Kunio, formerly of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
vi
(MOT). I am especially grateful to Nakajima Masatoshi for
allowing access to his formidable archive and bibliographies
of modern Japanese art which form the basis of the
bibliography presented here. I was also fortunate to have
access to the archives and personal papers of several
artists, many of whom granted extensive and repeated
interviews. I have acknowledged these individuals in the
Notes to each Chapter.
I offer profound thanks to my dissertation advisor,
Harry Harootunian. Along with Carol Gluck of Columbia
University, he sanctioned and encouraged my transfer from
graduate work in art history at the Institute of Fine Arts
to graduate work in intellectual history at his
recently-established East Asian Studies Department at New
York University. I owe the completion of this dissertation
to Professor Harootunian, whose pioneering work in modern
Japanese intellectual history has offered a model of
scholarly inquiry that my own research can barely mirror.
At NYU downtown, I am grateful to Professors Rebecca Karl
and Louise Young who welcomed my cultural research agenda,
and whose work inspired me to undertake new critical
methodologies foreign to one trained as an object-based art
historian. Other scholars in the West who have shared
vii
research ideas, stimulated conversations, and offered
suggestions are: John Clark of University of Sydney;
independent scholar Ellen Conant; independent scholar Jon
Hendricks; Vera Linhartova of the Musee Guimet, Paris;
Barbara London of Museum of Modern Art, New York; Sandra
Phillips of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Thomas Rimer
of the University of Pittsburgh; Henry Smith of Columbia
University; Bert Winther-Tamaki of University of California
at Irvine; and Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan of Yale University.
I would like to thank Haruko Hoyle and John Hoyle for
their assistance in preparing the manuscript; and Reiko Tomii
and Kathleen Friello for their editorial work on the original
1994 text. Research for this project was generously
supported by grants from the Asian Cultural Council and The
Japan Foundation.
Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Robert
Rosenkranz, whose profound respect for intellectual
excellence and artistic creativity has inspired my studies —
and our life together.
viii
ABSTRACT
This dissertation of avant-garde art in postwar Japan
is based upon a previous publication by the author titled
Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky (New York:
Harry N. Abrams, 1994). Focusing on key art movements and
artists' groups which defined postwar discourses on radical
critique, this history charts the intellectual, aesthetic,
and stylistic developments of avant-garde art in Japan from
circa 1951 to 1970, a period defined by the leftist struggle
against the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, known
as Anpo.
Both American and Japanese historians have studied the
sociopolitical debates that mark the postwar period. What
is less well-known is the history of new artistic forms and
practices that emerged from this era of unprecedented
upheaval, and how radical artists' strategies underscored
and reworked the leftist discourses on democratic
revolution, political subjectivity, and cultural anarchism.
This study examines the avant-garde within the broader
context of postwar Japanese social, political, and cultural
history, focusing on its vigorous critique of the ruling
ix
ideologies of modernization and its opposition to
institutionalized culture and politics.
This dissertation originated as an art historical
research topic and certain formalist modes of stylistic
analysis and aesthetic interpretation prevail. Among the
questions explored here are: How can national
characteristics of modern art be defined within a global
discourse of modernity and modernism? If originality is the
crux of the modernist adventure, how do we interpret this
work within the framework of the modernist discourse?
Drawing on extensive primary sources and interviews,
this dissertation aims to construct the first history in
English of the following art movements: Gutai Art
Association, Bokujin-kai and Sodeisha, the Yomiuri
Independent's Anti-Art groups, Obsessional Art and Ankoku
Butoh dance, VIVO and the Postwar School of Photography,
Tokyo Fluxus and Conceptual Art, and the Mono-ha movement.
The Introduction describes the Anpo movement, whose
periodization defines this study; reviews the Taisho and
Showa prehistory of the Japanese avant-garde; explores the
discourse on cultural autonomy in modern Japanese
intellectual debates; and offers a theoretical framework
for defining the terminology of "radical critique." The
Conclusion reviews the contradictions inherent in the
Japanese avant-garde's embrace of leftist cultural
critiques, and identifies problematic issues of
historicizing zen'ei (avant-garde) and gendai
(contemporary) art.
xi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv
ABSTRACT IX
LIST OF PLATES XV
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: THE CULTURE AND POLITICS OF

THE JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE 1
1.1 Periodization: The Anpo Movement
1.2 Art, Individualism, and Self-Expression:

A Prehistory of the Culture of Opposition
1.3 Surrealism and the State: The Aesthetics

of Resistance
1.4 Avant-Garde Art and the Question of

Everyday Life
1.5 The Discourse on Autonomous Modernity
1.6 On Interpreting the Japanese Avant-garde:

A Review of the Field
CHAPTER 2. THE GUTAI GROUP 84
2.1 Yoshihara and Postwar Japanese Art
2.2 The Formative Phase: Yoshihara's Atelier

and the Zero Society
2.3 Early Gutai
2.4 Gutai Performance
2.5 Gutai Painting
2.6 The Critical Legacy
Xll
CHAPTER 3. IMAGINING JAPAN: AVANT-GARDISM AND THE
TRADITIONAL ARTS 136
3.1 The Postwar Discourse on Tradition
3.2 The Bokujin-kai Calligraphy Society
3.3 Sodeisha and Okamoto's Jomon Revival
3.4 Noguchi in Japan
CHAPTER 4. THE YOMIURI INDEPENDANT ARTISTS AND SOCIAL

PROTEST TENDENCIES IN THE 1960S 178
4.1 The 1960 Anpo Crisis
4.2 Emergence of VIVO and the Postwar School

of Photography
4.3 Moriyama: Photography as Postwar Landscape
4.4 The Yomiuri Independant Groups
CHAPTER 5. ANKOKU BUTOH AND OBSESSIONAL ART 237
5.1 Hijikata and the Dance of Utter Darkness
5.2 The Obsessional Artists
CHAPTER 6. TOKYO FLUXUS AND CONCEPTUAL ART 274
6.1 Takiguchi and the Japanese Interpretation

of Duchamp
6.2 Yoko Ono and Early Fluxus
6.3 Experimental Workshop and Group Ongaku
6.4 Tokyo Fluxus
6.5 Conceptual Art
6.6 The School of Metaphysics
xiii
CHAPTER 7. MONO-HA AND THE POSTWAR CRITIQUE OF
MODERNITY 330
7.1 Saito and the Critique of Modernity
7.2 The Origins of Mono-ha
7.3 The Methods of Mono-ha
7.4 Beyond the Sculptural Paradigm
CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSION 372
8.1 On Ruins and the Critique of Nationhood
8.2 Postwar Avant-Garde as History
BIBLIOGRAPHY 402
Notes to the Reader: In accordance with Japanese practice,

Japanese names are written surname first. Exception are made
for Japanese-Americans, such as Isamu Noguchi, or
Japanese-born individuals who reside permanently abroad, such
as Shigeko Kubota and Yoko Ono. Macrons are used to indicate
long vowels in Japanese names and words, with the exception
of those standardized in the English language, such as Tokyo
and Showa.
xiv
LIST OF PLATES
All dimensions in inches.
CHAPTER 2
THE GUTAI GROUP
Plate 1. SHIMAMOTO Shozo. Work: Holes (Sakuhin: Ana) . 1950-52.
Paint and pencil on newspaper, attached to wooden
stretcher. 76% x 51%. Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 2. YOSHIDA Toshio. Red (Aka). 1954. Paint, rope, and
nails on board. 45^ x 33^. Ashiya City Museum of Art
and History.
Plate 3. Left: Gutai, no. 5 (1 October 1956), cover. Right:
Gutai, no. 3 (20 October 1955), cover.
Plate 4. The "Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition," Ashiya, July
1956.
Plate 5. Georges Mathieu, dressed in kimono, demonstrating
"action painting" at the Daimaru Department Store,
Osaka, September 1957.
Plate 6. TANAKA Atsuko. Work (Sakuhin) . 1955. Crayon on cloth.
32^ x 21%. Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 7. TANAKA Atsuko. Untitled—Study for Bell Piece. 1955.
Four drawings, ink and pencil on paper. 15% diameter
(top left) ; 155-6 x 10% (bottom left) ; 11% x 16 (both
right). Collection the artist.
Plate 8. TANAKA Atsuko. Electric Dress (Denki-fuku). 1956/
1985. Painted light bulbs, electric cords, and timer.
65 x 3 m x 31h. Takamatsu City Museum of Art.
Plate 9. TANAKA Atsuko. Work (Sakuhin). 1958. Enamel on
canvas. 33% x 12%. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern
Art, Kobe.
Plate 10. KANAYAMA Akira. Work (Sakuhin). 1957. Mixed media,
drawn by an automatic device on vinyl. 71 x 109^. The
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe.
Plate 11. SHIRAGA Kazuo. Work II (Sakuhin II). 1958. Oil on
paper mounted on canvas. 72 x 95%. The Hyogo Prefectural
Museum of Modern Art, Kobe.
Plate 12. SHIRAGA Kazuo . Wild Boar Hunting (Shishigari) . 1963.
Oil and boar hide on canvas. 73 x 8056. The Hyogo
Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe.
Plate 13. MOTONAGA Sadamasa. Without Words. 1959. Acrylic
xv
on canvas . 63 x 55. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern
Art, Kobe.
Plate 14. MOTONAGA Sadamasa. Water (Mizu) . 1957. Metal frames,
plastic, and water. 196^ x 35^ x 35^. The Hyogo
Plate 15. SHIMAMOTO Shbzo. Work (Sakuhin) . 1961. Oil and glass
on canvas. 101 x 7 63^. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of
Modern Art, Kobe.
Plate 16. YOSHIHARA Jiro. Red Circle on Black (Kuroji ni akai
en) . 1965. Acrylic on canvas. 71^ x 89%. The Hyogo
Plate 17. YOSHIHARA Jiro. White Circle on Black (Kuroji ni
shiroi en). 1968. Acrylic on canvas. 16% x 102. The
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
Plate 18. YOSHIHARA Michio. Hill of Sand (Suna no yama).
1962/1994. Sand, rope, and three electric light bulbs.
21% (high); 59 (diameter). Collection the artist.
Plate 19. MURAKAMI Sabuo performing At One Moment Opening
Six Holes (Isshun ni shite rokko no ana o akeru) at the
"1st Gutai Art Exhibition" held at the Ohara Kaikan hall,
Tokyo, October 1955.
Plate 20. SHIRAGA Kazuo performing Challenging Mud (Doro ni
idomu) at the "1st Gutai Art Exhibition" held at the
Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, October 1955.
Plate 21. YOSHIHARA Jiro floating in a boat with objects
emerging from the shallow waters of the ruins of Mukogawa
River, whose embankments had been bombed during the war;
performed for Life magazine photographers at the "One
Day Only Outdoor Exhibition (The Ruins)" in Amagasaki,
9 April 1956.
Plate 22. SHIRAGA Kazuo painting with his feet at the "2nd
Gutai Art Exhibition" held at the Ohara Kaikan hall,
Tokyo, October 1956.
Plate 23. SHIMAMOTO Shozo making a painting by throwing
bottles of paint, at the "2nd Gutai Art Exhibition" held
at the Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, October 1956.
Plate 24. TANAKA Atsuko wearing Electric Dress (Denki-fuku)
at the "2nd Gutai Art Exhibition" held at the Ohara Kaikan
hall, Tokyo, October 1956.
Plate 25. SHIRAGA Kazuo performing The Modern Transcendent
Sambaso (Chogendai Sambaso) in "Gutai Art on the Stage"
performed at the Sankei Kaikan hall, Osaka in May and
the Sankei Hall, Tokyo in July 1957.
Plate 26. YOSHIDA Toshio performing Ceremony by Cloth : Wedding
of Yoshida Toshio and Morita Kyoko (Nuno ni yoru gishiki)
in "Gutai Art on the Stage" performed at the Sankei Kaikan
xvi
hall, Osaka in May and the Sankei Hall, Tokyo in July
1957 .
Plate 27. KANAYAMA Akira performing The Giant Balloon (Kyodai
barun) in "Gutai Art on the Stage" presented at the Sankei
Kaikan hall, Osaka in May and the Sankei Hall, Tokyo
in July 1957.
CHAPTER 3
IMAGINING JAPAN: AVANT-GARDISM AND THE TRADITIONAL ARTS
Plate 28. INOUE Yuichi. Blank (Muga). 1956. Ink on paper
mounted on panel. 12k x 56k. The National Museum of Modern
Art, Kyoto.
Plate 29. INOUE Yuichi. Ah! Yokokawa National School (Ah!
Yokokawa kokumin gakko). 1978. Ink on paper. 57 x 96.
Unac Tokyo, Inc.
Plate 30. MORITA Shiryu. Offing (Okitsu). 1965. Four-panel
screen, pigment and lacquer on gold-leafed paper. 65k
x 122k. Kiyoshikojin Seicho-ji Temple.
Plate 31. TESHIGAHARA Sofia. White Clouds Come and Go (Hakuun
kyorai). 1958. Six-panel screen, ink on gold-leafed
silk. 68k x 126. The Sogetsu Art Museum, Tokyo.
Plate 32. NANTENBO Toju. Nanten Staff. Ink on paper, 58^ x
18k. Private Collection, Barrington, Illinois.
Plate 33. HIDAI Nankoku. Variation on "Lightning." 1945.
Ink on paper, 16k x 2 4^4. Chiba City Art Museum.
Plate 34. DOMON Ken. Detail of the Sitting Image of Buddha
Shakamuni in the Hall of Miroku, The Muroji. 1940.
Gelatin silver print, 23k x 16. The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Gift of the photographer.
Plate 35. DEGUCHI Onisaburd. Kiyoko. 1947-48. Ceramic tea
bowl. 3k x 3k x 3k. Private Collection.
Plate 36. DEGUCHI Onisaburd. Mizugaki. 1947-48. Ceramic tea
bowl. 4H x 3k x 3k. Private Collection.
Plate 37. YAGI Kazuo. Untitled (Black Ware). 1958. Ceramic
on wooden pedestal. 5k x 4k x 9. Kyoto Municipal Museum
of Art.
Plate 38. YAGI Kazuo. Work No.52 (The Eye at Rest). 1959.
Unglazed ceramic on wooden pedestal. 8k x 5k x 6k. Kyoto
Municipal Museum of Art.
Plate 39. YAGI Kazuo. Circle (Wa). 1967. Ceramic. 12x 12
x 3k. The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Plate 40. YAGI Kazuo. Wall (Kabe). 1963. Ceramic. 20k x 15k
x 3k. Private Collection.
Plate 41. Isamu NOGUCHI. Even the Centipede. 1952. Kasama
ware in eleven pieces, each approximately 18" wide,
xvii
mounted on wooden pole 14' high. The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. A. Conger Goodyear Fund.
Plate 42. Isamu NOGUCHI. Mortality. 1959-62. Bronze. 75^ x
151s x 12H. Yokohama Museum of Art.
Plate 43. Isamu NOGUCHI. Memorial to the Dead at Hiroshima.
1952. Composite photograph of plaster model for an
unrealized project; proposed height above ground 20'.
Lost.
CHAPTER 4
THE YOMIURI INDEPENDANT ARTISTS AND SOCIAL PROTEST TENDENCIES
IN THE 1960S
Plate 44. YAMASHITA Kiku ji . The Tale of Akebono Village. 1953.
Oil on jute. 53^ x 84^. Collection Gallery Nippon, Tokyo.
Plate 45. Demonstrators protesting against the U.S.-Japan
Security Treaty (Anpo) and surrounding the Diet
building, 18 June 1960.
Plate 46. Confrontation of the riot police and anti-Anpo
demonstrators, 15 June 1960.
Plate 47. DOMON Ken. From the series Hiroshima. 1957. Gelatin
silver print. Ken Domon Museum of Photography.
Plate 48. NARAHARA Ikko. From the series Human Land, Island
without Green, Gunkanjima. 1954-57. Gelatin silver
print. Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.
Plate 49. KAWADA Kikuji. The Japanese National Flag. 1960.
Gelatin silver print. 9H x 7 . The Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Gift of Armand P. Bartos.
Plate 50. TOMATSU Shomei. Hull of Japanese Ship. 1963. From
the series 11:02—Nagasaki (1966). Gelatin silver print.
16 x 10H. Collection the artist.
Plate 51. TOMATSU Shomei. Man with Keloidal Scars. 1962. From
the series 11:02—Nagasaki (1966). Gelatin silver print.
16^ x 102-8. Collection the artist.
Plate 52-1. TOMATSU Shomei. Protest, Tokyo. 1969. From the
series Oh! Shinjuku (1969). Gelatin silver print. 11^
x 16. Collection the artist.
Plate 52-2. TOMATSU Shomei. American Sailors, Yokosuka. 1966.
From the series Chewing Gum and Chocolate (1966) . Gelatin
silver print. 11^ x 16. Collection the artist.
Plate 53. TOMATSU Shomei. Aftermath of a Typhoon, Nagoya.
1959. From the series Nippon (1967). Gelatin silver
print. 6 x 10^. Collection the artist.
Plate 54. MORIYAMA Daido. Shinjuku Station. 1965. Gelatin
silver print. 6% x 8^. Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics.
xviii
Plate 55. MORIYAMA Daido. Yokosuka Whore. 1970. Gelatin silver
print. 10 7/16 x 6h. Collection of Sandra Lloyd.
Plate 56. MORIYAMA Daido. Setagaya, Tokyo. 1969. Gelatin
silver print. 8 x llh. Collection of the Tokyo Institute
of Polytechnics.
Plate 57. MORIYAMA Daido. From the series The Tales of Tono.
1974. Gelatin silver print. 13% x 16%. Courtesy of
Zeit-Foto.
Plate 58. NAKANISHI Natsuyuki. Clothespins Assert Churning
Action, shown at the "15th Yomiuri Independant
Exhibition," Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1963.
Plate 59. Nakanishi covered with clothespins for Hi Red
Center's 6th Mixer Plan, Tokyo, 28 May 1963.
Plate 60. Installation view of the "Room as Alibi" exhibition
at Naiqua Gallery, Tokyo. 1963.
Plate 61. Hi Red Center Poster. 1965. Fluxus printing, edited
by Shigeko Kubota and designed by George Maciunas. One
sheet printed on both sides. 22^ x 17. Collection Jon
and Joanne Hendricks, New York.
Plate 62. TAKAMATSU Jiro. String: Black (Himo: Kuro). 1962.
Objects wrapped in fabric and rope. 118" long.
Collection the artist.
Plate 63. AKASEGAWA Genpei. One-Thousand-Yen-Note Trial
Impounded Objects (Seized Works) (Sen-en satsu saiban
oshuhin). 1963. Collection the artist.
Catalogue of Seized Works (Sen-en satsu saiban oshuhin
mokuroku) . 1967. Poster. 30 x 24. Collection the artist.
Plate 65. AKASEGAWA Genpei. Morphology of Revenge (Fukushu
no keitaigaku) . 1968. Gouache on paper, mounted on panel.
35% x 11%. Collection the artist.
Plate 66. HI RED CENTER. ! 1964. Fluxus Edition; cloth with
grommets. 19^ x 19^. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman
Fluxus Collection, Detroit.
Plate 67-1. HI RED CENTER. Measurement documentation of, from
left to right, Akasegawa, Nakanishi, and Izumi. Three
blueprints. 18% x 31^ each. 1964. Private Collection.
Plate 67-2. HI RED CENTER. Relics of the Shelter Plan event
including development plan for Nam June Paik's shelter
box, invitation card, Hi Red Center's name card,
registration card and measurement record for each
visitor, instruction card, notes for visitors, hotel
receipt, and "cosmic can." 1964. Private Collection.
Plate 68. JONOUCHI Motoharu. Shelter Plan. 1964. Video
(original 16mm film), B/W, silent, 21 minutes. Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum.
xix
Plate 69. HI RED CENTER. The Ochanomizu Drop (Dropping Event)
was performed in and around the Ochanomizu section of
downtown Tokyo on 10 October 1964.
Plate 70. HI RED CENTER. Movement to Promote the Cleanup of
the Metropolitan Area (Be Clean! ) was performed in Tokyo
on 16 October 1964.
Plate 71. HI RED CENTER. One-Thousand-Yen-Note Trial (Sen-en
satsu saiban) began on 8 October 1966 in the Tokyo
District Court.
Plate 72. "Kyushu-ha 2nd Street Exhibition— Informel Outdoor
Exhibition," November 1957.
Plate 73. KIKUHATA Mokuma. Slave Genealogy (Dorei keizu).
1961/1983. Wood, bricks, fabric, metal, five-yen coins,
and candles. 1772s x 782s x 532s. Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum.
Plate 74. Shusaku ARAKAWA. Untitled Endurance I. 1958.
Cement, cloth, cotton, and wooden box. 84 x 36 x 5"h.
Takamatsu City Museum of Art.
Plate 75. Ushio SHINOHARA. Drink More. 1964. Fluorescent
paint, lacquer, plaster, and Coca-Cola bottle on canvas.
25k x 182s x 92®. Yokohama Museum of Art.
Plate 76. Ushio SHINOHARA. Coca-Cola Plan. 1964. Mixed media.
2 82® x 2 52s x 22s. The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama.
Plate 77. Yoshimura advertising the third exhibition of
Neo-Dada Organizers in the streets of Tokyo, 1960.
Plate 78. YOSHIMURA Masunobu. Pig Lib (Buta: Piggu ribu).
1971. Stuffed pig, plastic, and wax. 28h x 53h x 32h.
The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe.
Plate 79. MURAOKA Saburo. Thanatos D. 1975. Gun, official
bulletin of war dead, and glass vitrine on plaster table.
352® x 702® x 352®. The National Museum of Art, Osaka.
Plate 80. YOKOO Tadanori. Postwar (The Direct Aftermath of
World War II) . 1986. Silkscreen on ceramic tile. 782s
x 782s. Kara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
CHAPTER 5
ANKOKU BUTOH AND OBSESSIONAL ART
Plate 81. KUDO Tetsumi. Homage to the Young Generation— The
Cocoon Opens (Wakai sedai e no sanka-mayu wa hiraku) .
1968. Mixed media. Overall: 782s x 59 x 472s. Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 82. KUDO Tetsumi. Your Portrait. 1974. Cage and mixed
media. 112® x 132® x 9. Yokohama Museum of Art.
Plate 83. KUDO Tetsumi. Waiting for the Revelation in the
Rain of Hereditary Chromosomes. 1979. Cage and mixed
xx
media. 16% x 13^6 x 7 %. The National Museum of Art, Osaka.
Plate 84. KUDO Tetsumi. Waiting for the Revelation in the
Rain of Hereditary Chromosomes. 1979. Cage and mixed
media. 1913 x 15h x 11^. The Tokushima Modern Art Museum.
Plate 85. KUSAMA Yayoi. Accumulation #1. 1962. Mixed media.
37 x 39 x 43. Collection Beatrice Perry.
Plate 86. KUSAMA Yayoi. My Flower Bed. 1962. Stuffed cotton
gloves and bed springs, painted red. 98^ x 98^ x 98^.
Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou.
Plate 87. KUSAMA Yayoi. Traveling Life. 1964. Stuffed cloth
protuberances and high-heeled shoes attached to ladder.
91H x 32H x 5 9x
^. The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
Plate 88. Kusama's Orgy Happening and Burning of the Flag,
dubbed on "anti-war demonstration" on the Brooklyn
Bridge, New York, 1968.
Plates 8 9 to 91. ASAOKA Keiko and MIKI Tomio. The Ear No.
1001. 197 6. Three drawings from a series of thirty, lead
stick on paper. 4 9^4 x 31h or 37h x 4 9% each. Collection
Asaoka Keiko.
Plate 92. MIKI Tomio. Ear. c.1972. Aluminum. 31 x 18^ x 6%.
The Tokushima Modern Art Museum.
Plates 93 and 94 . HI JIKATA Tatsumi performing Hijikata Tatsumi
and the Japanese—Revolt of the Flesh (Hijikata Tatsumi
to nihonj in—Nikutai no hanran) at the Seinen Kaikan hall,
Tokyo, 1968. Photos by Nakatani Tadao (93) and Doi Nori
(94) . Photo courtesy Tatsumi Hi jikata Memorial Archives .
Plate 95. HOSOE Eiko. Kamaitachi (performance by Hijikata
Tatsumi).
Plate 96. HOSOE Eiko. Ordeal by Roses, #32 (Portrait of Mishima
Yukio) . 1961.
CHAPTER 6
TOKYO FLUXUS AND CONCEPTUAL ART
Plates 97 to 99. Yoko 0N0. Instructions for Paintings: Smoke
Painting (97); Painting to Hammer a Nail (98); Portrait
of Mary: Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through
(99). First exhibited at Sogetsu Art Center, May 1962.
1962. Three from the series of twenty-two works, ink
on paper. Approximately 9H x 14% each. Collection Gilvert
and Lila Silverman, Detroit.
Plate 100. Yoko ONO. Pointedness. 1964/1966. Crystal sphere
set on engraved plexiglass pedestal with plexiglass
vitrine. Pedestal: 58^ x 10^ x 10. Collection the artist.
Forget It. 1966. Stainless steel needle set on engraved
plexiglass pedestal with plexiglass vitrine. Pedestal:
xx i
52^ x ll^g x 12. Collection the artist.
Plate 101. Ono performing Cut Piece at Yamaichi Concert Hall,
Kyoto, 1964. Photo courtesy Lenono Photo archive.
Plate 102. Kubota performing Vagina Painting at Cinematheque,
New York as part of Perpetual Fluxus Festival, 4 July
1965. Photo by George Maciunas; courtesy The Gilvert
and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit.
Plate 103. FLUXUS. Fluxus 1. 1965. Fluxus Edition; mixed media
book in wooden box. Dimensions variable. The Gilvert
Plate 104. Performance relic of KOSUGI Takehisa's Theater
Music, a component of Fluxus 1. 1965. Footprint on
Japanese paper and score offset on card stock.
Dimensions variable. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman
Plate 105. AY-O. Finger Box. c.1964-65. Fluxus Edition; mixed
media in suitcase. Closed: 11H x 17^3 x 5H. The Gilvert
Plate 106. AY-O. Ay-O's Rainbow Tactile Staircase
Environment. 1965. Pencil, ballpoint pen, and ink on
graph paper. 11H x 11. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman
Plate 107. Takako SAITO. Sound Chess. 1965-C.1977. Artist's
Edition; wooden object filled with unknown contents,
wooden board, and box. 12^ x 12^ x 2^. The Gilvert and
Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit.
Plate 108. KOSUGI Takehisa. Events. 1965. Fluxus Edition;
offset on card stock, plastic box, and offset label.
Plate 109. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Endless Box, a component
of Fluxkit. 1963-1965. Approximately 30 folded paper
boxes, wooden box and lid, and offset label. Dimensions
variable. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus
Collection, Detroit.
Plate 110. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Events and Games.
1964-C.1965. Fluxus Edition: translucent plastic box
with label containing various scores. Dimensions
variable. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus
Plate 111. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Water Music, a component
of Fluxkit. 1964. Assorted glass bottles with labels
and contents. Largest bottle: 3h x 1H x 1. The Gilvert
Plate 112. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Spatial Poem, N o .1. 1965.
Fluxus Edition; stenciled map on board, sixty-nine
xxii
printed cards with pins, and cardboard box. 11H x 18
x 'h. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection,
Detroit.
Plates 113-1 to 113-3. ICHIYANAGI Toshi. IBM for Merce
Cunningham and Music for Electronic Metronome.
1960/1963. Fluxus Edition; blueprint positive, two score
sheets, and instruction page. The Gilvert and Lila
Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit.
Plates 114-1 to 114-3. ICHIYANAGI Toshi. Stanza for Kenji
Kobayashi. 1961/1963. Original master for the Fluxus
Edition; ink on paper, six score sheets with rubber
stamp, and typed instruction page. The Gilvert and Lila
Plate 115. Yasunao TONE. Score for "Geodesy for Piano."
1961/1972. Red ink on acetate over official geological
survey map dated 1954, mounted on cardboard. IhH x 24.
Plate 116. Shigeko KUBOTA. Duchampiana: Nude Descending a
Staircase. 1976. Plywood staircase with four 13"
monitors. Edition of 5. Original constructed by A1
Robbins. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo by
Peter Moore.
Plate 117. Shigeko KUBOTA. Meta Marcel Window. 197 6-1983.
Window on pedestal, one 24" monitor with single-channel
tape. Edition of 5 with tapes of either Snow, Flowers,
or Stars. Box: 31 x 23 x 26. The Museum of Modern Art,
Toyama.
Plate 118. Shigeko KUBOTA. Duchampiana Bicycle Wheel One,
Two, and Three. 1983-90. Three freestanding, motorized
36" diameter bicycle wheels, each mounted on a wooden
stool and with 5" monitor showing a single-channel, color
videotape, color-synthesized. Edition of 5. 36 x 12 x
4^5. Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Plate 119-1. On KAWARA. I Got UP. 1976. Three of twenty
postcards rubber-stamped and addressed to John
Perreault. 3xy x 51s each. Private Collection, Tokyo.
Plate 119-2. On KAWARA. Wednesday, Dec. 12, 1979. 1979.
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 18^ x 24H. The Museum
of Modern Art, New York.
Plates 120-1 to 120-5. TAKIGUCHI Shuzo. To and From Prose
Selavy: Selected Words of Marcel Duchamp. 1968. Book
with a set of five original prints by Marcel Duchamp,
Jean Tinguely, Jasper Johns, Shusaku Arakawa, and
Takiguchi Shuzo. Edition of 60. 133^ x 10^ x l1^. Courtesy
Satani Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 121. TAKIGUCHI Shuzd and OKAZAKI Kazuo. Occulist Witness
xxiii
after Marcel Duchamp. 1977. Case fitted with parts for
reconstruction of Duchamp's work. Edition of 100.
Closed: 15% x lYh x 11%. Courtesy Satani Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 122-1. Shusaku ARAKAWA. S, C, U, L, P, T, I, N, G.
1962. Pencil on canvas. 48 x 72. Collection the artist.
Plate 122-2. Shusaku ARAKAWA. Portrait N o .4. 1962. Pencil
on canvas. 72 x 48. Collection the artist.
Plate 123. KAWAGUCHI Tatsuo. Time of the Lotus: Relation— Table
for Meditation (Hasu no toki: Kankei-meiso no taku).
1991. Lead and lotus. 40^ x 29^ x 28^. Collection the
artist.
Plate 124-1. Hiroshi SUGIMOTO. Arctic Ocean, NordKapp. 1991.
Gelatin silver print. 21% x 17. Private Collection.
Plate 124-2. Hiroshi SUGIMOTO. Red Sea, Safaga. 1992. Gelatin
silver print. 21% x 17. Private Collection.
Plate 125. MIYAJIMA Tatsuo . Region N o .105955-No.106003. 1991.
LED, IC, electric wire, and aluminum plate. 51% x 113
x 1H. Collection the artist.
Plate 12 6. TAKAMATSU Jiro. Pressed Shadow (Kage no assaku).
1965. Oil on canvas. 51^ x 63%. Takamatsu City Museum
of Art.
Plate 127. MIYAWAKI Aiko. MEGU-72. 1972. Glass. 2 8^6 x A1H
x 7>8. Private Collection.
Plates 128-1 to 128-5. AKASEGAWA Genpei. 1972. Five from a
set of ten offset prints from the series Tomason
Apocalypse (Tomason Mokushiroku). Collection the
artist.
CHAPTER 7
MONO-HA AND THE POSTWAR CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY
Plate 129. SEKINE Nobuo. Phase—Earth (Iso—daichi), a
site-specific work created for the ’'Biennale of Kobe
at Suma Detached Palace Garden: Contemporary Sculpture
Exhibition," 1968.
Plate 130. LEE U Fan. Relatum (Kankei-ko). 1969. Stones and
cotton. 31% x 27^ x 66^. Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 131. LEE U Fan. Relatum (Kankei-ko). 1978. Two stones
and two iron sheets. 86^ x 110% x 133%. The National
Museum of Art, Osaka.
Plate 132. KOSHIMIZU Susumu. Paper (Kami). 1969.
Approximately 3-ton stone and Japanese paper. 78-15 x 18%
x 19^6. Courtesy the artist.
Plate 133. YOSHIDA Katsuro. Cut Off (Hang) . 1969. Wood, rope,
and stone. Wood beam approximately, 157 x 23 x 23.
xxiv
Courtesy the artist.
Plate 134. SUGAKishio. Parallel Strata (Heiretsu-so) . 1969.
Paraffin. 118 x 94^ x 62H. Courtesy the artist.
Plate 135. NARITA Katsuhiko. Sumi. 1969. Charcoal logs. 31H
x 215s x 11%. Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 136. SAITO Yoshishige. Complex 501. 1989. Lacquer on
wood, and bolts. 11 x 26 x 14'. Collection Matsumoto
Co, Ltd., Tokyo.
Plate 137. ENDO Toshikatsu. Epitaph-Cylindrical (Event Nos. 1,
2, 3), 1990. Wood, tar, fire, air, earth, and sun. 118^
x 1615s x 1615®. Shiraishi Contemporary Art Inc., Tokyo.
Plate 138. SUGA Kishio. Unnamed Situation I, installation
at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, 1970. Wood,
window, air, landscape, and light. Collection the
artist.
Plate 139. KAWAMATA Tadashi . Photo documents and working notes
for Destroyed Church. 1987. Reproduction of documentary
photos and working notes mounted on four panels. 255s
x 335s each. Kodama Gallery, Osaka.
XXV
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION: THE CULTURE AND POLITICS
OF THE JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE
1.1 Periodization: The Anpo Movement
Zen' ei bijutsu, the term for avant-garde art that became
in vogue during the mid-1930s, is a direct translation of
the military term "advance guard" which was first used in
France as a doctrine of socio-political and cultural
revolution in the mid-nineteenth century. Identifying art
as an instrument of radical vision, Gabriel-Desire Laverdant
wrote the following prophetic passage in 1848:
Art, the expression of society, manifests, in its

highest soaring, the most advanced social tendencies;
it is the forerunner and the revealer. Therefore, to
know whether art worthily fulfills its proper mission
as initiator, whether the artist is truly avant-garde,
one must know where Humanity is going, know what the
destiny of the human race is....To lay bare, with a
brutal brush, all the brutalities, all the filth, which
are at the base of our society.1
The Japanese avant-garde that emerged after 1945 from
the devastation of war was both a resurrection of prewar
1 Cited in Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-Garde,

trans. by Gerald Fitzgerald (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 9.
Taisho and Showa modernism, and a purge of history, a
beginning from absolute nothingness. What survived from the
past, and what sustained the recreation of a future, was
the spirit of opposition. In prewar as with postwar
avant-gardism, the politics and culture of opposition were
allied with a vigorous (but rarely rigorous) Marxism and
its promise of democratic revolution. As Stephen Vlastos
states: "In the 1930s and during the Pacific War only Marxism,
with all its modernist baggage, held its ground as an
oppositional discourse."2 J. Victor Koshmann links this
revival— or survival--to the discourse on subjectivity
(shutaisei) , which is in turn linked to the dominant prewar
discourse on Marxism.3
As Mallarme wrote of Paris' artistic Bohemian
subculture, the-Japanese avant-garde too found itself "on
2 Stephen Vlastos, "Tradition: Past/Present Culture and

Modern Japanese History" in Stephen Vlastos, ed. Mirror of
Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), p.15.
3 "In the early postwar period, major prewar discourses--

Marxism-Leninism, liberalism, proletarian literature, the
naturalist 'I-novel', and social science— converged in an
articulate concern for human agency, manifested in a debate
on active subjectivity." J. Victor Koshmann, Revolution and
Subjectivity in Postwar Japan (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 1.
strike (en greve) against society." But if the object of
European antipathy was the capitalist bourgeoisie, the
Japanese confronted as well the entrenched systems of
nationalism at home and the hegemony of Euro-American
modernism worldwide. Focusing on these polemics, this study
explores the culture of radical critique that developed in
postwar Japan as a means to formulate and engage in a practice
of art that agitated for political and social change, and
that could articulate a cultural identity of Japanese
modernism that was distinct from the West. This history
focuses on key avant-garde art movements and artists' groups
which contributed most significantly to the postwar
discourse on culture and politics, and so charts the
intellectual, aesthetic, and stylistic developments of
avant-garde art in Japan from circa 1951 to 1970.
The period under study marks one of the most tumultuous
in modern Japanese history. Beneath the spectacular economic
recovery and mobilization towards peace, prosperity and
progress, social and political turmoil rocked the tenuous
foundation of postwar Japan. The central event of this
trial--and arguably the major watershed in the postwar
political role of artists and intellectuals— was the leftist
struggle against the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security
Treaty (Nichi-Bei anzen hosho joyaku, known as Anpo). The
unconditional surrender of Japan's military and the official
discrediting of the wartime regime, the emerging prestige
of the Communist party and its historical analysis of
modernization, and the U.S. Occupation's program of
democratization combined to create a conceptual
understanding of political struggle as defined by democracy
versus feudalism (represented by the polity of imperialism
and the emperor system it defended) . The treaty came to
represent a political block in the evolution of Japanese
democracy and its concomitant ideology of cultural
modernization.
The treaty, signed in 1951 and ratified in 1952, gave
the United States the right to develop Japan as a military
base in the expanding East Asian cold war arena. Subsequent
to its ratification, the United States engaged Japan in a
policy of rearmament, which critics saw as circumventing
Article Nine of the Constitution's "renunciation of war"
by first creating a "police reserve" and then a "self-defense
force." To the pacifist, anti-nuclear, pro-democracy Left,
the security treaty enforced Japan's role in the emerging
Cold War against China and the Korean peninsula, where it
served as a strategic ally in America's "containment" policy.
The treaty also formalized the United States' endorsement
of Japan's ruling coalition, whose increasingly conservative
one-party system repealed certain constitutional liberties
that the early Occupation-period democracy movement had
established, as with the Subversive Activities Bill of 1952
that limited political opposition and dissent. The postwar
Left, and the Anpo movement it fostered, thus arose in protest
against the early foreclosure of the government's promise
of minshushugi, or democracy. This foreclosure was
demonstrated by the Occupation's "red purge" of 1950, an
ill-screened and indiscriminate purge of some 11, 000 workers
in private concerns and 1,200 in government service thought
to be affiliated with the Japan Communist Party, severely
reducing its influence in the labor movement where it had
formally been dominant; the return of war criminals to
political power like Kishi Nobusuke, a class "A" war criminal
who was depurged in 1952 and gradually rose within the ruling
Liberal Party to become prime minister and champion of
conservative policies in 1957; and the perceived
monopolization of economic power within a "superstate"
structure aimed at industrial reconstruction and mass
consumerism on an American model.
From the mid-1950s, the Anpo movement stimulated an
unprecedented outburst of radical political action, with
labor unions, women's groups, artists, cultural
organizations and members of the Japan's Communist (JCP)
and Socialist (JSP) parties organizing a succession of
massive strikes and violent demonstrations opposing the
treaty's renewal. Central to these activities was Zengakuren,
the All Japan Federation of Student Self-Government
Associations, that was founded in 1948. Largely associated
with JCP policies on academic and political issues,
Zengakuren--which boasted 300,000 members in 145 colleges
by 194 9— opposed the government on such matters as the
development of moral education and the introduction of an
efficiency rating system for teachers, and was in the
vanguard of the anti-security treaty protests. At the center
of their thinking was also the national memory of nuclear
annihilation; Japan as ruins, as gaping emptiness, was their
ultimate subject. Because they conflated the treaty with
the temporal and geographical immanence (and repetition)
of atomic warfare, opposition to the treaty coupled as a
humanist, anti-nuclear appeal.
The movement culminated in a national political crisis
in 1960. The revised treaty deleted the clause permitting
U.S. troops to intervene in internal law and order in Japan,
but still allowed the use of Japan as a base for U.S. military
activity in East Asia, implying enemy status for China.
Opposition to Japanese rearmament and fear of involvement
in U.S. military activity caused a storm of unprecedented
protest throughout Japan and demands for Prime Minister
Kishi's resignation and the Diet's dissolution. On June 15
there was a violent clash between riot police and students
who had invaded the Diet building; hundreds of students and
police were injured and a 20-year old female student, Kanba
Michiko, who was crushed to death, became a martyr to the
movement. The treaty gained immediate ratification on June
19, and the opposition movement temporarily lost momentum.
The 1960s saw further anti-war and student protests, which
the avant-garde community of artists and intellectuals
supported, but when the treaty was again automatically
renewed in 1970, the "Old Left's" modes of critique and
opposition were effectively defeated.4 Consequently, 1970
4 The year 197 0 is widely accepted as demarking the periods

between Japan's postwar "Old Left" and short-lived "New Left"
movements. See George R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo: The
Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood
Press, 1966) and "The Politics of Democratic Revolution in
Postwar Japan" in J. Victor Koshmann, Revolution and
Subjectivity in Postwar Japan, pp. 11-41. Karatani Kojin
posits 1970 as a plausible date for the end of Showa as a
defines the close of the postwar era of avant-garde art and
culture with which it had been closely aligned.5
A more symbolic closure for the postwar avant-garde
was Expo '70, held in Osaka and the first World's Fair to
take place in an Asian country. The mobilization of artists
like Okamoto Taro and members of the Gutai group was
criticized by the more radical Zero Dimension (Zero-jigen)
and Bikyoto groups, who equated the participation of artists
in this national project with the wartime mobilization of
artists for war propaganda. The notion that art was in service
to the state and sharing a venue with such quasi-governmental
corporations as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo, who each
"discursive space," and identifies Mishima Yukio's suicide

as the defining event: "Mishima, by re-evoking the spirit
of Showa, put an end to it." See Karatani Kojin, "The
Discursive Space of Modern Japan" in Masao Miyoshi and H.D.
Harootunian, eds. Japan and the World (Durham and London:
Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 311-14.
5 The periodization of "postwar" (sengo) is a subject of

ongoing debate and national obsession. Harry Harootunian
has written: "It would be hard, in any case, to find a national
experience that has dwelled so long and longingly on the
postwar. ... [T]he postwar has become an empowering trope that
condenses the temporality of a duration into an endless
spatial scape and present." Harry Harootunian, "Japan's
Long Postwar: The Trick of Memory and the Ruse of History"
in Tomiko Yoda and Harry Harootunian, eds. Millenial Japan:
Rethinking the Nation in the Age of Recession (Durham: Duke
University Press, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Fall 2000),
p p . 716-17 .
participated with their own pavilions, was anathema to the
hard-core avant-garde.6 With the reconstruction of Japan
on spectacular display and political dissent on security
issues muted, opposition to the postwar state's central
policies was now history.
Both American and Japanese historians have studied the
important sociopolitical debates that marked the 1951-1970
period. What is far less well-known is the history of new
artistic forms and practices that emerged from this period
of unprecedented upheaval, and how radical artists'
strategies underscored and reworked the leftist discourses
on democratic revolution and political subjectivity in
postwar Japan. The Gutai Art Association, Bokujin-kai and
Sodeisha, the Yomiuri Independant's Anti-Art groups,
underground theater and Ankoku Butoh dance, VIVO and the
Postwar School of Photography, Conceptual Art, and the
Mono-ha movement arose in direct correspondence with the
opposition, articulating not only a radical aesthetic in
formal terms but a new cultural praxis altogether. On stage,
in the streets and in the new journals that proliferated
6 Reiko Tomii, "Glossary" in Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art

After 1945: Scream Against the Sky (New York: Harry N. Abrams,
during this period, the postwar artists and intellectuals
launched a critique of the ruling ideologies of cultural
modernization. This study explores how their discourse of
direct action (chokusetsu kodo)--bringing art into the arena
of the everyday and calling for public participation in their
inherently performative works--is shaped by a leftist belief
in the possibilities of art to serve as an agent for social
and political change. It also examines how the avant-garde's
critical investigations of the everyday (nichijo)
appropriate the modes of mass consumerism, high growth, and
urbanization that mark the culture of the postwar period.
Finally, this study explores the central question of cultural
identity among non-Western modernists: How to be modern and
not Western?
1.2 Art, Individualism, and Self-Expression: A Prehistory

of the Culture of Opposition
Like the French avant-garde that matured during the
Third Republic, early Japanese zen'ei bijutsu stood for
radical opposition to cultural orthodoxy, social conformity,
and political coercion. Between 1910, when the literary
Inc., 1994), p . 394.
10
journal promoting artistic self-expression, White Birch
(Shirakaba) ', appeared, and 1927, the first year of Emperor
Hirohito's reign that heralded the rise of militarism,
liberal trends advocating individualism and self-expression,
freedom and individual rights flourished among the
intelligentsia. Futurism, Constructivism, Dadaism, and
Surrealism--all allied with trends in Marxist and anarchist
political thought--were introduced to Japan where they
stimulated an activist, literary, and passionately
international counterculture. Myriad avant-garde
associations proliferated in reaction against the
conservative yoga (western-style painting), Nihonga
(Japanese-style painting) and traditional arts academies
that were erected by the Meiji art establishment, and against
the powerful government salons that were controlled by the
Ministry of Education (Bunten) and the Imperial Fine Arts
7 The literary journal Shirakaba (1910-1923) was highly

influential in the development of late Meiji and Taisho
modernist art and thought. It introduced contemporary
European artists from van Gogh to Rodin and championed
philosophies of individualism and self-expression. Known
as the "Shirakaba Society" (Shiraba-ha), its main
contributors were the writers and theorists Mushanokoji
Saneatsu, Arishima Takeo, Shiga Naoya, Kojima Kikuo, Nagayo
Yoshio, Yanagi Soetsu, Satomi Ton, and Natsume Soseki; and
the painters Arishima Ikuma, Kishida Ryusei, and Umehara
11
Academy {Teiten) . These institutions sanctioned realist
styles based chiefly on currents in the Parisian beaux-arts
salons, on which they were modeled. From its inception, the
Japanese avant-garde--like its French counterpart--thus
placed itself against and outside the conservative,
hierarchical, and bureaucratic art society (gadan) that was
the relic of Meiji ideology. Avant-garde artists, many of
whom traveled to Europe where they participated in the
radical fringe, also positioned themselves as the
intellectual class who could best interpret the latest
currents of European modernist art and thought. Championing
individualism and self-expression as articulated in
contemporary European philosophy and political thought, they
cast themselves as social critics, strategically fusing
modernist aesthetics with leftist politics and serving as
a central voice for cultural anarchism in intellectual
debates. In typical avant-garde defiance of official art
and its cultural hierarchies, the Futurist Kambara Tai
proclaimed in his manifesto of 1920: "Painters be gone! Art
critics be gone! Art is absolutely free. ...Say, nerve, reason,
sense, sound, smell, color, light, desire, movement,
Ryusaburo.
12
pressure--and furthermore, true life itself which stands
at the end of all--there is nothing that does not fit the
content of art...."8
The postwar avant-garde developed from three related
movements that define certain extremist trends in late Taisho
and early Showa modernism: the Futurist Art Association,
the collective Mavo, and Japanese Surrealism. Seizing upon
Expressionism, Dadaism, Constructivism, and Surrealism as
tools to revolutionize Japanese artistic practice and
production, these movements aimed to connect art more
directly to everyday modern life and to harness art to achieve
social and political transformation. To better understand
the strategies we shall encounter among the postwar
avant-garde movements and artists' groups, it is worthwhile
to review the prewar legacy of artistic revolution.
The emergence of radical politics and the discourse
of liberation that shaped the avant-garde position can be
located in late Meiji (1868-1912) literary and political
theories of the individual. Following its victory of the
8 Cited and trans. in Won Ko, Buddhist Elements in Dada:

A Comparison of Tristan Tzara, Takahashi Shinkichi and Their
Fellow Poets (New York: New York University Press, 1977),
p p . 17-18.
13
Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Japan experienced what Jay
Rubin has called a "release from a total devotion to the
national mission."9 The general perception that Japan had
achieved its early Meiji goal of national security and
political parity with Western powers profoundly influenced
the emerging debate on what the individual's social role
should be. Gradually, the discourse shifted from an
individual's duty to ensure the prosperity of state and
family, to the merits of personal success in modern society.
The intelligentsia articulated this concept as cultivation
of the "autonomous self"— an inward directedness that was
distinguished from nationalistic individualism. In reaction
against the oppressiveness of Meiji thought and its systems
of social conformity, intellectuals championed pursuit of
their own psychological interiority, developing a style of
naturalism (shizenshugi) that centered on subjectivity
(shutaisei) and self-expression (jiko hyogen) . These writers,
known as naturalists, advocated an unmediated and authentic
representation of the experience of the individual situated
in emotional autonomy and the conditions of everyday life.
9 Jay Rubin, Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the

Meiji State (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984),
14
Its credo was most succinctly expressed by Natsume Soseki,
who stated that "art begins with the expression of self and
ends with the expression of self."10 Bureaucrats, who had
sanctioned some liberalism and individual rights to serve
the national good, warned the growing cadre of naturalist
writers that their "unwholesome" writings would be tolerated
only to the extent that they did not indict the Japanese
state.
The issues that influenced writers and intellectuals
in the late Meiji period evoked a similar response among
the visual artists. Wary of the academic structure and
artistic styles of the Meiji art establishment, younger
artists associated with Shirakaba, Fyuzan-kai (Sketch
Society) 11 and Nika-kai (Second Section Association) 12
p . 60.
10 Takashina Shuji, "Natsume Soseki and the Development of

Modern Japanese Art" in Culture and Identity: Japanese
Intellectuals During the Interwar Years, ed. J. Thomas Rimer
(Princeton, Princeton University press, 1990), pp. 273-74.
See also Gennifer Weisenfeld, Mavo: Japanese Artists and
the Avant-Garde:1905-1931 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2002), pp. 19-27. For discussions of
individualism in late Meiji and Taisho thought, see Sharon
Nolte, Liberalism in Modern Japan: Ishibashi Tanzan and his
Teachers, 1905-1960 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1987).
11 The Fyuzan-kai, active from 1912-1913, was among the first
15
looked to more contemporary developments in Europe where
artistic self-expression and individualism were ascendant.
Taking European post-impressionism and expressionism as a
cue and influenced by the naturalist writers at home, these
artists believed in the need to reveal the truth of the
artist's individual thoughts and emotions. In what would
become a common theme in the Japanese avant-garde, this early
generation struggled with the problem of uncoupling the
individual from the state, and one's art from slavish mimetic
representation, seeking to establish the primacy of
subjectivity and self-expression while promoting the social
value of art. Takamura Kotaro, a well-known artist, poet,
to assert the philosophical and stylistic imperatives of

individualism in direct opposition to the institutionalism
of Bunten. Its central members were Saitd Yori, Takamura
Kotaro, Kimura Shohachi, Yorozu Testuguro, Kishida Ryusei,
and Kobayashi Tokusaburo. For more information, see Shimada
Yasushiro, ed., Fyuzan-kai to Sodosha (Fusain Society and
the Sodosha) , Kindai no bijustu, no.43 (Tokyo: Ibundo, 1977).
12 Nika-kai was founded in 1914 by yoga artists who formally

withdrew from participation in the Bunten after their calls
for a second category for new idioms (nika) was rejected.
This secessionist group, which forbid its members to exhibit
in Bunten or Teiten, developed into the largest and most
influential independent exhibition society of so-called
progressive artists. Its central artists of this period are
Yamashita Shintaro, Ishii Hakutei, Togo Seji, and Kambara
Tai. It later came to be associated with orthodox modernist
styles and was rejected by more progressive artists.
16
and critic, articulated these sentiments in his famous essay
"Green Sun" (Midori iro no taiyo) , published in the literary
magazine Subaru in 1910:
I am seeking absolute freedom in art. I recognize the

infinite authority of the artist's personality. In
every sense I want to think of art from the viewpoint
of one single human being, and I want to evaluate a
work by starting from consideration of the personality
as it is and not to admit a great number of doubts.
If I think of something as blue and someone else sees
it as red, criticism should start from the point of
view that this person sees the object as red and then
confine itself to the question of how the red is treated.
I see no reason to go on complaining because the artist
sees the object differently from the way I do. Instead,
I consider it a pleasant surprise to find a different
view of nature from my own. I prefer to consider how
this artist has survived at the nucleus of nature and
how he has fulfilled his personal feelings. It does
not matter to me if two or three people paint something
called a "green sun, " because I might from time to time
see the same thing myself.13
The first movement to proclaim expressionism and social
transformation as central to new art was the Futurist Art
Association (FAA, Miraiha Bijutsu Kyokai) . The FAA was
founded in 1920 by Fumon Gyo (1896-1972), who seceded from
the progressive Nika-kai in protest against their narrow
13 Kawakita Michiaki, Modern Currents in Japanese Art, The

Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art, no.24, trans. by Charles
Terry (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1974),
p . 96.
17
definitions of modern art, and Odake Chikuha (1878-1936),
an eclectic Nihonga artist who withdrew from the
long-established Japan Art Academy Exhibition (Inten)14 to
forge a more radical art. Although futurism emerged in Japan
just as it was on the wane in Europe, Japanese artists had
initiated early contact with futurist artists in Italy and
continued to correspond with the movement's leaders through
the 1920s.15 Japanese artists interpreted Futurism primarily
14 The Japan Art Academy (Nihon Bijutsu-in, 1898-1903,

1906-1913, revived 1914-present) was founded in 1898 by
Okakura Kakuzo to promote modern Japanese-style painting
(Nihonga) . Among the artists who established its early
premises were Shimomura Kanzan, Yokoyama Taikan, and Hishida
Shunso.
15 The "Futurist Manifesto" published in Le Figaro in early

1909 was first partially translated into Japanese by Mori
Ogai in Subaru just a few months later. Artists such as
Takamura Kotaro, Kishida Ryusei, and Arishima Ikuma, who
were involved with such groups as Fyuzan-kai and Nika-kai
that were experimenting with styles of European
post-impressionism, were particularly interested in
Futurism because of its emphasis on expressive and
anti-mimetic painting. For discussions on Futurism in Japan,
see Kinoshita Shuichiro, "Taishoki no shinkobijustu undo
megutte 4; Miraiha Bijustu Kyokai no koro (Exploring the
progressive art movements of the Taisho period 4: The era
of the Futurist Art Association), Gendai no me 185 (April
1970); Honma Masayoshi, ed. Nihon no zen' ei bijutsu (Japanese
avant-garde art), Kindai no bijutsu, no. 3 (Tokyo, Inbundb,
1971), pp. 20-32; Asano Toru, ed. Zen'ei kaiga (Avant-garde
painting), Genshoku gendai Nihon no bijustu, n o .8 (Tokyo:
Shogakkan, 1978; Kinoshita Shuichiro and David Burliuk,
"Mirai to wa? Kotaru” (Futurism: An answer), Kindai Bungei
18
as a technological, formally dynamic "art of the future"
that championed unfettered self-expression and engaged the
conditions of modern life. The movement was promoted in part
by the presence of Russian futurist artist David Burliuk,
who was in Japan from 1920 to 1922 and showed both his works
and those of his Russian futurist contemporaries. Japanese
futurists produced some of the first forays into collage
and abstraction in modern Japanese art history.
Futurism was often included under the term
"expressionism" (hydgenshugi or hyogenha), reflecting the
common conflation of distinct European styles into new
admixtures in Japanese modern art. According to Gennifer
Weisenfeld, whose excellent study on early Japanese
avant-garde art examines the close relationship between
artistic strategies and leftist rhetoric, Japanese futurism
attempted to differentiate itself from other more lyrical,
nonacademic, expressionist tendencies by asserting its
iconoclastic, leftist-inspired rebellion against
established social conventions (bourgeois culture) and the
official art establishment (gadan). To FAA critics such as
Hydron Sosho, no.15 (Tokyo: Chuo Bijutsusha, 1923; reprint,

Tokyo: Nihon Zusho Senta, 1990); and Weisenfeld, Mavo, pp.
46-61.
19
Kinoshita Shuichiro, futurism was unique among modernisms
because it denied history by destroying the past, and was
therefore essentially nihilist and anarchistic. Other FAA
promoters claimed that "beauty does not exist outside strife"
and suggested that "the masses who scream for the labor,
pleasure, and revolt alive in the new era...must glorify
and sing praises of the beauty of the factory, steam train,
and airplane."16 Likewise, Shibuya Osamu, who became a
powerful spokesman for FAA, claimed that futurism's
achievement rested in the individual's subjective perception
of the modern:
In futurist paintings, the artist is not merely

satisfied with form. He probes deeply into the study
of color, line, composition, and form....With this
attitude, he attempts to paint the 'soul' (kokoro) of
modern man— the entirety of modern daily life, which
is constantly in flux...Constant change! Quickness! These
are the distinct 'material and spiritual' directions
of the modern."17
To the futurists, the object of opposition was not only
the thinking and artistic styles of historical academicism
in favor of individualism, self-expression, and modernity
16 Trans, and cited in Weisenfeld, Mavo, p. 47 and p. 279.
17 Ibid. , p. 50 .
20
but the official arts bureaucracy known as gadan. These
sentiments became central tenets of early Showa (1926-1989)
and postwar avant-garde art. FAA's first exhibition was thus
organized as a critique and rebuff of the official exhibition
and sanction of yoga and Nihonga as represented in such
organizations as Nika-kai and the Japan Art Academy. At the
third FAA exhibition in October 1922, Kinoshita renamed the
group "Sanka Independent" (Third Section Independent) to
emphasize the group's distance from and opposition to
Nika-kai (literally, Second Section Association), which had
come to represent officialdom.18
One of the most important members of FAA was Yanase
Masamu (1900-1945), who provided illustrations for the
eminent journalist and social critic Hasegawa Nyokezan's
(1875-1969) influential magazine of social and cultural
criticism, Warera (We), which began publication in 1919,
was renamed Hihan (Criticism) in 1930, and continued until
1934. Hasegawa, who established Warera after resigning from
18 The term "independent" was taken from the French

independant that was applied to unjuried public exhibitions,
which signified to the Japanese artistic tendencies that
were nonacademic and modernist. This terminology and
practice remained pervasive throughout the postwar period.
21
Osaka Asahi Shinbun in protest over newspaper censorship,
was dedicated to protest against the government's increasing
restriction of "dangerous thought." A venue for Marxist
social scientists, Warera became increasingly radical,
critiquing such issues as class conflict in Japanese society
under capitalism.
FAA disbanded in May 1923, discouraged by the public's
failure to support their work. But its members remained
committed to demolish the gadan and erect a more just arts
system that suited the needs of younger artists. Just two
months later, the collective Mavo opened its first exhibition
and published its manifesto in the exhibition pamphlet: "We
stand at the vanguard, and will eternally stand there. We
are not bound. We are radical. We revolutionize/make
revolution. We advance. We create. We ceaselessly affirm
and negate."19
The founding members of Mavo were Murayama Tomoyoshi
(1901-1977), Oura Shuzo (1890-1928), Yanase Masamu
(1900-1945), Ogata Kamensosuke (1900-1942) and Kadowaki
Shinro. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the group expanded
to some fifteen "artist-activists," including several who
22
were former FAA members. Murayama, Mavo's charismatic leader,
was raised as a follower of the Christian philosopher
Uchimura Kanz5 and was exposed to Western culture from an
early age. In 1922, he left the elite Tokyo Imperial
University to study Christianity and philosophy in Germany.
But once in Berlin, Murayama abandoned hopes of gaining
entrance to university and became active instead in the
thriving Dadaist and anarchist culture of Weimar Germany,
where he stayed for eleven months. Berlin was a center for
intense sociopolitical activism among artists and writers
like George Grosz, Otto Dix, Herwath Walden and their
Dadaist-expressionist contemporaries, who together
championed the supremacy of pure artistic creativity and
believed in subjectivity, intuition, and spiritualism over
the rationalist materialism of industrialized modern society.
Influenced by the Dadaists Theo Van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters,
and Tristan Tzara, Murayama began making collage-paintings
and assemblage works, which he showed in Germany and upon
his return to Tokyo, where he became an instant celebrity.
Inspired by ideas derived from anarchism, Marxism,
Futurism, Expressionism, Dadaism, and Constructivism,
19 Trans, and cited in Weisenfeld, Mavo, p. 66.
23
Murayama labeled his new theory for promoting a Japanese
avant-garde "conscious constructivism" {ishikiteki
koseishugi) . Believing that destructive acts can serve as
a form of constructive criticism, Murayama championed the
reintegration of art into the social and political practice
of everyday life, and aimed to break down the barriers between
official "Art" and the chaotic materiality of contemporary
being. Over its relatively brief period of activity
(1923-1926), Mavo engaged in remarkably diverse fields of
artistic production in an effort to bring art to the masses
via publications and performances: magazine publication and
book illustration, cartoons and graphic design, dance and
theatrical performance, stage design and architectural
projects were all part of Mavo's production. By linking
commercial design and avant-garde, Mavo members dissolved
the boundaries between fine art, mass circulation print
culture, commercial design, and Japan's new consumer spaces
like the cafes and department stores.
Mavo waged its militant avant-gardism on two fronts:
It defined itself in opposition to Japan's entrenched art
establishment, the legacy of Meiji cultural policy;
simultaneously, it sided with growing numbers of anarchist
and Marxist political revolutionaries to battle against,
24
by shock and defiance of conventions, the status quo of what
they termed bourgeois capitalism. In launching attacks on
the gadan— the state arts bureaucracy that sponsored such
juried exhibitions as Teiten and official art schools such
as the Imperial Art Academy--Mavo artists cast themselves
as liberators of an institutional art system that was
entrenched, exclusive, and hierarchical. As Mavo took on
leftist political rhetoric, the gadan was equated with
capitalism and the bourgeoisie while Mavo anarchists were
equated with liberation and the proletariat.
Whereas FAA statements had been an optimistic call to
action, Mavo's writings reveal intense expressions of
pessimism, violence, and destruction. Mavo's members
perceived widespread social unrest and impending crisis in
contemporary Japan that they believed were produced by the
unstable conditions of modern daily life and inequities
within Japanese society. Mavo artists responded to these
conditions by positioning themselves as social critics,
constructing radical aesthetic and poetic modes to frame
their critique.
In practice, Mavo promoted forms of collage, assemblage,
and constructivism that would tangibly link art to the
materiality of everyday experience by using such non-art
25
materials as ladies shoes, human hair, cutouts from popular
magazines, and fragments of discarded machinery. With Mavo,
assemblage came to emblemize radicalism and the destruction
of the form, content, and conventions of modern Japanese
cultural practice. Such "new" practices also conferred upon
its practitioners cultural parity with the European
avant-garde and superiority over Japanese Western-style
artists who were still mired, according to Mavo, in mimesis,
nostalgia, and "monkey-like" imitations of European
post-impressionism. For Mavo artists, who cast themselves
as "madmen" and "cripples," art was meant to express the
urgent domestic conditions of crisis, peril, state
authoritarianism, pessimism, and melancholy--notions that
were shared by the growing political and intellectual
movements of Marxism and socialism in Taisho Japan.
According to Weisenfeld, Mavo's radicalism was defined
in large part by the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated
Tokyo on September 1, 1923. With some 100,000 people dead
and another 50,000 injured from the ensuing fires, and the
majority of metropolitan Tokyo residences destroyed, the
newly formed cabinet under Yamamoto Gonnohyoe established
martial law. After the quake, rumors that Koreans and
communists were intentionally destabilizing order by setting
26
fires incited violent riots and indiscriminate murder that
left thousands of Koreans, Chinese, and suspected communists
dead. Their rampage led to increased suppression of political
freedom and gave license to the metropolitan police to
eliminate subversives, leftist sympathizers, and labor
leaders, including the popular anarcho-syndicalist leader
Osugi Sakae, who was murdered with his family. Artists
associated with socialism, such as FAA and Mavo artist Yanase
Masanobu, were questioned, beaten, and often incarcerated.20
These political developments caused Mavo and its community
of agitators to strengthen its oppositional stance against
the authorities— a stance that would define the Japanese
avant-garde for generations.
Within a month of the earthquake, Mavo organized an
exhibition of largely abstract collages that toured several
reconstructed cafes and restaurants throughout the city.
Cafes had become popular as part of the new leisure economy
serving the burgeoning urban middle class, and now they
served as unofficial shelters for homeless refugees. Mavo's
post-earthquake work also included decoration of the
temporary structures known as "barracks" (barakku). As
20 Ibid. , pp. 77-95.
27
Weisenfeld observes:
For Mavo, the barrack projects became both a symbol

and a site for the generation of a new art intrinsically
linked to daily life. Proponents of socialism hailed
the barracks as representing the emergence of a truly
proletarian consciousness. The makeshift and
extemporaneous structures, and the new social
formations they constituted, signified the possibility
of complete freedom from conventions and institutional
powers.... Just as art designed daily life, so daily
life would revivify the arts (geijustu fukko) .21
FAA and Mavo together established certain
characteristics of early Japanese avant-garde art that would
define radical cultural critique and practice for much of
the prewar and postwar periods. Most significantly, their
articulation of art as an expression of the materiality and
consciousness of modern life, and their notion of the artist
as provocateur and champion of unfettered individualism,
were profoundly influential. Manifesting this tradition of
zen'ei bijustu, the postwar artists and movements
represented in this study are, with few exceptions, also
independent of such official art salons as Japan Art
Exhibition (Nitten) or the numerous arts associations (kobo
dantai) that compete within the local art establishment.
21 Ibid., p. 80.
28
Pursuing forms of art that purposefully defy established
styles, the artists discussed here are rebels against the
conservative academies and orthodox styles of modern art
whose aesthetics are removed from direct engagement with
everyday reality. The strategy of founding new groups and
movements to overcome the old guard and engage in the material
and being of modern life is articulated in the opening lines
of Yoshihara Jiro's "Gutai Art Manifesto" of 1956:
To today's consciousness, the art of the past, which

on the whole displays an alluring appearance, seems
fraudulent. Let's bid farewell to the hoaxes piled up
on the altars and in the palaces, the drawing rooms
and the antique shops.... Lock up these corpses in the
graveyard. Gutai Art does not altar the material. Gutai
Art imparts life to the material. Gutai Art doe not
distort the material... .Art is a place in which creation
occurs.22
1.3 Surrealism and the State: The Aesthetics of Resistance
The legacy of FAA and Mavo remained strongly allied
to Dadaism and to leftist political movements such as the
Proletarian Art Movement (1926-1934), which several of their
members went on to support after FAA and Mavo disbanded.
22 Yoshihara Jiro, "Gutai bijutsu sengen" (Gutai Art

Manifesto), originally published in Geijutsu Shincho
(December 1956). Trans, by Reiko Tomii.
29
However, when the Proletariat Art Movement was crushed in
1934 by forces of the increasingly ultranationist Showa state,
less-propagandistic forms of avant-garde art and radical
critique were favored. Surrealism, which developed as a
literary tendency in the 1920s and became dominant among
avant-garde visual artists of the 1930s, was to achieve a
different level of aesthetic discourse than its Dadaist
predecessors and influenced the more formal developments
of Japanese modernism during the immediate prewar and postwar
periods. Specifically, Surrealism's emphasis on "poetic
operation" and "fantasy," and its interest in science and
Freudian psychology, made significant contributions to the
expression of Japanese modernism.
Surrealism was introduced to Japan as a literary style
of automatist poetry in 1925, when works by Louis Aragon
were made available in translation. Its most influential
proponents soon became the poet and literary critic Nishiwaki
Junzaburo (1894-1982) and his student, Takiguchi Shuzo
(1903-1979), who emerged in the early 1930s as one of the
most prescient and eloquent defenders of surrealist art and
poetry at work anywhere in the world. A graduate of Tokyo's
Keio University with a degree in English literature,
Takiguchi was interested in the British metaphysical poets,
30
especially the conception of innocence in the work of William
Blake. After reading Andre Breton's Manifeste du surrealisms
and Paul Eluard's Repetition, Takiguchi aligned himself with
the French Surrealists and their practice of automatism as
a means to explore subconscious visions. "Poetry is not
belief. It is not logic," Takiguchi wrote in 1931. "It is
action." His translation of Breton's Le Surrealisme et la
peinture in 1930, and the publication of his anthology of
automatist poetry, Poetic Experiments 1927-1937,
established him as a preeminent Surrealist in prewar Japanese
literary society. Takiguchi was also an avid critic and
advocate of the vanguard visual arts. Besides his classic
study, Modern Art (Kindai Bijutsu, 1938), he published two
of the earliest monographs in any language on Salvador Dali
(1939) and Joan Miro (1940) . He also executed his own
automatist drawings, decalcomanias, and Surrealist objets.
Surrealism arrived in Japan as the Proletarian Art
Movement was being challenged by two forces. One was the
effect of the special police investigations of all kinds
of left-wing activity, including cultural ones, which caused
widespread fear. The other was what John Clark calls, "its
own artistic bankruptcy: despite several notable exceptions,
Proletarian Art seems largely to have been composed of
31
propagandistic works in approved figurative manners."23
Younger artists frequently criticized Proletarian Art, while
others openly advocated a return to "art-for-art's sake."
The manifesto of Nova, a short-lived group founded in 1930,
stated: "We are dissatisfied with hitherto Proletariat Art
which stresses political thought, and believe that the art
of painting must be restored to a development of painting
itself. "24
Together with new interests in formalism in art and
automatism in poetry, tendencies towards abstraction became
stronger in the early 1930s. For Surrealists in Japan as
elsewhere, the subject of abstraction was the unconscious;
its practice was to render visible that which could not be
seen. Along with Takiguchi, the most prominent artists who
established Surrealism as the main current of modernist art
during this period were Fukuzawa Ichiro (1898-1992), Koga
Harue (1895-1933), Kitawaki Noboru (1901-1951), Ai-Mitsu
(ne Ishimura Hiroo, 1907-1946) and the photographer Ei-Kyu
(ne Sugita Hideo), who made the first photograms in Japan
23 John Clark, "Artistic Subjectivity on the Taisho and Early

Showa Avant-Garde" in Munroe, Japanese Art After 1945, p.
46.
32
in the manner of Man Ray. Takiguchi was instrumental in
forming the New Plastic Fine Arts Association (Shin Zokei
Bijustu Kyokai), active from 1934 to 1937, which further
allied artists working in abstract and surrealist styles
against the salons that largely practiced lyrical,
post-impressionist figurative painting styles. The
contemporary critic Asano Toru describes the aesthetic
strategy of these prewar Surrealists:
Surrealist painting opens up several methods... that

suggest an extremely large world of expression.
Although separated perhaps from the original modalities
of Surrealism, it was possible by using those methods
as a kind of metaphor to criticize reality and society,
together with constructing a world of poetic fantasy,
to escape from it. The possibility which such Surrealism
hinted at seemed to have taken over the hearts of young
artists who were sensitive to the atmosphere of this
era, an era that gradually increased its oppressiveness
In exact contrast to the Proletariat Art Movement which
had prioritized the propaganda and enlightenment of
political ideology, it is a phenomenon worthy of
attention that fantasy painting under the influence
of Surrealism came to have such strength.25
Surrealism's formalism and pursuit of "poetic fantasy"
was not, however, as apolitical as some critics claimed.
Trans, and cited in ibid., p. 47.
25 Asano Toru, Zen'ei kaiga (Avant-garde painting), trans.

and cited in ibid., p. 47.
33
The painter and critic Koga Harue was closely associated
with the Japanese Left and took part in Takenaka Hisashichi' s
Research Group on Literary Dialectical Materialism, which
advanced its own Marxist-inflected brand of "Scientific
Surrealism" by disavowing Breton's "Surrealism of fantasy."
Throughout the1930s, Takiguchi was in regular
correspondence with Breton, who had professed allegiance
to Marxism in such influential writings as the Second
Manifeste Surrealiste published in 1930. Whether vaguely
anarchist or actually communist, the Japanese Surrealists
maintainedan intellectual if not overtly political
association with leftist thought during this period. To the
prosecution authorities of Japan's totalitarian state of
the late 1930s, which aimed to suppress non-conformist and
anti-establishment sympathies as the military mounted
full-scale territorial war on China, Surrealism's links to
communism confirmed their suspicion that its associated
artists and groups were fomenting dissent by subscribing
to what they called Surrealism's "spiritual revolution."
Surrealists were targeted in the 1939 Interior Ministry
Police Protection Bureau Report of 1939, which listed forty
so-called avant-garde artists as participating in suspect
cultural groups. In 1940, a similar document exposed the
34
members'’ of the Art Culture Association (Bijustu Bunka
Kyokai), including its leader, Fukuzawa. It described the
group as "having a tendency toward Surrealism as before,
despite having held an exhibition to commemorate the
2600-year Imperial rule."26 In early 1941, the military
police arrested both Takiguchi and Fukuzawa, confiscated
their correspondence with European artists including Breton,
and subjected them to investigation for eight months.
Fukuzawa, upon release, was forced to recant. A further wave
of arrests of regional surrealist groups followed, and the
following year Takenaka was arrested while on war service
in China, on counts of subversion.
The legacy of the Japanese Surrealists' particular form
of radical critique is largely defined by a deep wariness
of the state and aversion towards authoritarian control over
freedom of artistic expression. It is a legacy that defends
a psychic need and interior code of art making, that resists
facile interpretation, and that protests against coercion
by any means. This sentiment is expressed in the following
1941 statement by Takiguchi, who shall emerge as the most
influential critic in our postwar studies of Anti-Art,
26 Trans, and cited in ibid., p. 48.
35
Obsessional Art, Conceptual Art, and the Postwar School of
Photography:
Ultimately, it is artists alone who are bestowed with

the gift to create art, and so creative work and
aesthetics in the broadest sense must be developed and
resolved through the efforts of artists alone. Should
this basic tenet be neglected, we would be forced to
fault the artists themselves for the vice of so-called
political art.27
The Surrealists' articulation of art's necessary
opposition to the state relates to a larger phenomenon that
defines the particular inflection of the Japanese
avant-garde. The abiding object of opposition among the
Taisho and prewar Showa avant-garde can be interpreted as
the authoritarian orthodoxy of kokutai (national polity),
the Meiji conception of the state that merged Shinto
mythology with ultranationalist ideology. According to
kokutai, the emperor holds the highest power over his
"family" of subjects, the Japanese people, who are morally
obligated to conform to the relations governing the national
hierarchy and the ancient communitarian values that make
Japanese society unique. While kokutai was meant to represent
27 Takiguchi Shuzo, "Kindai bijutsu no bai" (In the case of

modern art), Mizue 435 (February 1941).
36
imperial Japan's immutability and distinctiveness on the
new world stage, it was in fact a method of state
indoctrination, suppression, and control aimed to curb
infiltration of liberal foreign influences. Faced with the
moral crises of "progressivism" (kakushinshugi) and the
"worship of the West," the Taisho and early Showa ideologues
strengthened national education on kokutai to protect
Japanese youth from such encroaching "abnormalities of
thought" as materialism, individualism, and socialism.28 Of
particular significance for the avant-garde, Japanese
nationalists believed that individualism was incompatible
with the maintenance of the national polity "which demanded
absolute loyalty and obedience," and upheld faith that "the
corporate imperial state transcended not only individual
interests but the whole people."29 By 1941, when Japan
launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, thus engrossing
the nation in all-out war with the U.S., the Taisho and early
Showa avant-garde liberals had either surrendered to the
war cause or were totally silenced.
28 Carol Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late

Meiji Period (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1985), pp. 279-80.
37
Although the kokutai rhetoric subsided after 1945, the
Japanese avant-garde has continued to be motivated by leftist
opposition against authoritarian orthodoxy and the
bureaucratic state in Japanese society--in particular the
emperor system (tennosei) and its mandates of patriarchy
and social conformity, political harmony and personal
sacrifice. This strategy to subvert the archaic systems that
govern Japan should disprove the frequent criticism that
Japanese art is "not political:" while Euro-American artists
may be overtly engaged in specific causes that change with
political tides, the Japanese agitate a political
bureaucracy that is at least a century old. Constructing
a narrative history of avant-garde movements in the postwar
period, this study examines art that challenges, critiques,
or escapes those monolithic conformist systems that regulate
Japanese society, control the individual, and repress
rebellious passions. The Surrealist Kusama Yayoi's
appropriation of hundreds of phalli in her Sex Obsession
series (1962-present) can, for example, be interpreted as
the artist's enraged protest against Japan's regime; by
possessing the symbol of domination, she claims freedom from
29 Nolte, Liberalism, pp. 55-56.
38
subjugation to insidious moralities.
1.4 Avant-garde Art and the Question of Everyday Life
The modern artist has assumed many postures since
Charles Baudelaire published his critical essay, "The
Painter of Modern Life," in the Paris Figaro in 1863:
revolutionary, dandy, bohemian literatus, anarchist,
aesthete, technologist, mystic. He has also preached a
variety of creeds and operated in localities as far-flung
as Vilnius, Laos and Kita-Kyushu. One constant in the
vanguardist discourse, however, is the idea and practice
of radical critique. "Radical" describes the mandate of
originality that calls, via a violent revolt against
tradition, for the rejection, dissolution, and negation of
the past and the beginning from a literal ground zero. Ezra
Pound's cry to "Make it new!" or Kasmir Malevich's
pronouncement, "Only he is alive who rejects his convictions
of yesterday," are typical of the avant-garde's rhetoric
of the radical. Implied too is the notion of the self as
the origin of continual (radical) acts of regeneration, a
perpetual self-creation that opens subjectivity and
consciousness to experience the present, that is the modern,
39
de novo.3u Critique "describes the gap or slippage between
praxis and philosophy that produces social alienation in
the modern state while simultaneously creating the
conditions for a revolutionary (total) praxis in the Marxist
sense that will "reconstruct the true unity: nature
rediscovered, controlled, recognized and retrieved." 31
Marx' s concept of the period of revolution known as bourgeois
(capitalist) society is characterized by extreme separation,
scission, and duality between the state, social practice,
and private life. Critique arises from this separation and
imagines its transformation. For Marx, as for Baudelaire
writing at the same time, the function of the revolutionary
as well as of the artist/dandy/poet is to overcome the
oppressive, insidious and terrorizing forces of social and
political abstraction with the redeeming and delirious
powers of the quotidian concrete. The gap endemic to modern
life which separates immediate consciousness and knowledge,
representation and concept is the space where the radical
30 For a discussion of originality and the avant-garde, see

Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-garde and other
Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press,
1987), especially p. 157.
31 Henri Lefebvre, trans. by John Moore, Introduction to
40
critique so ubiquitous to the avant-garde operates. It
agitates consciousness to experience the real.
The object of radical critique is the modern itself
or, more precisely, its formation at various stages of
capitalist modernization. That the structures of
consciousness and forms of experience that define modernity
relate to the operations of capitalism is one point that
theorists of modernity agree on. For Baudelaire, scarred
by the Revolution of 1848 and its failure, modernity is the
experience of market capitalism and its bourgeois life:
ephemeral, fleeting. The modern thus lies in the mid-century
Parisian bourgeois world with its commodified artifice,
religion of antinature, and its "relative, circumstantial
element, which we may like to call, successively or at one
and the same time, contemporaneity, fashion, morality,
passion."32 For Walter Benjamin, writing during the interwar
years in crisis-ridden Weimar Germany, modernity is also
embedded in capitalist modernization, and thus in an
identifiable daily life, by way of its dependence upon
Modernity (London: Verso, 1995), p. 170.
32 Charles Baudelaire, Selected Writings on Art and Artists,

cited in Ibid., p. 171.
41
capitalism's forces and its social relations to production.
In Europe and the United States as well as parts of the Third
World where capitalism had established a significant
foothold (Japan, Brazil, parts of China) , a break with linear
Fordist production techniques in favor of so-called
"flexible accumulation" constituted a revolution in
political economy, a shift from a diachronic progression
towards an uneven yet synchronic experience of development.
As H.D. Harootunian has argued, the demise in Weimar-era
fiction and film of the progressive linear narrative quite
naturally gave way to "different forms representing
experience: as fragmented, incoherent, and discontinuous."33
In this cultural practice which was a project for what
Benjamin termed the present "moment of danger,"
disassociated fragments of one's lived experience could
offer an imaginative repository to illuminate "a poetry of
the future." Hence the everyday is multiplicity; it eludes
direct analysis and appears only through concrete
ruins--arcades and dioramas, world exhibitions and interiors,
33 Harry D .Harootunian, "The Benjamin Effect: Modernism,

Repetition, and the Path to Different Cultural Imaginaries"
in Michael P Steinberg, ed. Walter Benjamin and the Demands
of History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp.
42
the streets and barricades of an earlier Paris--or with ways
of the boheme and the flaneur, the man in the crowd, the
gambler, the big city dweller, the whore. In his essay on
Surrealism, which was the inspiration for this nostalgic
construction, Benjamin provides the most direct statement
of the relationship between modernity, capitalist
modernization, and the everyday:
Any serious exploration of occult, surrealistic,

phantasmagoric gifts and phenomena presupposes a
dialectical intertwinement to which a romantic turn
of mind is impervious. For histrionic or fanatical
stress on the mysterious side of the mysterious takes
us no further: we penetrate the mystery only to the
degree that we recognize it in the everyday world, by
virtue of a dialectical optic that perceives the
everyday as impenetrable, and the impenetrable as
everyday.34
In the postwar period of Japan which is my concern here,
the modern is redefined by the structure of a new
postindustrial state--a moment marked by mass consumption,
political immobilization, and the consolidation of systems;
what Henri Levebvre calls the "the bureaucratic society of
63-66.
34 Walter Benjamin, "Surrealism," cited in Peter Osborne,

The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde (London:
Verso, 1995), p. 181.
43
controlled consumption" and its "terrifying potency of
overorganization." For Lefebvre, everyday life is a category
of capitalism, of modernity, and of postwar consumer
capitalism in particular; his discourse defines capitalism
as modernity. In France as in Japan, this postwar
modernization was synonymous with Americanization and its
ideals of privatized consumption facilitated by
multinational products such as the car, the refrigerator,
and the TV— all of which appealed, like a Hollywood movie,
to what Frangoise Giroud called "the appetite for
frivolity."35 This period is also marked by "the upheaval
in social relations occasioned by the sudden, full-scale
entry of capital into 'style of life,' into lived, daily,
almost imperceptible rhythms"36 Describing the middle-class
and working-class ideal of the postwar home-owner, Lefebvre
writes:
He has his place in space....He is established in the

identical, the repetitive, the equivalent. The enduring
nature of goods both symbolizes and realizes the
permanence of an ego. That ego certainly lives better
35 Kristin Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and

the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1995), p. 178. Giroud was the editor of File magazine.
36 Ibid. , p . 6 .
44
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
in its own property than in an anxious state within
a lodging it could lose from one day to the next. These
trivialities make up the triviality and, thus, the force
of the quotidian.37
Following his work on existentialism in the postwar
years, Lefebvre sought to redefine Marxism on the basis of
Marx's early concept of alienation as "critical knowledge
of everyday life." Socialism, he argued, "can only be defined
concretely on the level of everyday life, as a system of

qo
changes in what can be called lived experience." It alone
can bring into play "the totality of the real," a
philosophical universality (albeit in a manner that is always
partial and incomplete) that is at once empirical in the
multiplicity and variety of its concrete forms and utopian
in its promise of a concrete universality of relations at
the level of society as a whole. The alienated abstraction
of modern social forms can thus be overcome by a praxis-based
phenomonology of social life. Lefebvre's utopian core is
that "substance of everyday life— 'human raw material'--in
37 Henri Lefebvre, "La somme et la reste" cited in Ibid.,

p p . 107-8.
38 Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life cited in Peter

Osborne, The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde
(London: Verso, 1995), p. 190.
45
its simplicity and richness" which ''pierces through
alienation and establishes 'disalienation' within the
everyday." 39 This possibility promotes a growing
consciousness of the need to actively intervene within the
everyday, to produce as well as to draw attention to its
utopian side. In the void left by the atrocious failures
of Stalinism, Lefebvre and his friends who founded the
Situationist International in 1957 retrieved some of
modernity's revolutionary spirit by thus launching a radical
critique of bourgeois consumer culture and locating the
concretization of the universal within the simple, fabulous
monotonies of everyday life.
If modernity over the last 150 years has been theorized
as the experience of capitalist modernization, that
experience is ultimately encoded in the everyday. The
modernist move "to 'think' the concrete by trying to find
a place outside social abstraction"40 has always resided with
the objects, acts, sites and spectacles of quotidian
existence. In the advancing hegemony of ever-evolving forms
of capitalism, the everyday is also the last holdout of
39 Lefebvre cited in Ibid., p. 194.
46
private life, the subjective self, and Benjamin's cherished
"ecstatic moments." For avant-garde culture dedicated to
social revolution or transformation, whether in France, the
U.S., or Japan, its forms of radical critique have also most
often been connected to discourses of the everyday.
Drawing upon Marxist cultural critiques and strains
of Dadaism, Surrealism, Neo-Dadaism, and Conceptualism,
several postwar Japanese avant-garde movements regularly
appropriate the most literal gestures of everyday life to
create a distinctly performative, interactive, and social
form of art. Tokyo's Group Ongaku, Neo-Dada Organizers, Hi
Red Center, and Fluxus--loose cooperatives of visual artists,
musicians, poets, and performers who shared a generalized
attitude regarding the concrete relationship of art and
life— dedicate their activities to exploring the role of
art and artists in modern society, and the nature of the
art object in an age of mass commodification. Indeed, the
Fluxus Manifesto of 1963 calls upon the "cadres of cultural,
social and political revolutionaries" to "purge the world
of bourgeois sickness, 'intellectual,' professional and
commercialized culture" and to "promote living art....NON
40 Harootunian, The Benjamin Effect, p. 63.
47
ART REALITY."41
To express opposition against the systems inherent in
the commercialized canon of modern (high) art and to bring
art into the gritty, unspectacular realm of the everyday,
the works of these Anti-Art, Neo-Dadaist groups most often
utilized cheap, mass produced, and found materials and were
frequently distributed not as unique objects but as multiples
Like Mavo and surrealism whose antics they were aware of,
the postwar Japanese avant-garde aims to rupture the
repetitive consumerism of modernity via an aesthetic assault
that recycles and decontextualizes its own detritus (tea
bags, light bulbs, house keys). Both the prewar and postwar
movements exploit the psychic dynamics of commodity
fetishism by working with its twofold character such as
alienation (disavowal) on one hand, and figures of
possibility (desire) on the other.42 The result, as Benjamin
wrote of the European Surrealists, is that "destitution,
enslaved and enslaving objects— can be suddenly transformed
41 George Maciunas, Manifesto reprinted in Elizabeth

Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss, In the Spirit of Fluxus
(Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1992), p. 24.
42 Osborne, The Politics of Time, p. 182.
48
into revolutionary nihilism."43 Daily commodities, like
coughing or eating a tuna-fish sandwich (both were scored
as Fluxus events), are the very means of existence, and it
is in their concrete and banal nature that their usefulness
for a radical critique of modernity's (and the art-world's)
hegemonic abstractions lies. Rather than reject bourgeois
culture, Japan's Anti-Art, Neo-Dadaist movements embrace
it so as to experience, in Lukacs' terms, the power of "the
existent, of naked existence."
One of the central issues of postwar Japan's Neo-Dada
tendencies was to locate the commodity as the main mystery
of the everyday world of modern capitalism. For the commodity
is the means and ends of all daily production, accumulation,
and relations; it is the life-process of society. It was
not only the endless proliferation of commodities but also
the ceaseless flux of money's circulation that was frequently
the object of the avant-garde's critique. Of course, money
creates modernity's fundamental experience of flux. As
George Simmel proposes, through money the structures of
knowledge, of action, of ideal formations are removed from
43 Walter Benjamin, "Surrealism" in Reflections, ed. Peter

Demetz (Schocken Books, 1978), p. 181-82.
49
their substantial and stable forms and placed in a state
of development and motion. 44 The stable becomes the
transitional, and the rigidity of matter is dissolved into
the smallest restless motion of elements in modern life.
Money also represents the forces of rationalization,
uniformity, the objectification of the phenomena of life
and ultimately alienation that define the modern experience.
For the neo-Dadaists' experimental explorations of modern
capitalism and its social systems, money was an obvious and
frequent subject of critique or parody.
One of the most important figures in the history of
postwar neo-Dada movements to address the discourse of money
is Akasegawa Genpei (b. 1937) . His work includes a 1963 series
of objects using reproductions of a ¥1,000 note bill and
the ensuing six-year trial in the Tokyo Metropolitan District
Court to defend that his intention was to make art (or more
precisely, Anti-Art) not counterfeit as he was charged for--a
remarkable battle that he lost, appealed, and ultimately
lost again. Akasegawa, who became a member of the
internationmal collective, Fluxus, first used one-sided,
44 George Simmel, trans. by Tom Bottomore and David Frisby,

The Philosophy of Money (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp.
50
monochrome reproductions of the ¥1,000 note bill to send
as invitations to a solo exhibition. He then used more such
reproductions as wrapping paper for a series of found objects
including a hangar, a pair of scissors, a briefcase, a beer
bottle, a knife and spoon. Even before Akasegawa's
money-wrapped junk of everyday urban life were confiscated
by the Tokyo Police, they were like criminal evidence,
menacing in their mute mystery, of the dehumanizing
uniformities and redundancies of money economy. Reiko Tomii
has suggested that Akasegawa's reproduced bills, cut to the
exact size, "characteristically embodied the Anti-art desire
to dismantle the boundary between art and life, suspend the
quotidian life, and thus agitate human consciousness
entrapped in everyday existence." 45 Most importantly,
however, was Akasegawa's stated intention "to subvert the
money system." In his essay, "On Capitalist Realism,"
published by Nihon dokusho shinbun before he was convicted,
476-512.
45 Reiko Tomii, "Guilty Verdict: Genpei Akasegawa and Mokei

sen-en-satsu jiken." Paper given at the Association for Asian
Studies, March 16, 1997. Unpublished ms., p. 2. See also
William A. Marotti, Politics and Culture in Postwar Japan:
Akasegawa Genpei and the Artistic Avant-Garde 1958-1970
(Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Chicago, 2001).
51
he wrote: "My printed matter... differs from counterfeit or
authentic one-thousand-yen note in that in my intention and
in its actuality it is 'unusable' and thus a model of the
one-thousand-yen note stripped of the function of paper
currency."46 The irony is that his attempt to parody the
ubiquitous circulation of bills by producing a "model"
(mokei) of the original was perceived by the legal
authorities as an attempt to interrupt real circulation with
a fake (counterfeit) . Perhaps in no other instance in
avant-garde's history has a radical critique of capitalist
modernization produced such a dramatic effect in the actual
arena (literally, the courtroom) of the capitalist state.
1.5 The Discourse on Autonomous Modernity
A significant prewar avant-garde premise that informed
postwar movements is autonomy from the hegemony of
Euro-American modernism. Often misconstrued as
anti-Westernism, this critique suggests rather a resistance
to the outright adoption of Euro-American culture, and
advocates that Japanese art recognize and construct its own
46 Akasegawa Genpei, trans. and cited in Tomii, Guilty

Verdict, p. 3.
52
distinct modernity. The first stage of transformation begins
when the Japanese separate the source (in this case the West)
from the ideas themselves (in this case modernism) . The
preeminent Meiji novelist, Natsume Soseki, was among the
first to reject applying nineteenth-century universal
notions of "history" and "literature" to Japan because he
understood their inherent ethnocentrism. According to his
concept of "autonomy" (jiko hon 'i) :
Whether it be social mores, customs, or emotions, we

must not recognize the existence only of those social
mores, customs, and emotions that have manifested
themselves in the West. Nor should the attainments
reached, after many transitions, by Western
civilization at this point in time set the standard,
however much it may set the standard for
them.... Therefore, to take Western literature as we
have been taught it as the sole truth and constantly
appeal to that in determining our own affairs is
terribly limiting. I don't deny that there is a factual
basis for history. But what we have been taught is
"history" can be assembled in many different ways within
our minds and, given the right conditions, these other
visions are always capable of being realized....Rather
than classifying literary works on the basis of an "ism"
(which, in turn, is based on the notion that a specific
period or individual can be identified in terms of
distinguishing characteristics) we should look only
at characteristics of the work itself, quite apart from
its author or the age in which it was written. We should
approach all works--ancient or modern, Eastern or
Western--in this way. 4 7
«
47 Exhibitions focusing on specific movements include Gutai:

Koi to kaiga/Gutai: Action and Painting at the Hyogo
53
Soseki's theory of cultural autonomy found expression
in various Taisho and early Showa intellectual and art
movements. As we have seen with the Shirakaba, FAA, Mavo,
and Surrealist artists, they differed from the Meiji yoga
painters in their refusal to be "slaves" to imitate the
West.48 Just as Soseki insisted that European "isms" (such
as Romanticism and Naturalism) be seen only as formal
elements in a literary work, the emerging avant-garde artists
wanted to create new forms that were modern and international
but not bound to "be" Western. Rejecting both the Orientalist
perception of Japan and Japan's idolization of the West,
they asserted themselves by delving into the psychological
depth and power of their own sense of being. (Ironically,
this concept of "being" was itself a philosophical construct
of contemporary European philosophy, ranging from Marxist
Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe in 1986; Mono-ha to

posto Mona-ha no tenkai: 1969-nen iko no Nihon no bijutsu/Art
in Japan since 1969: Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha organized by
Tama Art University and The Seibu Museum of Art in 1987;
and Geijustu to nichijo:
Han-geijutsu, "han"-geijustu/Japanese Anti-Art: Now and
Then at The National Museum of Art, Osaka in 1991.
48 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books,

1979), pp. 205-6.
54
utopian views of the unalienated, "true" individual that,
in the postrevolutionary realm of freedom, is destined to
replace the "real" individual of the capitalist world, to
Kierkegaard's existentialism and Bergson's idea of intuitive
transcendence.) In his influential essay, "The Green Sun,"
Takamura Kotaro proposed that the self as the source of
creativity must transcend the limits of nationality, any
fictions of a superior power outside existence itself:
I was born as a Japanese. ...In ordinary social dealings,

of course, I am quite conscious of the fact that I am
Japanese. When I am involved in nature, however, I take
little cognizance of the fact. And indeed, when I am
conscious of myself at all, it is within my own personal
sphere. When my own sense of self is submerged in the
object of my attention, there is no reason for such
thoughts to occur to m e . ...At such times, I never think
of Japan. I proceed without hesitation, in terms of
what I think and feel. Seen later, perhaps the work
I have created may have something 'Japanese' about it,
for all I know. Or then again, perhaps not. To me, as
an artist, it makes no difference at all.49
Heir to Japan's early modern critical legacy, the
postwar avant-garde represented in this study also aspired
49 Cited and trans. by Thomas J. Rimer in Shuji Takashina,

Thomas J. Rimer with Gerald D. Bolas, Paris in Japan: The
Japanese Encounter with European Painting (Tokyo and St.
Louis: The Japan Foundation and The University of Washington,
1987), p. 60. For the original text, see Takamura Kotaro,
Geijusturonshu (Collected Essays on Art), (Tokyo: Iwanami
55
to liberate itself from Western art norms (equated as both
colonialist and bourgeois) and to ground its critical
discourse in the "self" (equated as both free and
revolutionary). New movements arose as a reaction to what
was perceived as Japan's shallow imitation of Western trends
and orthodox modern art academies. This was not an
anti-Western position per se, but rather a resistance to
the superficial transformation of Japanese culture on a
popular and mass consumerist level. Thus Gutai aimed to
overcome lyrical Japanese Surrealism, the Yomiuri
Independant artists aimed to overcome the whirlwind effects
of the French Art Informel movement on Japanese painting
in the late 1950s, and Mono-ha aimed to overcome Pop Art
as it was practiced in Japan. Whereas other histories have
seen the interaction between Japanese and Euro-American
artists as a process of assimilation, this history highlights
the Japanese artists' radical will to differentiate
themselves from the dominant culture in an attempt to
establish an autonomous modernity.
Soseki's theory of cultural autonomy informed a related
critique of modernity articulated by the scholar of Western
Bunko, 1982), p. 81.
56
philosophy, Kuki Shuzo (1888-1941), who stated that:
"Contemporary Japan has come face to face with a crisis.
Every aspect of our life is tainted by the West, a condition
commonly believed to be 'modern.'' But this is a dangerous
delusion, one which must be dispelled."50 In his 1930 essay,
Iki no kozd (The Structure of Edo Aesthetic Style,) , Kuki
analyses the aesthetics of fashion and style of the Edo
pleasure quarters and its related realms, the Kabuki theaters
and popular arts of the late Tokugawa period (1600-1867).
The qualities celebrated in the aesthetic style of iki— an
elaborately encoded chic, a poetic bravado alert to the
ephemeral essence of beauty, expertise in flaunting
non-adherence to the sumptuary codes— were distinctly
subversive. Iki, Kuki posits, was the language of resistance
among the rising mercantile and artisanal classes to the
weakened samurai bureaucracy. Drawing upon the German
neo-idealist defense of culture, Bergson's sanctification
of subjective experience, and Heidegger's pursuit of
authentic being, Kuki asserts that iki was a sensibility
50 Kuki Shuzo, "Japanese Culture", trans. and cited in Leslie

Pincus, "In a Labryrinth of Western Desire: Kuki Shuzo and
the Discovery of Japanese Being" in Masao Miyoshi and H.D.
Harootunian, eds., Japan in the World, p. 222.
57
whose value lies in its exteriority to European modernity,
that is, its' essential Japaneseness.51 Responding to what
he saw as Tokyo's "cultural colonization" by the West in
the rise of mass culture, Kuki calls upon his readers to
connect with Japan's distinct aesthetic spirituality which
he imagines to be a last vestige of "authenticity." Other
prewar intellectuals engaged in what Harry Harootunian calls
"Edo viewing"— the cultural theorist Watsuji Testuro and
the novelist Tanizaki Junichiro— "looked to a moment in the
past that would serve as the primordial or original condition
of existence of the Japanese folk" (minzoku, Volk).52
While Kuki's application of Heidegger's "hermeneutics
of ethnic being" were later criticized for harboring
ideological potential for imperialism and nationalistic
fanaticism,53 his intellectual construct was related to a
larger discourse on cultural autonomy in the 1930s which
was a forerunner of both the critique of modernity carried
51 Ibid., p. 225. See also, Karatani Kojin, "One Spirit, Two

Nineteenth Centuries" in South Atlantic Quarterly (Summer
1988), p p . 62 5-28.
52 Harry Harootunian, History's Disquiet: Modernity,

Cultural Practice, and the Question of Everyday Life (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 124.
53 Karatani, "One Spirit," p. 623.
58
out in the seventies and the postmodern discourse that
emerged in the eighties. This is the debate on "overcoming
the modern" (kindai no chokoku), the topic of a symposium
with a group of distinguished intellectuals, academics, and
critics organized in July 1942 by the Literary Society
(Bungakkai) in Kyoto.54 Although coopted in part by the
state's Pan-Asian expansionist agenda, the purpose was to
rethink Japan's course of modernization in terms of refuting
Westernization and articulating an autonomous, nativist,
and spiritual vision of the future. Among its members was
the critic Kobayashi Hideo, who believed that Japan was
already modern but dangerously close to becoming a mere
replica of the West. Rejecting the rational, progressive
view of history, Kobayashi proposed that the timeless
"essence" of tradition, as found in art and objects of beauty,
54 The debate included members from two intellectual camps:

the Literary Society (Bungakkai) and the Romantics.
Influential figures such as Kobayashi Hideo, Nishitani Keiji,
Kamei Katsuichiro, Hayashi Fusao, Miyoshi Tatsuji, Kawakami
Testuitaro, and Nakamura Mitsuo. For comprehensive
historical and philosophical analysis of the symposium, see
H.D. Harootunian, "Visible Discourses/Invisible Ideologies"
in Masao Miyoshi and H.D. Harootunian, eds., Postmodernism
and Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989) ; Harry
Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and
Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000); and Harootunian, History's Disquiet.
59
could save Japan by offering a source of "renewal, creative
inspiration, and identity in a world insisting on the
sameness of the modern."55 Harootunian offers the following
summary of the symposium in his comprehensive history,
Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in
Interwar Japan:
In many ways, the symposium was a continuation... of

the struggle against an everyday life introduced by
capitalist modernization that had been fiercely
contested since the 1920s by all kinds of social and
cultural theorists, writers, and thinkers, who saw in
its growing hegemony both a dilution and diminution
of an essential cultural endowment.... What
participants offered as an "overcoming" was a
rediscovery of the classics, the return of the gods,
and...a new kind of subjectivity that owed as much to
modern philosophy as it did to Buddhist metaphysics.
Whether the symposium was appealing to rootedness or
transcendence, it came down to the same thing.56
The Kyoto debate was the culmination of decades of
intellectual debates about Western political, economic, and
cultural hegemony in Asia. On one hand, this movement grieved
the passing of traditional Japanese values in the wake of
capitalist modernization, and offered a critical methodology
55 See Harootunian, "Visible Discourses/Invisible

Ideologies," pp. 67-71.
56 Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity, pp. 90-91.
60
to analyze, and thereby renew, such cultural expressions
as Zen thought, traditional architecture, Japanese folklore,
and— as exemplied by Kuki's project— Edo aesthetics.57 On
another hand, it was related to leftist ideals which defended
a modernization process that relied neither on Western models
nor on reified traditional forms, but on the Marxist
formation of democratic revolution. The first comprised a
critique of modernism based on cultural essentialism; the
second was informed by a dominant Marxist critique of Western
imperialism and capitalism.
In the postwar era, both movements found expression
in the visual arts. Among the groups represented in this
history that are devoted to articulating "the logic of the
East" within a global context, thereby resisting the
subjugation of Asian art and thought to the dominant Western
practices, are the Bokujin-kai avant-garde calligraphers,
the Sodeisha ceramicists, and the Mono-ha artists that
approach natural materials such as wood, stone, earth, water,
57 See Chapter Three for a discussion of Nishida Kitaro's

Zen discourse, Yanagida Kunio's folklore studies, Tanizaki
Jun'ichirb's essay In Praise of Shadows, and Kuki Shuzo's
analysis of Edo aesthetics, The Structure of Iki in
relationship to the discourse on traditionalism and the
avant-garde in postwar Japan.
61
and Japanese paper in a process that involves minimal human
intervention. A more overt political art movement that was
aligned with leftist and Communist opposition to the American
military presence in Asia in the immediate postwar decade
is the Avant-garde Art Association (Zen'ei Bijutsu-kai),
founded in 1947 by Maruki Iri, known for his murals depicting
the horrors of the Hiroshima holocaust, and Yamashita Kikuji,
whose surrealist nightmares illustrate the fantastic
colliding of bored Occupation G.I.s with A-bomb victims
suffering from keloidal burns. On Kawara, who was affiliated
with this group at the time he produced the Bathroom Series
in 1953-1954, a succession of twenty-eight drawings that
begins with a domestic murder scene and develops into a
bizarre chaos of mass mutilation inside the twisted confines
of a tiled bathroom, observed: "Recently the notion of
humanity has been threatened by matter. In daily life I feel
this every moment. Political and economic anxieties
overwhelm individuals."58
1.6 On Interpreting the Japanese Avant-Garde: A Review of
58 On Kawara (1955), cited and trans. by Kazu Kaido in

Reconstructions: Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1945-1965, exh,
cat. (The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1985), p. 19.
62
the Field
Over the last two decades, there has been a dramatic
growth of interest in modern and contemporary Japanese art.
Abroad, this shift is partly due to the influence of
postmodern critiques which have deflated modernism'’s
Eurocentric assumptions. Challenging the canon of modern
art history, new cultural theories have broadened the focus
of art-critical inquiry to include non-Western and minority
artists traditionally considered peripheral or "other."
Japan's ascendance as the world's second-largest economy
marking the decentralization of the world's financial
markets, and the rapidly-developing global culture of the
digital information age which appear to make geographical
borders obsolete, have further stimulated new curatorial
interest in Japan as the ideal site for the current phenomenon
known as "globalism" and "transculturalism." Consequently,
there has been a remarkable increase of modern Japanese art
exhibitions organized by museums and galleries in Europe,
North America, and Australia, and the number of Japanese
artists represented in international surveys of contemporary
63
art, such as Documenta, has risen steadily.59 Gendai bijutsu,
or contemporary art, has also become the focus of new
curatorial studies in Japan, stimulated by a recent
proliferation of museums and an intellectual trend to
historicize and legitimize Japan's modern cultural history.
Artists once outcast for their perverse unorthodoxy are now
reclaimed as national treasures; the avant-garde culture
that traditionally received little support among the
59 The major exhibitions of postwar Japanese art organized

in Europe since the mid-1980s include Reconstructions:
Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1945-1965 at the Museum of Modern
Art, Oxford, 1985; Japon des Avants-Gardes 1910-1970 at the
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1986; and Gutai: Japanische
Avantgarde/Japanese Avant-garde 1954-1965 at the
Mathildenhohe Darmstadt, 1991. More recent group shows of
contemporary art include Japanische Kunst der Actziger Jahre
at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, 1990; and A
Cabinet of Signs: Contemporary Art from Postmodern Japan
at the Tate Gallery Liverpool, 1991; and Zones of Love:
Contemporary Art from Japan organized by the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney. In North America, the focus of
exhibitions has been contemporary art including Against
Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties organized by The List
Center for Visual Arts, M.I.T., The Grey Art Gallery and
Study Center, and The Japan Foundation, 1989-1990; Yayoi
Kusama: A Retrospective at the Center for International
Contemporary Arts, New York, 1989-1990; A Primal Spirit:
Ten Contemporary Japanese Sculptors organized by the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hara Museum of
Contemporary Art, 1990; and Seven Artists: Aspects of
Contemporary Japanese Art organized by the Santa Monica Art
Center, The Japan Foundation, and InterCultura, 1991.
64
Japanese establishment has come to be embraced.60
Despite this significant change, a comprehensive
historical narrative and critical context for the advanced
study of twentieth-century Japanese art had not been
attempted until 1994, when this author's research, Japanese
Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, was published in
conjunction with an exhibition of the same title. Such
earlier landmark exhibitions as Japan des Avant-Gardes
1910-1970 in Paris, and Against Nature: Japanese Art in the
Eighties which toured the United States, were important for
introducing certain aspects of Japanese avant-garde art to
an international audience but offered little background on
the deeper historical, cultural, and intellectual forces
that gave rise to such remarkable phenomena. At Japanese
museums, surveys tended to focus on specific periods of art
(such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum's series on the
60 In the 1980s, Japan experienced a "museum boom" which saw

a tremendous increase in the number of public and private
museums. To serve these museums, there was a parallel
increase in commercial art galleries. An example of the
increased support of contemporary art is the establishment
of the Nippon Contemporary Art Fair (NICAF) in 1990, which
has been held at irregular intervals since. Held in Yokohama,
the fair attempts to present contemporary Japanese art within
the context of the international art market. These activities
have remained strong despite the economic stagnation of the
65
1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s), 61 or single artistic
movements or groups (such as Gutai, Anti-art, or Mono-ha).62
This approach, together with the Japanese museum-catalogue
and art book convention of favoring chronological
documentation over interpretative text, has obstructed the
development of a mature discourse on Japanese modern art
and perpetuated the notion, both at home and abroad, that
Japanese modernism is essentially discontinuous and
ahistorical.
Thus many of the fundamental problems of defining a
1990s and early 2000s.
61 The following exhibitions of Japanese art focusing on

decades were organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum:
Gendai bijustsu no doko I, 1950-nendai: Sono ankoku to kobo
/Directions in Japanese Art I, the 1950s: Gloom and Shafts
of Light in 1981; Gendai bijutsu no doko II, 1960-nendai:
Tayoka e no shuppatsu/Trends of Japanese Art in the 1960s:
Departure Towards Multiplicity in 1983; and Gendai bijutsu
no doko III, 1970-nen iko no bijutsu: Sono kokusai-sei to
dokuji-sei/Trends of Contemporary Japanese Art 1970-1984:
Universality/Individuality in 1984.
62 Exhibitions focusing on specific movements include Gutai:

Koi to kaiga/Gutai: Action and Painting at the Hyogo
Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe in 1986; Mono-ha to
posto Mona-ha no tenkai: 1969-nen iko no Nihon no bijutsu/Art
in Japan since 1969: Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha organized by
Tama Art University and The Seibu Museum of Art in 1987;
and Geijustu to nichijo: Han-geijutsu, "han"-geijustu/
Japanese Anti-Art: Now and Then at The National Museum of
Art, Osaka in 1991.
66
methodology for twentieth-century Japanese art history, and
of formulating a language of critical analysis and
interpretation, have only recently come to the fore. Among
the questions to explore are: What is the strategy of the
avant-garde within the broader context of Japanese social,
politcal, and cultural history? How can national
characteristics of contemporary art be defined within an
international context? If originality is the crux of the
modernist adventure, how do we interpret this work within
the framework of the modernist discourse?
While twentieth-century Japanese literature, film, and
architecture are established subjects of academic research
and critical inquiry in the West, modern Japanese art history
is an emerging field. Artists have also been largely omitted
from sociopolitical and intellectual historical studies of
twentieth-century Japanese intelligentsia. Progress is
hindered partly by the way in which Asian history is taught
at universities and presented at major museums. The
conventional definition of "Japanese civilization" suggests
a period beginning with the introduction of Buddhism and
advanced continental culture in the sixth century and
abruptly ending with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when
a progressive group of statesmen ruling within the symbolic
67
framework of an imperial monarchy broke Japan out of some
250-years of self-imposed isolation and endorsed a rigorous
program of modernization after Western models. Because the
Meiji leaders acknowledged the supremacy of Western
technology, because they promoted Western learning and
culture, and because their policies were specifically aimed
to modernize and rearm their feudalistic nation, Japanese
history has been divided ever since into the pre-Meiji and
post-Meiji periods. Until recently, this division affected
how academic studies are performed: There have been classical,
traditional or premodern Asian studies; and then modern Asian
studies, which have tended to focus on political and
intellectual history.
The notion that Japanese history is divided at Meiji
has been most definitive in the field of art history. Until
recently, Japanese specialists abroad have neglected
late-nineteenth and twentieth-century art, as if modern
Japan, corrupted by Westernization and industrialization,
were incapable of creating a significant culture of visual
arts that could equal the achievements of the classical past.
Despite the fact that the major schools of Edo-period
painting, including Kano, Shijo, and Ukiyo-e, as well as
calligraphy and all the traditional arts have continued to
68
develop right through the present day, their efforts have
been largely ignored in the West. Likewise, scholars and
curators of modern Euro-American art have often regarded
twenties-century Japanese art as derivative of and
altogether outside modern (read Western) art history. Either
the work appeared too Western and hence lacked originality— a
basic tenet of modernism--or it appeared too traditional--a
quality that is antithetical to modern art's
internationalist vision. No matter how avant-garde,
traditional Japanese materials and techniques defied the
categories of standard Western media and became, by
definition, irrelevant to the concerns of modern art. Untile
recently, this interpretation prevailed in all three areas
of modern Japanese art--Nihonga (modern Japanese-style
painting) , yoga (Western-style oil painting in manners drawn
from European models), and the avant-garde (including Dada,
Surrealist, and abstract art tendencies).
But beyond the problems of historical and stylistic
classification, deeper cultural issues lie at the heart of
conventional Western resistance to twentieth-century
Japanese art. This is the Orientalist perception of the
process of modernization in a non-Western country. As
cultural critic Edward Said writes in his influential study,
69
Orientalism, the racial, intellectual, and political
strategies of the Occidental approach to the Orient
throughout the successive periods of imperialism,
colonialism, and modernism were to posit the East as a
separate, different, and less developed entity than the West.
As Said remarks, "Now one of the important developments in
nineteenth-century Orientalism was the distillation of
essential ideas about the Orient--its sensuality, its
tendency to despotism, its aberrant mentality, its habits
of inaccuracy, its backwardness— into a separate and
unchallenged coherence.... The Orient existed as a place
isolated from the mainstream of European progress in the
sciences, arts, and commerce."63 Implied in this perception
was that modern civilization was the sole prerogative of
the West; the Orient, however much subjected to the dominant
culture, would never fully assimilate, or be assimilated
by, the modern way. For those Orientalists who exoticised
Eastern aesthetics, modernization meant the dilution of
traditional culture, the loss of national identity, and the
blurring of differences which make the Orientalist study
63 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books,

1979), pp. 205-6.
70
of the "other" so compelling. Thus the West was long reluctant
to recognize Asia's rapidly changing identity. For Said,
Orientalism's failure was as much a human as an intellectual
one, "for in having to take up the position of irreducible
opposition to a region of the world it considered alien to
its own, Orientalism failed to identify with human experience,
failed also to see it as human experience."64
More recently, trends in Western theoretical studies
have established an imaginary Japan at the center of
postmodern discourse. Yet like Orientalism, the postmodern
notion of Japan is largely a fictional projection. The trend
originated with Roland Barthes' Empire of Signs (1970), a
book whose subject is a concept of Japan— a country Barthes
never visited--which the author artfully invents to
symbolize a system composed of representational and generic
codes, exteriority and artifice, appropriation and
simulcra. 65 In imagining his fictive nation, Barthes
proposes: "I can also--though in no way claiming to represent
64 Ibid., p. 328.
65 Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs, trans. by Richard Howard

(New York: Hill and Wang, 1982). For the original text, see
L'Empire des signes (Geneva: Editions d'Art Albert Skira
S.A., 1970) .
71
or to analyze reality itself (these being the major gestures
of Western discourse)--isolate somewhere in the world
(faraway) a certain number of features (a term employed in
linguistics), and out of these features deliberately form
a system. It is this system which I shall call: Japan."66
The irony of Barthes'’ exercise is that it was partly adopted
as literal social anthropology and led to the popular
conception of Japan as the paradigm of postmodern culture.
Dominated by virulent capitalism and rampant computerization,
Japan's highly-advanced information society and commodity
culture came to epitomize the postmodern condition whereby
the real, the referent no longer exist and all is simulation
and pastiche.67
Consequently, contemporary Japanese artists were
increasingly cited in the 1980s and nineties as exemplars
of the transcultural postmodern; indeed, this thesis was
the focus of several well-acclaimed exhibitions.68 Morimura
66 Ibid., p. 3.
67 Marilyn Ivy, "Critical Texts, Mass Artifacts: The

Consumption of Knowledge in Postmodern Japan" in Miyoshi
and Harootunian, eds. Postmodernism and Japan, p. 24.
68 Exhibitions focusing on postmodern themes in contemporary

Japanese art include Against Nature: Japanese Art in the
Eighties (1989) and A Cabinet of Signs: Contemporary Art
72
Yasumasa's (b. 1951) spectacular inversions of race, gender,
and authorship in such works as Portrait (Twin) (1988), in
which the artist inserts himself as the nude prostitute and
black attendant in a replica tableau of Manet's Olympia,
were interpreted, as curator Kathy Halbreich writes, as a
sign that "Japanese artists today are beginning to examine
the promise of cross-cultural appropriation as well as the
implications of a kind of cultural imperialism that promotes
occidental ways and goods as best...."69 In emphasizing
strategies of appropriation and subversion, Western critics
who became engaged in contemporary Japanese art tended to
confuse the impressionistic application of postmodernism
with its critical methodology, and discounted (as Barthes
had also but for a specific purpose) the "reality itself"
of Japan. In fact, synthetic eclecticism is basic to an
understanding of any period of Japanese art, and the critique
of Western cultural hegemony has been on-going since at least
From Post-modern Japan (1991) cited above; and Reorienting:

Looking East organized by the Third Eye Centre, Glasgow and
the Nicola Jacobs Gallery, London in 1990.
69 Kathy Halbreich, Culture and Commentary: An Eighties

Perspective, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, 1990) , p.
88 .
73
1903, when aesthete Okakura Kakuzo (1862-1913) published
Ideals of the East as a protest against the perceived
superiority of Western culture and its encroaching
domination in Asia. 70 The validity of postmodernism
vis-a-vis contemporary Japanese art lies rather in its
critique of modernist hierarchies that privilege the central,
high, and original over any peripheral, low, and derivative
art forms. In this context, pluralistic world views and
multiple local histories can coexist within a broader
discourse.
The most current notion posits "contemporary art" as
a production that exists in "global contemporaneity," with
broad regional divisions of simultaneous production in
Euro-America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and narrower
area studies that encompass practices in China, South Africa,
or Brazil, for example. As Reiko Tomii has observed, the
concept of "multiple contemporaneities" is increasingly
extended to the immediate past (postwar or current decades,
70 Okakura Kakuzo (Tenshin) , The Ideals of the East with

Special Reference to the Art of Japan (Rutland, Vt. and Tokyo:
Charles E. Tuttle Co. Publishers, 1970).
74
or gendai) and the recent past (the modern age or kindai) .71
For example, the examination of "contemporary art" drawn
from multiple locales around the world was presented in two
thematic exhibitions, Out of Actions: Between Performance
and the Object, 1949-1979 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles, 1998) and Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin,
1950-1980s (Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1999), both of
which "stretched their surveys beyond the usual confines
of Western Europe and North America."72 Thus since the
mid-1990s, individual artists and groups of non-Western
backgrounds have been more routinely incorporated into
canonical narratives of twentieth-century art history, both
within museum collections and survey exhibitions. Tomii
concludes: "That is to say, a multiple of practices that
did exist in the postwar period but were unnoticed or
marginalized have been reclaimed to complete what may be
called the world atlas of contemporary art— an atlas which
had, originally, delineated primarily the West, with
sporadic notations of activity in terrae incognitae
71 Reiko Tomii, "Historicizing 'Contemporary Art': Some

Discursive Practices in Gendai Bijustu in Japan" (mss.,
forthcoming), p. 3.
75
73
beyond."
In art historical studies of the recent past (kindai),
the period of modernism/modernity, a new inclusive approach
has adapted theories of "multiple modernisms" or
"alternative modernisms."74 These interpretations offer new
views and research on modern non-Western visual cultures
and challenge the Eurocentric and monolithic construct of
modernism/modernity as a Western invention that spread from
the center to the periphery. Tomii notes that this approach
was demonstrated in the exhibition, Century City: Art and
Culture in the Modern Metropolis (Tate Modern, London, 2001),
which focused on nine different locales presented from nine
different viewpoints to explore the specific relationships
of modernist experience and the city, each arising from the
specific contexts of a different locale. Tomii concludes:
If "alternative modernisms/modernities" inherently

imply a benchmark modernism (i.e., of the West),
"multiple modernisms/modernities" allow multiplicity
both within and without Euro-America....Such
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.
/4 See Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, ed. , Alternative

Modernities (Durham and London: Duke University Press,
2001 ).
76
revisionist approaches, supported by focused views of
and from a locale (s) , particularly non-Western locales,
will in turn complicate and enrich our understanding
of the project of modernism as a whole, or a
supra-language' of modernism that extends beyond the
European example" in the words of [Documenta 2002
curator] Okwui Enwezor.75
The problem that has arisen in such well-intentioned
"global" surveys of both contemporary and modern art is that
they often reinforce the very monolithic construct and
external gaze of aesthetics and history that they set out
to deconstruct, albeit with a refreshed inventory of
multicultural theories. The uncritical adoption of the
global/transnational/transcultural approach, like the use
of English which is its operative lingua franca, often
dismisses the importance of expert knowledge of an area's
language, history, or domestic conditions. It produces and
even assumes a flattening of culture, a sameness of modernity
(and therefore its visual culture) that is the teleological
argument of its own theoretical construct. Is the experience
of modernity in Lagos really so similar to that in Sao Paolo,
and hence to Tokyo?
In part because my research presented in this study
75 Tomii, "Historicizing 'Contemporary Art', p. 3.
77
was conducted as conventional area studies' "field research"
drawing primarily upon oral interviews and primary resources,
analysis of art objects, and readings in history, I have
taken a different approach. This study aims to present a
history of Japanese postwar artistic modernism that is
grounded in the social, political, cultural, and
intellectual conditions of Japan during the Anpo period.
Such an approach is based on the belief that area expertise
is requisite for the study and interpretation of
"international" or "global" art productions of non-Western
artists.
If the problems of Western scholarship on Japanese
modern art are thus attributable to its habit of ignoring
or misreading the subject, problems of naming the subject
have prevented a modern art history from developing within
Japan itself. A significant effect of the postmodern
discourse was that it prompted Japanese intellectuals to
question to what extent "Western modernism" is relevant to
an analysis of "Japanese modernism." From the Japanese point
of view, the problematic issue was the ambiguity of the term
"modern" in a non-Western context. As literary critic
Karatani Kojin has written, conflating the concepts "modern"
and "Western" led to a crisis of interpretation. Karatani,
78
who emerged in the late 1970s as one of the most provocative
and controversial figures in Japan's intellectual movement
known as "modernity critique" (kindai hihan), proposes that
this conflation, while the dominant perception, is false
because it ignores the indigenous forces and internal logic
that have shaped the modern Japanese experience. To construct
any history of twentieth-century Japan, "modern" must be
first re-conceptualized in Japanese terms. In his
revisionist study, The Origins of Modern Japanese Literature,
Karatani writes:
Since, in the West as well as Asia, the modern and

premodern are distinct from one another, it stands to
reason that modernity must be conceptualized separately
from Westerness, but since the "origin" of modernity
is Western, the two cannot so easily be separated. This
is why in non-Western countries the critique of
modernity and the critique of the West tend to be
confused. Many misperceptions arise out of this. One,
for example, is that Japanese modern literature,
because it is not Western, cannot be fully modern. The
flip-side of this idea is that, if a work's materials
and themes are non-Western, the work must be
antimodern.76
The study of Japanese postwar avant-garde art examines
the mental struggle and creative expression of artists born
76 Karatani Kojin, Origins of Modern Japanese Literature,

trans. and ed. by Brett de Bary (Durham: Duke University
79
in Japan who came of age during the tumultuous postwar
period— some at home where they met with social
discrimination as outsiders, others abroad where they met
with racial discrimination as immigrants. Their challenge
has been to go beyond mere appropriation or synthesis of
influences, to transcend the question of whether their work
"received, incorrectly received, or resisted Western
'originals.'" 77 They sought instead to establish an
autonomous artistic identity and cultural sensibility that
would draw naturally, without contrivance, from premodern
and modern, Japanese and foreign sources. Throughout its
rise to international prominence, the Japanese avant-garde
has struggled with how to preserve, transform, or
universalize cultural legacy, and beneath the veneer of
appropriation and quasi-anarchist politics, has deeply
resisted the blind assimilation of Western culture. This
study explores the Japanese avant-garde as an integral force
within the social, political, and intellectual histories
of the postwar Showa period--a period which can also be seen
as a complex extension of, rather than break with, Japan's
Press, 1993), p. 192.
77 Ibid.
80
premodern and modern pasts.
~k -k ~k
Paradox is the central theme of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's
fantastic tales that established him as a seminal figure
of modern Japanese literature after his suicide in 1927 at
the age of thirty-five. "Smile of the Gods" (Kamigami no
bisho) recounts the story of a Portuguese Jesuit priest in
early-Edo Japan who, exasperated at the difficulty of
converting the pagan Japanese, collapses into a
hallucinatory state. An apparition of a Japanese spirit
visits the padre and explains how the philosophical systems
that have been imported from abroad, including Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Chinese poetry, have all been "remade"
in the course of time by the indigenous, pervasive power
of Japan's "old gods." Smiling, the spirit tells the
frightened and indignant missionary: "It is possible that
Deus himself could turn into a native of our country. China
and India were transformed. Now the West, too, must change.
We inhabit the woods. We are in the shallow streams. We are
in the breeze that wafts over the rose. We are in the evening
light that lingers on the temple wall. We are everywhere,
81
always."78
Like Christianity, modernism and the concept of
avant-garde art are Western ideas that Japan received from
abroad. As a philosophical system (however flawed),
modernism idealized the pursuit of personal freedom and
individualism, advocated the destruction of traditional
orthodoxy to create radically new culture, and saw history
as dynamic and universal progress. But as Karatani Kojin
reminds us, modern Euro-American philosophy was also
"remade" since the time it was officially adopted by the
progressive Meiji leaders in the nineteenth century. The
subject of this study is the nature of that transformation,
the forces at play in its complex history, and the identity
of Japanese art that emerged in the decades after World War
II. Characterized by extremist action and a metaphysical
78 Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Kamigami no bisho (Smile of the Gods) ,

cited in Karatani Kojin, Origins of Modern Japanese
Literature, trans. and ed. by Brett de Bary (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1993), p. 172. For the complete short story,
82
mind, the aesthetics of Japanese avant-garde culture could
suggest the persistent presence of Japan's "old gods" in
a post-atomic age.
see Akutagawa Ryunosuke zenshu (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1972) .
83
CHAPTER TWO
THE GUTAI GROUP
In the summer of 1955, a group of ardent young Japanese
artists staged an event that was unprecedented in form, scale,
or concept. Taking over a pine grove park along the
industrialized beach front of the suburban town of Ashiya,
near Osaka, they presented a thirteen-day, twenty-four hour
exhibition in the open air. There was a painting some fifty
feet long suspended from the trees, gigantic sculptures in
the sand made of abandoned machinery, a bubblegum-pink vinyl
sheet pinned just above the ground so that it rippled in
the wind, and a store-bought ball set all alone on the
pavement path, entitled Work B. "The experiment," the group
announced, "is to take art out from closed rooms into the
open air...exposing the works to the natural forces of sun,
wind, and rain."1
In preparing this chapter, I wish to acknowledge my

interviews with the following artists, critics, and
curators: Kanayama Akira, Barbara Bertozzi, Kawasaki Koichi,
Allan Kaprow, Alfred Lesley, Thomas Messer, Motonaga
Sadamasa, Murakami Saburo, Nakajima Tokuhiro, Shimamoto
Shozo, Shiraga Fujiko, Shiraga Kazuo, Osaki Shin'ichiro,
Tanaka Atsuko, Tatehata Akira, Yamawaki Kazuo, Yoshida
Toshio, and Yoshihara Michio.
84
The Experimental Outdoor Exhibition of Modern Art to
Challenge the Mid-Summer Sun was the legendary first
exhibition of the Gutai Art Association (Gutai Bijustu
Kydkai) . Founded in December 1954 by Yoshihara Jiro
(1905-1972) , an influential oil painter and heir to a private
company, 2 the group included some twenty artists who
gathered under his progressive tutelage. Yoshihara promoted
a bold and spirited anti-academicism by encouraging Gutai
members to "Create what has never existed before!" He thought
of art-making as an act of freedom, a gesture of individual
spirit, a willful rite of destruction to create something
new. Unbridled invention lead the Gutai artists to experiment
with unheard-of methods and materials--paint was applied
by watering cans, remote-control toys, explosives, and bare
feet, and objects were made of tin cans, water, smoke, and
electric bulbs.
The Gutai artists produced a legacy of aesthetic
All translations are the author's unless otherwise noted.
1 Yoshihara Jiro (1955); quoted and trans. in Barbara

Bertozzi and Klaus Wolbert, exh. cat. Gutai: Japanische
Avantgarde/Japanese Avant-Garde 1954-1965 (Darmstadt;
Mathildenhohe, 1991), p. 20.
2 The company, Yoshihara Seiyu, manufactured cooking oil.
85
experiments greater than any other Japanese group of their
generation. Yet throughout most of Gutai's eighteen-year
history, the Japanese art establishment was reluctant to
recognize its significant originality despite the barrage
of general media attention which the group received. In part,
the neglect was the result of age-old cultural rivalry
between Tokyo--where the prominent critics, influential
artists organizations, and leading art journals were based--
and the western Kansai region. Before the Shinkansen bullet
train connected Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka in 1964, the distance
of 300 miles took some nine hours by rail. As the New York
art world regarded the West Coast during the same period,
so most Tokyo critics dismissed the Kansai as provincial
and remote. Gutai, based in the Osaka area and comprised
of local artists, earned little critical support.
Furthermore, the intellectual mood in the capital after
the war was increasingly Marxist and preoccupied with themes
of apocalypse and existential alienation. By the late 1940s,
a Surrealist-based Social Realism focusing on social and
political allegories dominated contemporary culture.
Because Gutai art seemed to ignore such issues and denied
figurative, realist, or symbolic content, Tokyo's
influential Reportage artists saw Gutai as mere bourgeois
86
spectacle, no more serious or responsible than child's play.
Finally, Japanese critics faulted Gutai as a movement having
scant theory--when in fact, refuting the intellectualization
of art was precisely its premise. Some questioned whether
Gutai'" s adventures, promoted as so "original," were not
actually derivative of European Dada and therefore less
extraordinary as an independent Japanese avant-garde
movement. Others said that Gutai's impulsive work was all-too
ignorant of the intellectual lineage of modern art history,
and that its artistic influence or significance, if any,
was peripheral.
New scholarship on Gutai finally began to appear in
the 1970s, when an increase of modern Japanese art
exhibitions at home and abroad prompted a fresh approach.
A new generation of scholars, many of whom became interested
in Gutai while working in museums in the Osaka-Kobe region,
engaged in research that has led to significant documentation
on Gutai, including a framework for the group's chronology:
Early (from its founding in 1954 until 1958, when it became
affiliated with Art Informel) ; Middle (from 1959 until 1965,
when the Gutai journal ceased publication); and Late (from
1966 until 1972, when the group formally dissolved after
Yoshihara's death). While debates about the nature of Gutai
87
art are far from resolved, Gutai/s radical achievements in
the context of Japanese modernism are now recognized
historical fact. Not coincidentally, Gutai's overdue
recognition as Japan's primary "original avant-garde
movement" has occurred as part of a national revisionist
effort to establish a history of Japanese modernism
independent from the Euro-American narrative.3
The noun gutai, which literally means "concreteness,"
is composed of two characters: gu, signifying tool or means,
and tai, signifying body or substance. Using this name, Gutai
signified concrete enactments of individual character,
emotion, and thought in opposition to cerebral and abstract
aesthetics. In locating art in the interaction of body,
matter, and spirit, process and content became aspects of
the same phenomenon. Art thus lay in the chance collaboration
3 For a list of major Gutai exhibitions organized in Japan

and Europe since 1972, see Bibliography. Foremost among the
younger Gutai scholars are Kawasaki Koichi, Hirai Soichi,
Osaki Shin'ichiro, Tatehata Akira, and Yamawaki Kazuo.
Osaki's serialized essay on the theoretical problems of Gutai,
"Seisei to jizoku: Gutai bijutsu kybkai saiko" (Generation
and Duration: Re-examination of the Gutai Art Association),
published in A & C (Kyoto Junior College of Art, 1987-89)
is an excellent treatment of the critical and art-historical
issues basic to Gutai studies. Others who have contributed
to the re-evaluation of Gutai are Chiba Shigeo, Kuroda Raiji,
and Barbara Bertozzi.
88
between physical action (throwing, thrashing, kicking) and
material (paint, a pile of mud, and the sound of electric
bells) . Opposed to thought, which is passive and indirect,
Gutai encouraged "all daring steps which lead to an
undiscovered world."4
Gutai's thesis is found in its manifesto, penned by
Yoshihara in October 1956 and published in a leading art
magazine, Geijutsu Shincho. Declaring conventional art forms
meaningless in today's world, Yoshihara proposed that new
life be found in the raw interaction between the human spirit
and matter. For Gutai, material is defined as "matter"
(busshitsu) whose essential property is "spirit" (seishin) .
This spirit also connotes a universal human consciousness
as defined in Buddhist and Jungian terms, a childlike mind
that is free and pure. Gutai art aims to unite the human
and material spirits in a cathartic act that simultaneously
releases the energy of both; this moment of artistic creation
is what Gutai reveres. Yoshihara's involvement with the
innovation of Japanese traditional arts, specifically Zen
4 Yoshihara, "Gutai bijutsu sengen" (Gutai Art Manifesto)

Geijutsu Shincho (December 1956), pp. 202-4. Unless
otherwise noted, all translations of the "Gutai Art
Manifesto" are by Reiko Tomii.
89
calligraphy, also informed his philosophical understanding
of art as the direct reflection of the liberated self in
the temporal here and now. Cultural respect for the innate
quality of being that all things in the inanimate world embody
is reflected in Gutai's attitude towards the nature of
material:
Gutai Art does not alter the material. Gutai Art imparts
life to the material. Gutai Art does not distort the
material. In Gutai Art, the human spirit and the
material shake hands with each other, but keep their
distance. The material never compromises itself with
the spirit; the spirit never dominates the material.
When the material remains intact and exposes its
characteristics, it starts telling a story, and even
cries out. To make the fullest use of the material is
to make use of the spirit. By enhancing the spirit,
the material is brought to the height of the spirit.5
In its approach, Gutai had certain affinities with
European and American postwar painting movements, such as
Art Informel, COBRA, and Abstract Expressionism. Each was
derived in part from Surrealist automatism but rejected
aestheticism for more concrete qualities. Deeply affected
by the atrocities and betrayals of the war, artists around
the world found existential solace in the denial of symbolism,
the freedom of gestural abstraction, and the materiality
90
of paint itself. As COBRA artist Asger Jorn wrote: "One cannot
express oneself in a purely psychic manner. Expression is
a physical tool which materializes thought. Thus psychic
automatism is related organically to physical automatism."6
Gutai's approach included non-art materials and
three-dimensional or event-related works. Yet unlike Fluxus
and Happenings, which also used the body in interaction with
non-art matter, Gutai intentionally avoided overt
mythological or political content. Joseph Beuys' repeated
use of specific materials, such as honey to symbolize life
or fat to signify energy, made a personal language full of
symbolic meaning, and was thus charged with mystic commentary
that was absent in Gutai art.7 Drawing on their natural and
urban environment, the Gutai artists appropriated a variety
of natural and manufactured materials to reenact the
5 Ibid.
6 Asger Jorn, "Discours aux Pingouins," COBRA, no. 1 (1949),

p. 8. Quoted in Osaki Shin'ichiro, "Art in Gutai: Action
into Painting" in Gutai Shiryo-shu/Document Gutai 1954-1972,
ed. by Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, (Ashiya: City
Culture Foundation, 1993), p.22.
' See Catherine Millet, "Lighter than Air" in Gutai 1955-56:

Nihon gendai bijutsu no risutato chiten/Gutai: A Restarting
Point for Japanese Contemporary Art, exh. cat. (Tokyo:
Penrose Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1993), p. 15.
91
aggressive freedom of birth itself. Whereas artists in the
West perceived terror and chaos in the postwar condition,
the Gutai artists experienced relief and liberation from
decades of oppressive totalitarian bureaucracy. Gutai''s
historic activities lasted from its first outdoor exhibition
in 1955 until Yoshihara's death in 1972, when the group
disbanded. The vast surviving and documented corpus of Gutai
art includes painting, sculpture, indoor and outdoor
site-specific installations, action events, stage
performances, experimental film and musique concrete, the
Gutai journal, and related graphic arts. Intentionally
disinterested in the formalist arguments of modern
Euro-American abstract art and averse to the use of art as
political activism, Gutai engaged in its own form of "action
event" and "action painting" as an explosive rite to stomp
out the dark orthodoxies of prewar, Imperial Japanese culture
and usher in the liberal American-style "democracy" which
history had unexpectedly granted.
2.1 Yoshihara and Postwar Japanese Art
Yoshihara Jiro was born in Osaka in 1905, the second
son of a prosperous merchant family. Groomed to manage his
father's business, Yoshihara nevertheless pursued art from
92
an early age. He received no formal art training but was
guided in his early twenties by two well-known painters.
The first was Kamiyama Jiro (1895-1945), who had lived in
Paris and was well-versed in contemporary European art and
thought. 8 The second was Fujita Tsuguharu (1886-1968),
perhaps the most famous Japanese painter in Paris at the
time. At Fujita's recommendation, Yoshihara was accepted
to Nika-kai (Second Section Association)--a prominent group
of Fauvist-style painters who had broken away from the
academic salon sponsored by the Ministry of Education; this
established Yoshihara at the forefront of Japanese vanguard
painting. But it was Fujita's dictum, "Do not imitate
others," that particularly impressed young Yoshihara. In
his essay, "Genius," Fujita expresses the ideas that would
later become central to Gutai:
It is often said, for better or for worse, that we

Japanese are gifted for imitating things, which we can
improve upon, but that we are lacking in the innate
power to create without a model from which to work.
In the realm of art, we must create works of new value,
one of our own devising.9
8 Kamiyama Jiro was born in Tokyo and studied at the Kawabata

Art School. He lived in Paris from 1921 to 1923 and again
from 1924 to 1926, when he exhibited at the Salon d 'automne.
9 Fujita Tsuguharu, "Genius" (1936); trans. by J. Thomas
93
Yoshihara first showed at Nika-kai' s annual show in
1934. His work of this period is typical of the Surrealist
style that was popular among Japanese vanguard painters in
the 1930s, 10 but he gradually became more interested in
geometric abstraction. In 1938, he became a founding member
of the Ninth Room Association (Kyushitsu-kai) , a group of
Surrealist and abstract painters that formed in reaction
against the more Fauvist-dominanted Nika-kai. Yoshihara's
association with Kyushitsu-kai, which was among the three
most progressive arts groups in the prewar years, established
him as a leading spokesman for advanced art in Japan.11
Rimer in Takashina Shuji and J. Thomas Rimer with Gerald

D. Bolas, Paris in Japan, exh. cat. (St. Louis: Washington
University and Tokyo: The Japan Foundation, 1987), p. 281.
10 See Hirai Sdichi, "Shiururearisumu-teki imegi no jidai"

(The Period of Surrealistic Imagery) in Yoshihara Jiro-ten/
Jiro Yoshihara, exh. cat. (Ashiya: City Museum of Art and
History, 1992), pp. 12-13.
11 The other two avant-garde groups that were influential

in the prewar years were the Free Artists Association (Jiyu
Bijutsuka Kydkai) , founded in 1937 by abstractionists
Hasegawa Saburd, Hamaguchi Yozo, Murai Masanari, and
Yamaguchi Kaoru and others; and Art Culture Association
(Bijutsu Bunka Kyokai), founded in 1939 by Surrealists
Fukuzawa Ichiro, Ai-Mitsu, Terada Masaaki and others.
Together with Yoshihara, Kyushistu-kai' s members Yamaguchi
Takeo and Saito Yoshishige would emerge as Japan's leading
abstract painters in the postwar period.
94
In 1944, as Japan's defeat was imminent, its
totalitarian government banned all art exhibitions except
those of propaganda art organized by the Great Japan
Patriotic Art Association (Dai-Nippon Bijutsu Hokoku-kai),
and continued to enforce its prohibition of abstract painting
Yoshihara may well have agreed with his colleague, the
Expressionist painter Aso Saburo, who wrote: "It had become
impossible to paint as one liked....The air was thin. We
were being strangled by a black hand."12
Several events in the postwar Japanese art world
influenced Gutai's formation and eventual direction. First,
the academic hierarchy of the prewar art world was under
attack, as younger artists strove to establish themselves
independent of the juried salon institutions. The Democrat
Artist Association (Demokurato Bijutsuka Kyokai), founded
in Osaka in 1951 by the artist Ei-Kyu (1911-1960), had a
deliberately anti-establishment premise: "The spirit of
creation is born out of freedom and independence. Our group
follows no form or organization and is thus avant-garde in
12 Aso Saburo, "Memories of Shunsuke Matsumoto," trans. by

Katsuya Keiko, quoted in Art of the Showa Period from the
Museum Collection (Tokyo: The National Museum of Modern Art,
1989), p. 16.
95
the true sense. We challenge the arts organizations and their
ability to create freely."13 In 1949, the Yomiuri newspaper
launched the first annual, unjuried "Yomiuri Independant
Exhibition" in Tokyo, designed to give younger artists with
no official affiliation the chance to show. The conservative
styles associated with the dominant salons were passed over
in favor of more Dadaist and Expressionist works. As artist
Akasegawa Genpei recalls, "Everywhere at the Yomiuri
Independant the idea of a fixed format for a picture was
being destroyed--a tendency which intensified as time went
on."14
The early 1950s also saw the beginning of a boom in
international loan exhibitions in Japan. Between 1950 and
1954, the Salon de mai survey of contemporary French painting
and one-person shows of works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso,
Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, and Ossip Zadkine all
traveled to Japan. Rapid, successive exposure to
contemporary art was also facilitated by a deluge of
13 Ei-Kyu, Demokurato, no.3 (Fall 1953) .
14 Akasegawa Genpei, "The 1960s, the Art Which Destroyed

Itself: An Intimate Account," trans. by Kazu Kaido, in
Reconstructions: Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1945-1965, exh.
cat. (Oxford: Museum of Modern Art, 1985), p. 85.
96
international and domestic art magazines that were available
after years of censorship. The Japanese suddenly realized
"how much we had been starved of modern art"15 and critics
like Takiguchi Shuzo were moved to comment that:
Perhaps we haven't completely digested the movements

and principles of Western art. Japanese contemporary
art must exist in our guts and bones. This is where
everything begins. Is it possible that we do not yet
understand our very own substance?16
As if in response to a challenge from abroad, important
annual or semi-annual exhibitions of contemporary Japanese
art were inaugurated in the early 1950s, including the Nihon
Kokusai Bijutsu-ten/International Art Exhibition, Japan,
known as the Tokyo Biennale, and the Nihon Gendai
Bijutsu-ten/Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, both held
at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. These surveys, which
included works by Yoshihara in their opening shows, were
significant because they marked the official resurgence of
contemporary fine arts. But they also proved that the art
15 Haryu Ichiro, "Gendai bijutsu 1956" (Contemporary Art

1956), Geijitsu Shincho (May 1956).
16 Takiguchi Shuzo, "Sengo bijutsu no ayumi: Dai 5-kai

shusaku bijutsu ten" (Steps in Postwar Art: 5th Excellent
Works Exhibition, 1954) in Takiguchi Shuzo, Ten (Points),
97
community's identity and direction were mired. As Takiguchi
wrote, "There was the feeling that we were waiting for
something to change that was not changing drastically
enough."17
For Yoshihara, Jackson Pollock provided the catalyst
to overcome the postwar impasse.18 Yoshihara intuited the
fresh ebulliance of Pollock's automatist works and aspired
to the same raw energy when he praised "the scream of the
material itself, cries of the paint and enamel" in the drip
paintings--a brute materialism that also lay at the heart
of Gutai.19 In relinquishing the easel in favor of the floor
and adopting brushes, sticks, and trowels as tools, Pollock
symbolized freedom from both the procedure and imagery of
traditional oil painting. Further, as Harold Rosenberg
implied in his seminal 1952 essay, "American Action
(Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1983), p. 212.
17 Ibid., p. 211.
18 Pollock's drip paintings were first shown in a special

section devoted to international art at the 3rd Yomiuri
Independant Exhibition, 1951. Hans Namuth's famous Life
magazine photographs of Pollock making his drip paintings
were known in Japan, and served as an important model for
the Gutai group in their campaign to revolutionize
traditional painting techniques.
19 Yoshihara, "Gutai Art Manifesto."
98
Painters," the new American art repudiated the political
motives of Social Realism, the moral import of the
Regionalists, and the aesthetic concerns of abstract
painting in favor of the artist's "gesture of liberation,
from Value."20 Likewise, Yoshihara rejected Tokyo's Social
Realist and reportage trends for their overt ideology and
regionalism, and was also determined to progress beyond
formal abstract painting. In focusing on the individual
artist and the process of creation, action painting as
embodied by Pollock gave impetus to Yoshihara's pursuit of
a radically new art.
2.2 The Formative Phase: Yoshihara's Atelier and the Zero

Society
During the immediate postwar years, Yoshihara emerged
as an impresario in the reconstruction of the Kansai art
world. In addition to the international avant-garde's
stimulus, artists were finding inspiration in a variety of
indigenous cultural sources and philosophical traditions.
20 Harold Rosenberg, "American Action Painters," Art News

(December 1952), pp. 22-23, 48-49. See also David and Cecile
Shapiro, "Abstract Expressionism: The Politics of Apolitical
Painting" in Pollock and After: The Critical Debate, ed.
by Francis Frascina (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp.
99
Interest in liberating the traditional arts--especially
calligraphy— from their obsolete orthodoxies lead Yoshihara
and others to establish the Contemporary Art Discussion Group
(Gendai Bijutsu Kondan-kai), known as Genbi. Founded in 1951
in Osaka, Genbi functioned as an intellectual forum and
collaborative workshop for artists of diverse genres who
aimed to foster the creation of new art forms based on
integrating modernism and tradition, East and West,
individualism and universality. In short, Genbi's purpose
was to rethink and reform the definition and practice of
Japanese culture in a global age. The contemporary discourse
on how to achieve world relevance (sekai-sei) through the
innovation of Japanese tradition, which Genbi explored, was
to remain a serious concern for Yoshihara throughout his
career.
Kirin (Giraffe) , a children's art and literary magazine
founded in 1947, served as another forum for many of the
Gutai artists. Just as the Surrealists admired the art of
children and the mentally insane, the Gutai artists were
drawn to the imaginative process of children's art to help
tap into the realm of uninhibited, uncensored creativity.
137-40.
100
According to scholar Kawasaki Koichi, the importance of
children's art to the Gutai aesthetic was "not the style
of art made by children but their attitude, which was capable
of producing unique and surprising results from an empty
white space in an unselfconscious manner."21 Shiraga Kazuo
found inspiration in "children's works that played with
numbers, abstraction, white paper slashed with knives,
canvases painted with fireworks"22 and Yamasaki Tsuruko was
inspired by one child's idea--of tying up the school with
string--to write an essay on "The Art of Tying Up."23 Valuing
art made from instinct rather than intellect, Shimamoto wrote,
"Not only in fine art education but all kinds of education,
21 Kawasaki Koichi, "Gutai: Sono shoki no junsui-sei/The

Gutai Works: Works of Purity" in Gutai: A Restarting Point
for Japanese Contemporary Art, p. 15. Kirin (Giraffe) was
founded in 1948 by Inoue Yasushi, the progressive art
columnist for the Mainichi Shimbun, and the poet Takenaka
Iku. The magazine served as a forum for many of the Gutai
artists, who contributed to it regularly. Essays on
children's art were also included in the Gutai journal; a
special feature on children's art appeared in Gutai, n o .2
(October 10, 1955).
22 Shiraga Kazuo, "Boken no kiroku 1" (Record of Adventure,

No. 1), Bijutsu techo (July 1967), pp. 136-45.
23 This anecdote is reported by Alfred Pacquement, "Gutai:

L'extraordinaire intuition" in Japon des avant-gardes
1910-1970, exh. cat. (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1986),
p. 286.
101
it's not possible for art theory to precede art itself. If
it were so, then there wouldn't be any reason for art to
exist."24
Such alternative models of creativity--the unschooled
imaginations of children's art, the expressive play of ink
in Zen calligraphy--informed Yoshihara's increasing
dissatisfaction with orthodox modernism. Convinced that
formal abstract painting had no future, Yoshihara was
challenged "to go beyond the borders of abstract art." His
rejection of Japanese modernist conventions as staid and
derivative led him to establish Gutai as a vehicle for more
experimental creativity.
By 1953, when the first exhibition of the Contemporary
Art Discussion Group was held, Yoshihara was operating a
proper atelier at his Ashiya residence.25 His two constant
lessons were "Never imitate!" and "Create what has never
existed before!" Originality was more important than
24 Shimamoto Shozo (1956), quoted in Kawasaki, "The Gutai

Group: Works of Purity," p. 60.
25 Along with Yamasaki Tsuruko, Shimamoto Shozo, and

Yoshihara's son, Michio, several of Yoshihara's early
students became founding members of the Gutai group,
including Yoshida Toshio, Masanobu Masatoshi, Ukita Yozo,
and Uemae Chiyu.
102
technical aptitude, talent and character were prized above
intellect, and the idea of aesthetically-pleasing art was
deemed invalid. Yoshihara's relationship with his young
proteges was strictly student-teacher. They called him
sensei (honorific for "master" or "professor"), greatly
respected his opinion, and worked hard for his approval which
apparently was not easy to win. He was severe, moody, and
demanding: Over the years, the number of members ebbed and
flowed as several dropped out and new ones joined. He did
not push one style— though gestural abstraction was already
the dominant trend— but rather worked with students on a
one-to-one basis, encouraging them to open up, let go, do
the unthinkable . "He loved new work, " Yoshida Toshio recalls,
"If it wasn't new, he wasn't interested."26
Of Yoshihara's student, Shimamoto Shozo was among the
first to realize the possibilities implied in his mentor's
teachings. He began his Hole Series in 1950 while working
on an improvised canvas that he made from gluing together
layers of newspaper that he then attached to a simple wooden
frame. Brushing the surface with oil-based house paint-
26 Yoshida Toshio, interview with author, Nishi-Akashi, 9

August 1991.
103
cheaper than oil paint and better suited to cover
newspaper--Shimamoto drew on the surface with a pencil,
drawing a battery of lines and marks. When the newspaper
ground accidentally tore open, Shimamoto responded by
deliberately making breaks all over the rest of the painting.
According to Shimamoto, when he showed the first hole work
to Yoshihara, "we both felt that something great had been
accomplished. "21
At the time of his discovery, Shimamoto was unaware
of his contemporary Lucio Fontana's slashed canvas works.
Although both separately conceived punctured monochrome
surfaces, the slash in Fontana's pristine canvas is a formal
device, a late-modernist experiment with space and a
proto-Minimalist exercise of the concept, "painting as
object." Shimamto's paper canvas functions instead as a
record of the artist's chance physical action with material.
By presenting a torn and flaking surface as an object of
aesthetic value, Shimamoto at once defiantly opposed
established notions of permanence in abstract modernist
painting and introduced him (poverty)— the appreciation of
27 Shimamoto Shozo, interview with author, Nishinomiya, 17

August 1991.
104
minimal and naturally weathered objects as cultivated in
the arts of tea--into the context of contemporary Japanese
art. In these ways, Work: Holes (Plate 1) represents the
beginning of a Gutai style.
Yoshida Toshio, another self-taught artist who
frequented the Contemporary Art Discussion Group, joined
Yoshihara' s circle in 1953. Red {Plate 2) , is a painted wooden
board seamed with nails with a rope tied through two holes
in the surface. The Shinto elements--wood, rope, the color
red--are stripped to their essentials, a rude and humble
praise, in the artist's words, of "the spirit of matter."28
In 1952, as Yoshihara's atelier was becoming famous,
some dozen other local artists formed the Zero Society
(Zero-kai). Founded on the premise that "every work of art
begins from nothing,"29 its central figures--Shiraga Kazuo,
Murakami Saburo, Kanayama Akira, and Tanaka Atsuko--later
joined Gutai. Dissatisfied by the annual juried exhibition
of the New Production School Association (Shin-Seisaku-ha
Kyokai) , a nominally progressive arts association where they
first met, their group began meeting at Shiraga's house in
28 Yoshida, interview with author.
105
Amagasaki in the early 1950s. The object of their
investigation was how "to invent a new painting."30 Shiraga
records the outcome:
My childhood friend, Kanayama Akira, was working on

simplifying and reducing Mondrian's abstraction. He
took it to such an extreme that all that remained was
the dimensions of the canvas itself. He showed this
blank canvas with confidence at exhibitions. Tanaka
Atsuko, another member, proclaimed that painting on
canvas or paper was old-fashioned, and began making
simple shapes from plain cloth. Murakami Saburo, who
is famous for running through paper screens, threw
rubber balls that were dipped in ink at the canvas,
or let a ball bounce on the floor [and then hit the
canvas]. This work had a very interesting sense--the
feel of velocity. As for me, I stopped thinking about
form and composition, and tried to get in touch with
my instincts. I began creating with my bare feet.31
Zero Society's experiments in concept and action art
profoundly influenced the course of Gutai, and deserve wider
recognition abroad as examples of proto-Minimal and
Conceptual Art. Kanayama's "trans-Mondrian" series aimed
to transcend artistic subjectivity in order to objectify
the idea of art itself, and lead him in as early as 1955
29 See Shiraga, "Boken no kiroku 1."
30 Kanayama Akira, interview with author, Asuka-mura, Nara,

24 August 1991. The exact number of Zero Society members
is not confirmed.
31 Shiraga, "Boken no kiroku 1."
106
to present a blank canvas. "My work," Kanayama explained,
"is intentionally opposite Shiraga's. I am interested in
concept."3Z
Like Kanayama, Tanaka's Zero work reveals an interest
in mathematical notions of infinity. Work {Plate 6) was
conceived as Tanaka lay recovering from an illness in a
hospital bed, where all there was to look at was a calendar
on the wall. In a hallucinatory state, the numbers became
detached from their days, their repetition lost order, and
their shapes lost meaning.33 Writing in a deliberate scrawl
on collaged fragments of cloth or newspaper, Tanaka's numbers
look like codes inked on a recycled shroud. In her fascination
with infinity, and the sense of passivity its contemplation
instills, Tanaka's work is linked to the work of other
Japanese women artists of her generation, including the Gutai
artists Shiraga Fujiko and Yamasaki Tsuruko, and Kusama Yayoi
and Miyawaki Aiko.
Murakami's 1954 series, Work Painted by Throwing a Ball,
shares the Zero proclivity for making art of an idea. "I
32 Kanayama, interview with author.
33 Tanaka Atsuko, interview with author, Asuka-mura, Nara,

24 August 1991.
107
was interested in making a painting without touching the
canvas, that used distance," he explains.34 The solution was
found in a method that combined physical action (throwing) ,
the inherent properties of material (ink, ball, paper), and
chance circumstance (where the inked ball happens to hit
the paper) . In its idea of painting as performance,
Murakami's mark of accidental action is an early embodiment
of Gutai art.
Shiraga, one of the few Gutai artists who completed
art-school training in both Nihonga and oil painting,
discarded his brush and palette knife by 1954 and began to
paint with his feet. Just as Pollock "broke the ice" for
Abstract Expressionism, in Willem de Kooning's words, when
he discovered the drip technique, Shiraga's act provided
the symbolic breakthrough for Gutai. Shiraga proclaimed:
"Technique will change to free and wild action, and it ignites
my passion. Passion turns into action, and it fills my flaming
heart."35
The Zero Society showed only once, in the display
34 Murakami Saburo, interview with author, Nishinomiya, 22

August 1991.
35 Shiraga Kazuo, "Action Is the True Thing," (1955), trans.
108
windows of Osaka's Sogo Department Store, in 1954. Their
experiments with conceptual and performance-based art
attracted Yoshihara. Two months after Gutai was founded,
he apparently won them over by saying, "You can't fight alone,
so come fight in a group."36
2.3 Early Gutai
The group's first activity was the publication of a
journal, Gutai, that first appeared on January 1, 1955.
Writing in English, Yoshihara introduced Gutai art as "a
proposal" to the West, stating that "now is the chance to
call for the sympathy of people around the world." From the
start, Gutai thus aimed to build an international connection,
to stimulate cross-cultural exchange, and to assert itself
abroad as the preeminent Japanese avant-garde of its day.
The Gutai journal lasted for ten years and produced
twelve issues. 37 Its purpose was to document Gutai's
activities and publish essays by the artists. These writings
in Gutai: Japanese Avant-Garde 1954-1965, p. 371.
36 Shiraga Kazuo, interview with author, Amagasaki, 12

January 1992.
37 The issues are numbered one to fourteen; numbers ten and

thirteen were never produced.
109
took the form of statements of purpose or poetic,
philosophical musings. Like so much of Gutai art, its prose
is also a form of automatic gesture, uncensored
self-expression, naked and brave claims to new aesthetic
territories.
In the spring of 1955, the newly-formed Gutai group
made its Tokyo debut at the 7th Yomiuri Independant, signing
all their submitted works with the single name "Gutai." But
its first outdoor exhibition, held in July 1955, marked the
real beginning of the group's historic activities. These
included a second outdoor exhibition the following summer;
three exhibitions with artists' demonstrations at the Tokyo
headquarters of the Ohara ikebana school; and one exhibition
at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, all arranged by
Yoshihara. In 1956, Gutai organized an outdoor spectacle
of art events for Life magazine photographers; and from 1957
it choreographed several performances for the stage.38 Gutai
38 Following is the history of Gutai-organized activities

based on Gutai Shiryo-shu/Document Gutai 1954-1972:
I. Outdoor exhibitions (yagai-ten): Experimental
Outdoor Exhibition of Modern Art to Challenge the Midsummer
Sun, Ashiya, 25 July-6 August 1955; One-Day Only Outdoor
Exhibition (The Ruins), Amagasaki, 9 April 1956; Outdoor
Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya, 27 July-5 August 1956.
II. Indoor exhibitions held in Japan, numbered
consecutively (Gutai bijutsu-ten): 1st, Ohara Kaikan hall,
110
art developed in these many venues as the artists' creative
response to the challenging conditions of each new occasion
and site.
Tokyo, 19-29 October 1955; 2nd, Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo,

11-17 October 1956; 3rd, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 3-10
April 1957; 4th, Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, 8-10 October 1957;
5th, Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, 30 April-2 May 1958; 8th,
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 25-30 August and Ohara Kaikan
hall, Tokyo, 11-13 September 1959; 9th, International Sky
Festival, Takashimaya Department Store, Osaka, 19-24 April
1960; 10th, Takashimaya, Osaka, 11-16 April and Takashimaya,
Tokyo, 2-7 May 1961; 11th, Takashimaya, Osaka, 17-22 April
1962; 12th, Takashimaya, Tokyo, 29 January-3 February 1963;
13th, Takashimaya, Osaka, 16-21 April 1963; 14th,
Takashimaya, Osaka, 31 March-5 April 1964; 15th, Gutai
Pinacotheca, Osaka, 1-20 July 1965; 16th, Keio Department
Store, Tokyo, 8-13 October 1965; 17th, Takashimaya, Yokohama,
10-15 September and Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka, 1-10 October
1966; 18th, Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka, 1-10 June 1967; 19th,
Suntory Museum, Tokyo, 1-14 October and Gutai Pinacotheca,
Osaka, 1-15 November 1967; 20th, Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka,
1-20 July, 1968; 21st, Gutai Pinacotheca, Osaka, 1-20
November 1968.
III. Indoor exhibitions held abroad (Gutai bijustu
kokusai-ten): 6th Gutai Art Exhibition: Gutai New York
Exhibition, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 25
September-25 October 1958 (thereafter toured in the U.S.);
7th Gutai Art Exhibition: Gutai Turin Exhibition, Galleria
dell'Associazione Arti Figerative, Turin, June 1-30, 1959.
IV. Theatrical events (Butai o tsukau Gutai bijutsu):
Gutai Art Using the Stage, Sankei Kaikan hall, Osaka 29 May
and Sankei Hall, Tokyo, 17 July 1957; Gutai Art on the Stage:
2nd Presentation, Asahi Kaikan hall, Osaka, 4 April 1958;
Don't Worry! The Moon Won't Fall: Gutai Art and Morita Modern
Dance, Sankei Hall, Osaka, 6 November 1962.
V. Expo '70 in Osaka activities: Garden on Garden, an
outdoor sculptural environment; Expo '70 Midorikan Entrance
Hall Gutai Art Exhibition, 15 March-13 September, 1970; Gutai
Art Festival, Expo '70 Festival Plaza, 31 August-2 September
1970 .
Ill
Both outdoor exhibitions took place in a spacious pine
grove park in Ashiya (Plate 4). To make objects that would
withstand weather, the artists experimented with industrial
material such as vinyl, polyurethane, huge sheets of tin,
and electricity. The work also had to conform to various
conditions of its physical environment--the low-lying trees,
their knotty roots, the sandy ground. The artists were
inspired "to utilize and transform their surroundings,"39
and their experiments led naturally to an ephemeral,
site-specific, installation art. Motonoga Sadamasa, a new
member, used clear polyurethane sacs--the kind used to make
plastic bags--which he purchased from the factory as uncut
tubing. He filled each with red, yellow, and turquoise
colored water and tied the ends between the trees, where
they hung like a vast criss-cross of long, see-through
hammocks. When the sun shone, the bellies of colored water
turned into bulbs of brightly colored light. Other works
included Yoshihara Michio's hole in the ground with an
electric light buried at its navel, called Discovery, and
Kanayama Akira's 300-foot-long strip of white vinyl marked
j9 Shiraga Kazuo, "Boken no kiroku 2" (Record of Adventure,

No.2), Bijutsu techo (August 1967), pp. 138-45.
112
with black footprints that encircled the entire grounds and
ended up in a tree. Unlike conventional sculpture which is
conceived of as static, isolated objects, Gutai's outdoor
installations were developed as part of the environment on
nature for their colorful and capricious effects.
Other objects at the outdoor exhibitions were designed
to be interactive with people. Murakami Saburo's Sky, for
example, offered viewers the chance to step inside a tall,
one-man tent, where one's gaze was forced upward to behold
the sky framed above. Shimamoto Shozo constructed a rocking,
creaking catwalk of timber planks arranged on uneven springs,
on which people were invited to walk. These projects were
designed to induce unexpected emotions--fear, imbalance,
insecurity--and depended upon visitor participation and
mental/physical interaction, to be completed as works of
art. As Yoshihara wrote of Shimamoto's catwalk, it had to
be "walked" rather than "watched."
Finally, the outdoor exhibitions established the Gutai
notion of art as event. Theatricality was not only tolerated,
it was applauded. Sound, light, play, and the spirit of
festival characterized both outdoor summer shows. The
artists' decision, after the first exhibition closed, simply
to build a bonfire and burn all their works because they
113
had no storage facilities, poignantly symbolizes the early
Gutai belief that the making, installation, and experience
of art are expressions of daily life in all its transient
and imperfect flux. Process, not product, was the governing
aesthetic.
The Gutai exhibitions held at the Ohara Kaikan hall
in Tokyo in 1955 and 1956 offered a more formal setting for
the Gutai artists. Pursuing the possibilities of new
materials and interactive art, Tanaka Atsuko created a series
of projects based on a crude yet elaborate use of electricity.
Bell Piece (Plate 7), which took six months to construct,
was conceived as a "sound painting." Connecting twenty
electric bells with some 150 feet of cord, Tanaka devised
a contraption which set the bells off in a chain reaction
as soon as one was kicked or in some way activated by a person.
In the exhibition hall, the web of bells wound its way through
several galleries, chiming at odd intervals ahead and behind
one's tour. In this work, Gutai appropriated time as well
as sound into its conception of an art work.
One of Gutai's most emblematic objects is Tanaka's
Electric Dress (Plate 8), a wearable Christmas tree cloak
composed of hundreds of light bulbs painted in bright,
industrial primary colors that, when turned on, flashed and
114
blinked like a walking pachinko parlor. Tanaka, risking
electrocution, wore the dress for various Gutai performance
events (Plate 24). Tanaka's statement on the ridiculous
confines of feminine fashion is outstanding in the prehistory
of feminist art.
2.4 Gutai Performance
At the opening of the first Gutai Art exhibition at
the Ohara Kaikan hall in Tokyo, Shiraga Kazuo dived
half-naked into a pile of mud and performed an act that was
at once violent, grotesque, and erotic (Plate 20) . Submerged
in the ooze, he wrestled, kicked, thrashed, and squeezed
the clayish mound beneath him while the audience gathered
round. He emerged bruised and cut. The result was an artwork
made of mud, sculpted by physical action, and recorded in
photographs. Through Challenging Mud and other artist
demonstrations held in 1955 and 1956, the Gutai action event
(koi) was born.
For Murakami Saburo's performance at the same opening,
he built a structure of kraft paper screens, roughly six-feet
high and twelve-feet wide. He then flung himself through
the screens creating six gaping holes and several layers
of torn paper (Plate 19). As in Shiraga's mud event,
115
Murakami's action produced a work--the torn paper screens--
whose violence exposed the fundamental properties of the
material itself. Because of their association with the shoji
and fusuma paper-and-wood partitions that constitute
interior Japanese architecture, Murakami's work represents
a breaking through of conventional cultural limits. In what
Alfred Pacquement describes as "the most perfect Gutai work, "
what would be perceived by the Japanese as vandalism becomes
an act of birth, freedom, and assertion.40
The Gutai action events— short, single, and fast
matches between body and matter--signify a concrete
manifestation of human imagination, chance, and time. The
action, often staged in public, was intended to both present
(in itself) and produce (as a result) a work of art. The
work was either permanent— as in Shimamoto's paintings made
by throwing glass jars of color against a canvas— or
ephemeral, surviving as a concept through documentary
photographs and texts. These action events, including many
plans that were unrealized, were designed to invent new ways
to make art using the whole body. As Gutai scholar Osaki
Shin'ichiro has written, Gutai's actions were directed
40 Pacquement, p. 2 88.
116
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
towards the ultimate goal of painting, and "in carrying out
the Actions, it was the nature of painting which they
ultimately intended to restore."41 Similar to Yves Klein's
"living brush" paintings of 1959, made of naked female body
prints, Gutai's action events also used the body as a medium
for painterly expression. But whereas Klein's erotic prints
carry symbolism in the sensationalist Surrealist tradition,
Gutai's actions are never literal and leave no trace of formal
imagery.
The artist demonstrations were not conceived as theater
but they led naturally to the stage. The group presented
two performances of "Gutai Art Using the Stage" in 1957 and
1958 (Plates 25 to 27) ; and in 1962, Gutai collaborated with
the Morita Modern Dance troupe on the spectacle, "Don't
Worry! The Moon Won't Fall!" Yoshihara, writing in the Gutai
journal, explains how Gutai experimentation came to embrace
theater:
Gutai Art is always searching for possibilities to

create a new, unknown, and unexplored beauty. In this
search, all conceivable perspectives are considered
and all possible methods and materials are examined
41 Osaki, trans. by Moriguchi Madoka, Simon Scanes, and

Shiraha Keiko, "Art in Gutai: Action into Painting" in Gutai
Shiryo-shu/Document Gutai 1954-1972, p. 25.
117
and used. ...We are now presenting works in a form that
employs the stage and incorporates the dimension of
time. We are convinced that these works, and the form
in which they are presented, will be revolutionary for
the whole world--East and West.42
Gutai's stage art was conceived as a series of acts,
each centering around the execution of a work on stage. Mukai
Shuji painted hieroglyphic graffiti marks over a blank canvas
which had twelve human faces sticking through twelve holes,
each of which he proceeded to cover with paint via his
brush-strokes. In another piece, Sumi Yasuo hung curtains
of canvas on the stage and flung buckets of paint against
its surface, completing an environmental painting. Gutai
performance also engaged ritual, as in Yoshida Toshio's
wedding in which the bride and groom were wrapped in yards
and yards of cloth until they were encased together in a
single mummified cocoon, barely able to walk or breathe.
Tanaka Atsuko, mocking the exhibitionist element of stage
performance, appeared in layers of larger-than-life-size
paper dresses which she then stripped away, one by one, until
she was left standing in a tight black leotard hung with
blinking lights--a work which led her to make the more
42 Yoshihara Jiro, "Butai o tsukau gutai bijutsu" (Gutai Art
118
elaborate Electric Dress. In one finale, Motonaga set up
a smoke-machine on stage that produced giant smoke rings
which finally sent the audience out the door, coughing.
Together with Experimental Workshop, a collaborative group
of musicians, composers, dancers, and artists who were active
in Tokyo from 1951 until 1957, Gutai's concepts of
incorporating traditional theatre, light art, recorded
ambient sound, and art on stage were the most advanced in
the history of avant-garde performance.
Gutai's first stage performance was reported on the
front page of the Sunday art section of The New York Times
on September 8, 1957. Michael Kirby, a leading critic of
performance art, suggests this report "might, therefore,
have had some influence on the origins of Happenings."43 A
documentary of Gutai's performance events and copies of Gutai
journals were shown during Gutai's exhibition at the Martha
Jackson Gallery in 1958, where they were likely seen by
several New York artists.
Yet despite both formal and conceptual affinities, the
on the Stage), Gutai, n o .7 (15 July 1957), unpaged.
43 Michael Kirby, Happenings: An Illustrated Anthology (New

York: E.P. Dutton, 1966), p. 29.
119
exact nature of Gutai's experiments was not understood well
enough to serve as a real source: errors abound in the
American reports. Whether or not Allan Kaprow fully
understood at the time Gutai's prescient exploration of
strategies that would become broadly known as anti-art, one
of his conditions for Happenings could well describe the
concerns of a Gutai performance: "[T]he source of themes,
materials, actions, and the relationships between them are
to be derived from any place or period except from the arts,
their derivatives, and their milieu."44 As one of the first
international postwar groups to make the body a primary
signifying material of performance, Gutai presaged
directions in the visual arts that would become mainstream
a decade later.
2.5 Gutai Painting
Throughout Gutai's experiments in a variety of media,
the importance of painting was never challenged. Paintings
dominated the first issues of the Gutai journal, crowded
the walls of the Gutai shows, and were featured regularly
44 See Allan Kaprow's six conditions for "The Event" in

Assemblage, Environments and Happenings (New York: Harry
120
at the Gutai Pinacotheca, the company warehouse in the
Nakanoshima section of Osaka which Yoshihara converted into
an exhibition space for Gutai art in 1962. For Gutai, painting
was defined as an art form that recorded the process of its
creation. It could be made of any materials, painterly or
not, and executed by any means— dance, machine or accident.
By titling the majority of their paintings "work" (sakuhin),
the Gutai artists emphasized the objecthood of painting and
denied any literary, figurative or symbolic meaning.
Manifesting the concrete presence of material, painting
should not represent or suggest nature— it must embody, be
a "work" of nature itself.
The notion of painting as action was central to Gutai.
Direct, violent physical gesture, a passionate thrashing
of body against matter, determined both the process and
content of Gutai painting. Shiraga's entire oeuvre, for
example, was painted with the artist's bare feet on
unstreched canvas attached to the floor. Balancing on a
hanging rope which he grasped with his fists, Shiraga dipped
and swung his weight through the thick, wet oil paint. The
finished painting stands as a record of his random spins,
N. Abrams, Inc. 1966).
121
swirls, and slips (Plates 11 and 12) . In a similar action,
Shimamoto, wearing goggles and geared for combat, hurled
glass bottles of paint against rocks positioned on top of
unstreched linen (Plate 23) . The bottles shattered on impact,
spilling bright paint like fireworks across the surface.
Encrusted with glass shards, Work (Plate 15) survives as
the record of its explosive creation.
A second characteristic of Gutai painting was its
attitude toward material. Yoshihara praised the materiality
of paint and enamel as a means to liberate the fundamental
nature of paint into the concrete world. Motonaga's series
of poured paintings that date from 1958 through 1966
illustrate this approach (Plate 13) . As pools of paint flowed
gradually across the surface of a tilted canvas, the colors
gathered into amorphous, organic shapes, a timeless map
charting the caprice of gravity and paint's viscosity. The
artist became a passive agent to his material, whose bare
physical reality is more real than pictorial illusion.
Finally, Gutai painting engaged chance. Discarding the
paintbrush which is a tool controlled by the artist's
technical skill, Gutai artists appropriated watering cans,
vibrators, burning embers, and canons. In a rebuttal to
academic painting formats, the Gutai artists courted
122
accident, transience, and the unpredictable. Kanayama
illustrated this use of chance to the point of parody in
Work (Plate 10), which was painted by a remote-control toy
car equipped with a can of quick-drying, solvent-based paint,
which buzzed around and around a vinyl sheet, producing a
pseudo-Pollock. Like Jean Tinguely's machine-made paintings,
Kanayama's work is the wry record of art devoid of human
touch.
Yoshihara, although he authored the "Gutai Art
Manifesto" which so influenced Gutai painting, ultimately
followed a slightly different course. As the most traditional
abstract painter in the group, his concerns remained more
formal and spiritual. Besides his abiding interest in modern
European abstraction, he was actively involved with Morita
Shiryu and the avant-garde calligraphy movement,
Bokujin-kai.45 In one of Yoshihara's frequent contributions
to Morita's journal, Bokubi (Ink Art) , he discusses the work
of the Zen artist-monk Nantenbd Toju (1839-1926).46 Neither
45 For a discussion of Bokujin-kai, see Chapter Three.
46 See Yoshihara Jiro in Bokubi, no.14 (July 1952).

Yoshihara's interest in Nantenbo is discussed in Osaki
Shin'ichiro, "Yoshihara to sho" in Yoshihara Jiro-ten, pp.
17 9-84. For a discussion of Nantenbo, see Stephan Addis,
123
rejecting nor embracing the impact of the West, Nantenbo's
ink painting and calligraphy expressed a contemporary spirit
without corrupting the essence of his tradition. Yoshihara,
who compared Nantenbo's flung-ink brushwork to the paintings
of Kline and Pollock, was so impressed with the Zen monk's
work that he frequently took the Gutai artists to see his
famous fusuma-door paintings at the Kaisei-ji Temple in
Nishinomiya.
From 1962 until his death in 1972, Yoshihara devoted
himself to making a series of circle paintings inspired by
Zen tradition (Plates 16 and 17). As the ultimate form in
Zen painting, the enso represents void and substance,
emptiness and completion, and the union of painting,
calligraphy, and meditation. Rejecting the stormy impasto
surfaces of his mid-Gutai period, Yoshihara composed circle
paintings of a single circle in water-based acrylic against
a white, black or red ground. In the tradition of Zen
monk-artists, Yoshihara repeatedly practiced his circle
paintings as a form of spiritual discipline while pursuing
the realization of a perfect painting:
The Art of Zen (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989) , p p .186-202 .
124
I am grateful that however big the space is, I know
that one circle can fill it, will complete the picture.
It saves me from having to think what to draw on every
canvas. I am only left with dealing with what kind of
circle will be made. Or, with what kind of circle I
will make....It is up to me as to whether I have come
to an understanding with my circles and myself.47
2 .6 The Critical Legacy
In its early years, Gutai was famous in Japan as a media
spectacle but continually lacked serious critical
recognition. Initially, Yoshihara sought support from a
cultural elite to which he was well-connected as both an
eminent Kyushitsu-kai painter and patron of the avant-garde.
Among his closest supporters were the contemporary ikebana
masters, Ohara Soun and Teshigahara Sofu, both of whom
operated active cultural centers in Tokyo. But what finally
established Gutai as an important movement in postwar
Japanese history was the recognition it received abroad,
especially from the French critic Michel Tapie (1909-1987) .
Visiting Japan in fall 1957, he praised the group for its
prescient affinities with Art Informel and later arranged
47 Yoshihara Jiro, "Koten no tame no bunsho" (Statement for

Solo Exhibition), quoted in Yoshihara Jiro-ten, p. 205.
125
for exhibitions of Gutai in New York, Paris, and Turin.48
48 Tapie coined the term Art Informel (Art Without Form) in

1950 to describe the work of Wols, but extended it to artists
Jean Dubuffet, Hans Hartung, Henri Michaux, Georges Mathieu,
Jean Fautrier, Alberto Burri, Antoni Tapies and the COBRA
artists in an effort to identify a new, pan-European art
movement. According to Tapie, Art Informel gives direct
expression to subconscious fantasy and irrationality in
contrast to the more rigorous abstractionist tendencies
deriving from Cubism, geometric abstraction, and De Stijl.
During the 1950s in Paris, Tapie was the advisor to
Rodolphe Stadler, owner of the leading avant-garde gallery
which showcased Art Informel. Stadler also exhibited the
Japanese abstract painters Domoto Hisao and Imai Toshimitsu,
who arrived in Paris in 1955 and 1952 respectively and who
were later recognized as Art Informel artists. In 1957,
Domoto, a Kyoto artist and friend of Yoshihara's, showed
the Gutai journals to Tapie and introduced him to their
activities. The Frenchman was delighted to discover what
he perceived as a Japanese manifestation of his revolutionary
aesthetic. In September of that year, Tapie traveled to Japan
with Mathieu, Imai, and the American painter Sam Francis,
who was also a regular at the Stadler openings, to meet the
Gutai group. It was the first of several visits.
According to Osaki Shin'ichiro, Tapie's embrace of
Gutai occurred at a time when the Art Informel movement was
at a low ebb; Tapie together with Mathieu tried to turn the
tide by expanding their activities outside Europe. Gutai,
which was seeking an overseas base, was the ideal
collaborator. The importance of Tapie's intervention in the
history of Gutai was irrefutable, but the influence of Art
Informel's opaque theory on the development of Gutai art
was minimal. Gutai rejoiced at the Frenchman's support and
welcomed his advice, like that to Shiraga to paint on canvas
rather than paper. But Tapie's preference for well-made
paintings that could sell in Paris and New York also
discouraged the more experimental tendencies of other
impermanent Gutai art forms, such as performance and objects.
See Csaki, "Art in Gutai: Action into Painting" in Gutai
Shiryo-shu/Document Gutai 1954-1972, pp. 22-24.
126
In 1965, Gutai artists were included in the historic Nul
exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and were
briefly identified with the Zero/Nul avant-garde groups in
Europe. In 1966, the American performance artist Allan Kaprow
featured Gutai in his landmark anthology, Assemblages,
Environments & Happenings, which established the notion that
Gutai was a forerunner of "Happening type performance." Such
foreign acclaim helped to promote the international renown
of Gutai, but did little to clarify or establish its place
in the history of postwar modernism, either at home or abroad.
Although Gutai's reception was better in Europe and
America than in Japan, ultimately the group failed to be
understood within its own cultural context. Tapie's efforts
to promote Gutai were motivated by his belief that Gutai
proved the global dimensions of an aesthetic revolution
predicted in his 1952 book, Un art autre.49 Tapie declared
49 Advocating direct expression through subconscious fantasy,

Tapie drew on mystical tradition, contemporary scientific
theory, and the Dadaist spirit of modern revolution to
establish irrationality as a standard of assessment. As Art
Informel artist Paul Jenkins has written, "Autre art
confronts the intangible, the unknown, the unseen, with
fearless equanimity and acknowledgement. It accepts the
paradoxical, the contradictory, the interference of chance,
with grace as a blessing. ..so that evidence of non-empirical
form may be presented." From Paul and Esther Jenkins, eds.,
127
an "extraordinary affinity" between his ideas and Gutai's,
and proposed that Gutai be understood within the framework
of Art Informel and thereby accepted into the canon of modern
art. The major exhibition he organized under Yoshihara's
auspices, "The International Art of a New Era: Informel and
Gutai"--held at the Osaka International Festival in
1958— presented the Gutai artists alongside such Americans
as Pollock, Kline, and Robert Motherwell, and the Europeans
Georges Mathieu, Antoni Tapies, and Karel Appel. In his
introduction to the ninth issue of Gutai, which served as
a catalogue for the show, Tapie wrote: "L'art, maintenant,
ne peut etre pense qu'a 1'echelle mondiale."
However honorable Tapie's intention, the result was
that Gutai artists were seen as "Japanese Art Informel"
painters, which was both false (because they had developed
independently of Art Informel) and confusing (because
artists like Imai Toshimitsu, who actually showed with the
Art Informel artists in Paris, can properly be considered
"Japanese Art Informel" but not Gutai). When Tapie arranged
Observations of Michel Tapie (New York: George Wittenborn,

Inc., 1956), p. 7. For Gutai's relationship with the European
movements, see also Action et emotion: Peintures des anees
50: Informel, Gutai, COBRA, exh. cat. (Osaka: The National
128
for Gutai artists to show at the Martha Jackson Gallery in
New York in 1958, reception was cool because the work was
presented as "Japanese Abstract Expressionism. " Dore Ashton,
the eminent critic and chronicler of the New York School,
recalls that this exhibition "consisted largely of
automatistic exercises in paint that looked all too familiar
to New Yorkers, who were already turning away from action
painting."50 Fluxus founder George Maciunas, who embraced
several Japanese artists in the early 1960s, also mistook
Gutai for a derivative movement, claiming that it originated
when Georges Mathieu visited Japan with Tapie in 1957, where
he gave action-painting performances.51
Contrary to Gutai painting, its action events and stage
performances were mythologized by Allan Kaprow as "a
forerunner of Happenings." It is indeed significant that
Gutai originated the "action event" and "art on stage" during
the years 1955-1957. These events have affinities with a
Museum of Art, 1985) .
50 Dore Ashton, Noguchi East and West (New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1992), p. 160.
51 See Kristine Stiles, "Between Water and Stone: Fluxus

Performance: A Metaphysics of Acts" in In the Spirit of Fluxus,
exh. cat. (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center), p. 99, note 94.
129
radical performance style that was not widely recognized
until 1964, when the Festival die neuen Kunst in Aachen,
Germany celebrated "actions, agit prop, de-coll/age,
happening, events, anti art, l'autrisme, art total,
reFluxus ." The range of international performance, including
Gutai, shared Dada's zealous affronts on the traditional
principles of craftsmanship and permanence in the arts. They
also drew upon Surrealist automatism, the expressionist
rites of action painting, assemblage, and environment art
forms. In conformity with John Cage's theories of the
importance of chance in artistic creation, Happenings were
described as spontaneous, plotless theatrical events.
But the sources of Gutai's interest in the interplay
of body, material, time, and space also included traditions
outside the Euro-American avant-garde, such as the Japanese
festival {matsuri), farce, and comic folk theatre. With its
wild antics and freak events, Gutai performance manifested
a long enthusiasm in Japan for the hybrid and fringe presented
in the form of popular entertainment. Gutai's most literal
homage to traditional theater is perhaps Shiraga'a 1957
Modern-Transcendent Sanbasd. Dressed as the Sanbaso
character that always appears first on the traditional stage
to perform a blessing, Shiraga opened "Gutai Art on the Stage"
130
dressed in a Sanbaso mask and costume of his own design.
In a ritualistic act that both parodied and embodied drama's
sacred dimension, Shiraga appropriated traditional imagery
in a shocking new context. Whereas the Euro-American
Happenings aimed to fuse art and life as a critique on the
commodification of culture, Gutai's proto-Happenings were
an affirmation of art in life after the near-annihilation
of culture.
Tapie and Kaprow, the two powerful critics who promoted
Gutai abroad, thus created a misleading legacy. First, their
claims contradict each other: Tapie hailed Gutai as an
international painting movement, while Kaprow made Gutai
famous for its performance events. In both cases, Gutai
became a sensation because of its sudden, "fortunate"
affiliation with specific art movements in Europe and America
Although Yoshihara strove for Gutai's international
recognition, it did not achieve the status abroad of an
independent art movement. Rather, its identity was absorbed
by the established movements with which it became associated.
One of the fallacies of this legacy is that Gutai's early
experiments in more conceptual, minimalist, intermedia, and
kinetic art forms were overlooked, and research into Gutai's
affinities with or connections to Fluxus, Body Art, Arte
131
Povera, or Earthworks has yet to be fully explored.52 Further,
by exaggerating those aspects of Gutai experimentation that
are most similar to Art Informel and Happenings, Western
and Japanese critics alike have tended to disregard its
original sources--stylistic, cultural, and historical.

'k 'k -k
The Gutai group is outstanding in the history of
Japanese postwar art for its rich investigations into issues
surrounding the nature of art. Drawing on a broad range of
both Far Eastern and Western disciplines, intellectual
sources, and cultural practices, Gutai expanded the realm
of modernist visual research to include the representation
of time, space, movement, process, and change. Its bold and
optimistic exploration presaged 1960s and seventies
52 For a discussion of the connection between Gutai and Arte

Povera, see Barbara Bertozzi, "On the Origin of the New
Avant-Garde: The Japanese Association of Artists Gutai" in
Gutai: Japanese Avant-Garde 1954-1965, pp. 58-62. She argues
convincingly that Gutai's substantial exposure in Turin from
1959 through the mid-1960s--including exhibitions at the
Galleria dell'Associazione Arti Figurative, Palazzo
Granieri, and Tapie's Centre Internationale de Recherche
Esthetique and Notizie" s special issue on Gutai in April
1959— may have influenced the development of Arte Povera,
who were also active in Turin. Some examples of clear
affinities include body actions in mud (Pino Pascali),
electricity with earth (Mario Merz), and smoke on stage
(Michelangelo Pistoletto).
132
expressions of anti-art, intermedia, conceptual,
metaphysical, and performance art forms in the Japanese
avant-garde. In its approach to making art of non-art
materials using violent physical action, Gutai may have
influenced Tokyo's Neo-Dada Organizers. (Its principal
artist, Ushio Shinohara, challenged Shiraga's feet-painting
with his "boxing painting" performance of 1958: half-naked
with a mohawk hair-cut, Shinohara dipped his gloved fists
into a bucket of paint and punched his way along an extensive
sheet of canvas.) Another aspect of Gutai art, namely its
approach to the use of materials in their natural state,
could also have influenced the development of Mono-ha in
the late 1960s. Shiraga Fujiko's Work of 1955, comprised
of three large sheets of Japanese paper which the artist
has torn and creased, suggests later work that also used
large sheets of paper "as is" by Mono-ha artists Suga Kishio,
Koshimizu Susumu, and Enokura Koji.
The Gutai artists, spurred by the contemporary euphoria
of political, social, and economic liberation from Japan's
oppressive wartime past, reveled in what Shiraga Kazuo called
133
"the splendid playground."53 Released from the ruins of
history, the postwar Gutai artists claimed to rebuild and
re-imagine Japanese culture in the post-Occupation years.
A generation younger than the leading Social Realists in
Tokyo, many of whom experienced war first-hand, the Gutai
artists were less concerned with the existential despair
of defeat and holocaust than intoxicated by the limitless
possibilities of the future. Because the Social Realists
were affiliated with left-wing or Communist activism, they
were suspicious of the American-imposed democracy with its
Cold War agenda and naturally subverted the official postwar
ideals. But Gutai, which sought international recognition
for its ability to express a universal and transcendent art
free of aesthetic, national, or cultural programming, was
far less critical. In Yoshihara's efforts to position Gutai
as the Japanese manifestation of "the international art of
a new era," his strategy reflected the progressive idealism
of American cultural diplomacy in the 1950s which promoted
the virtues of "freedom of expression" in an "open and free
53 Shiraga Kazuo, "Kotai no kakuritsu" (The Shaping of the

Individual), Gutai, no. 4 (1 July 1956), p. 7.
134
society."54 Yoshihara, writing in the first issue of the
Gutai journal, states this vision clearly: "[T]he art of
the present represents freedom for those living in this
severe time. ...Our profound wish is to concretely prove that
our spirits are free." In its desire to "give concrete form
to the formless,"55 Gutai art found meaning in the physical
act of individual creation. Emerging from a decade of wartime
devastation, Gutai embraced Japan's new postwar idealism
as a means to realize its own faith in the universality of
the concrete here and now.
54 See Max Kozloff, "American Painting During the Cold War"

and Eva Cockcroft, "Abstract Expressionism: Weapon of the
Cold War" in Pollock and After: The Critical Debate.
55 Statement in Gutai Bijutsu 18-nen (18 Years of Gutai Art) ,

(Osaka: Shimin Gallery, 1976), unpaged.
135
CHAPTER THREE
IMAGINING JAPAN: AVANT-GARDISM AND THE TRADITIONAL ARTS
The conflict between preserving tradition and
cultivating "world relevance" has been a subject of cultural,
intellectual, and political debate since the Meiji
Restoration of 1868. From its inception, the ideology of
Japan's modern revolution was fundamentally ambiguous. On
one hand, the Meiji leaders advocated the transformation
of Japanese society by "searching for new knowledge
throughout the world" and "eliminating old customs." Yet
a call to return to the mythical, prehistoric origins of
Japanese nativist spirit--a value conveyed in the popular
term kokutai or "national essence"— was also part of its
campaign. The move to simulate Euro-American civilization
on a material level was thus positioned within a construct
of differentiation aimed at reviving and maintaining the
spiritual purity of Japan's original and indigenous culture.
This polarization of national identity profoundly influenced
the development of Japan's modern social consciousness, and
the antithetical but coexisting positions of adopting or
refuting the West, reviving or renouncing tradition,
informed the course of its political history. In the realm
136
of Japanese culture, the opposition between national and
universal ideals has also been a critical issue of modern
aesthetic theory, fine arts educational practice, and
artistic expression.
An important figure in the early debate was the Meiji
aesthete and educator Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913), author
of The Ideals of the East (1903), The Awakening of Japan
(1904), and The Book of Tea (1906). According to Okakura,
the only way for indigenous culture to survive "the scorching
drought of modern vulgarity [that] is parching the throat
of life and art" was to create a synthesis from within the
tradition.1 Calling for "a restoration with a difference,"
he helped found the Tokyo School of Fine Arts with the
American Japanologist Ernest Fenollosa in 1889. Under their
direction, the curriculum was devoted exclusively to
I am grateful to the following individuals and institutions

for sharing their materials and expertise: Amano Kazuo,
Deguchi Kyotaro and The Oomoto Foundation, Haryu Ichiro,
Inui Yoshiaki, the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, Morita Shiryu,
Okazaki Kenjiro, Osaki Shin'ichirb, Shinoda Toko, Uchiyama
Takeo, Unagami Masaomi, Bert Winther, and Eric Zetterquist.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Japanese

material are by the author.
1 Okakura Kakuzo (Tenshin), The Ideals of the East with

Special Reference to the Art of Japan (reprinted: Rutland,
V t . And Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1970), p. 244.
137
traditional Japanese painting, sculpture, and crafts.
Despite Okakura's eccentric regulation that students and
teachers wear uniforms in the style of Heian courtiers, the
practical aim of his revivalism was to create a new school
of modern Nihonga that was based in the classical Kano school
style yet incorporated certain "modern" Western realist
techniques such as depth and shading. "Victory from within,"
Okakura proclaimed, "or a mighty death without."2
Okakura was followed in the 1920s and thirties by art
critic and philosopher Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), whose
Mingei folk arts movement gave official support to the study,
preservation, and revival of Japanese ceramics and other
crafts.3 Writing in the July 1921 issue of the vanguard
journal Shirakaba, Yanagi proclaimed: "It is clear that
forgetting our own wisdom in order to seek truth overseas
was a necessary, if roundabout, route. However, we have now
2 Ibid.
3 Yanagi Soetsu founded the Japanese Folk Craft Association

(Nihon Mingei Kyokai) in 1926 with the potters Hamada Shoji
and Kawai Kanj iro . The so-called Mingei Movement which ensued
during the 1930s included these three plus the British potter
Bernard Leach and the Japanese potter Tomimoto Kenkichi.
Their efforts led to the founding of The Japan Folk Crafts
Museum in Tokyo in 1936. See The Japan Folk Crafts Museum,
ed., Mingei: Masterpieces of Japanese Folkcraft (Tokyo:
138
broken the bonds of our own heritage to a sufficient extent
to be able to reflect calmly and freely on Asia. We have
discovered that we ourselves have an even greater truth,
one that has little in common with the morality, religion,
and art hitherto taught us by our scholars, monks, and
artists ."4 Guided in part by the British potter Bernard Leach,
Yanagi's project--like Okakura's— was to apply contemporary
Western methodology to reformulate "tradition."0
The defense of Japanese culture continued into the
prewar Showa period, when various intellectual movements
argued for a return to the "native place of the spirit" (Nihon
kaiki) . Leading intellectuals such as Watsuji Tetsuro, the
folklore anthropologist Yanagida Kunio, and novelist
Tanizaki Jun'ichiro reevalued the status of Japanese culture
in a wide global context. Their passion for what Tanizaki
called "this world of shadows which we are losing" as distinct
from the capitalist, rational, and progressive West promoted
Kodansha International, 1991).
4 Elisabeth Frolet, "Mingei: The Word and the Movement" in

Ibid., p. 13.
5 Yanagi's theory of folk crafts was informed by the thought

of William Morris, William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Henri
Bergson. See Ibid., pp. 13-15, 22.
139
Japanese tradition as an alternative model of culture to
Western civilization.6
The attempt to create original meaning from a complex
admixture of Eastern and Western traditions was also the
life work of Japan's premier modern philosopher, Nishida
Kitaro (1870-1945). Devoted to the philosophy of religion,
Nishida reflected upon the Buddhist idea of "absolute
nothingness" in relation to fundamental philosophical
problems drawn from such maj or Western thinkers as Aristotle,
Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Husserl, and Dostoevsky. In
formulating his seminal concepts, "place of nothingness"
(mu no basho) and "absolute contradictory self-identity"
(zettai mujun-teki jiko doitsu), Nishida structured the
differences of Eastern and Western metaphysics by positing
a rule of disparity.7 Nishida's discourse on Zen influenced
a number of Buddhist philosophers and theologians of the
6 For the intellectual movements of this period, see J.

Thomas Rimer, ed., Culture and Identity: Japanese
Intellectuals During the War Years (Princeton: University
Press, 1990). Tanizaki's celebrated essay on Japanese
aesthetics, "In'ei raisan" (In Praise of Shadows) was
published in 1933-34, and first appeared in English
translation in 1942.
7 See Nishida Kitaro, Last Writings: Nothingness and the

Religious Worldview, with an introduction by David A.
140
postwar era, including Suzuki Daisetsu (D.T. Suzuki), whom
the American avant-garde revered, and Hisamatsu Shin'ichi,
who was mentor to the Bokuj in-kai calligraphy society.
Challenging the insularity of racial or cultural bias,
Nishida's "logic of the East" (toyo-teki ronri) offered a
paradigm to reformulate fundamental Japanese concepts of
being (nothingness and contradiction) in universal terms.
Nishida's sophisticated synthesis of Eastern thought and
Western methodology was a model for the postwar avant-garde,
which in a similar way sought to forge a modern art of
international stature founded on a "logic of the East."
3.1 The Postwar Discourse on Tradition
Vast ruin was the material casualty of defeat in 1945.
The far greater wound was a psychological shame and loathing
for Japan itself. The collapse of the short-lived Japanese
empire meant the exposure and deflation of nationalist
ideologies and the loss of belief in national cultural values
The preeminent postwar novelist, Oe Kenzaburo (b. 1935)
recalls how shocking it was to hear the voice of Emperor
Hirohito--whom he had been taught to believe was
Dilworth (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987).
141
divine— announcing Japan's surrender over the radio on
August 15, 1945:
The adults sat around their radios and cried. The

children gathered outside in the dusty road and
whispered their bewilderment. We were most surprised
and disappointed by the fact that the Emperor had spoken
in a human voice....How could we believe that an august
presence of such awful power had become an ordinary
human being on a designated summer day?8
In the immediate postwar years, modern artists and the
long-repressed left supported the "reformist" Occupation
of Japan (1945-1952)— an essentially American undertaking
under the command of General Douglas MacArthur--because it
aimed to replace totalitarianism and emperor-worship with
democracy, freedom of expression, and new civil rights.9
The outrage the art community felt towards the wartime regime
lead to its leveling of "war responsibility" charges against
8 Oe Kenzaburo, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, trans. with

an introduction by John Nathan (New York: Grove Press, Inc.,
1977), p. xiv.
9 Following Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration,

the Occupation of Japan formally commenced after the
surrender was signed on 2 September 1945. The Occupation
was administered by the Supreme Commander for the Allied
Powers (SCAP), a post initially held by MacArthur until he
was replaced by General Matthew Ridgeway in April 1951. The
implementation of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in April
1952 brought the Occupation to an end.
142
such prominent painters as Fujita Tsuguharu and Inokuma
Gen'ichiro, who were accused of having supported the
imperialist cause with war propaganda paintings.10 (As a
result, Fujita emigrated to France.) For the pro-American
modern art associations that proliferated after the war,
any form of enshrined native culture conjured negative images
of right-wing imperialism. Most efforts to preserve, revive,
or transform the traditional Japanese arts were seen as
arch-conservative, reactionary, or even nationalistic.
After years of isolation from international art movements,
eagerness for contact and exchange with contemporary
Euro-American culture also overwhelmed any significant
interest in the national arts.
In the 1950s, the stigma that had been attached to
traditional culture in the early postwar years lifted. Though
10 Several of Japan's leading artists made war propaganda

paintings, including Fukuzawa Ichiro, Miyamoto Saburo,
Nakamura Ken'ichiro, Sato Kei, Yamashita Kikuji, and Uchida
Iwao. Fujita was singled out because of his closeness to
the army and exceptional fame as a war artist. The American
Occupation forces confiscated 153 war paintings, which are
now stored at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. See
cat. (Oxford: The Museum of Modern Art, 1955), p. 11, and
Showa no kaiga: dai 2-bu, Senso to bij utsu/Paintings from
the Showa Era (1926-1989) : Part 2, Art and Warf exh. cat.
(Sendai: The Miyagi Museum of Art, 1991).
143
American policy in the early Occupation era fostered social
liberalization and the dismantling of the military, the
rising menace of the Cold War heightened by the outbreak
of the Korean conflict in 1950 led to a "reverse course"
policy that enforced an anti-labor, anti-Communist, and
remilitarization agenda. Exploiting the threat of Chinese
and North Korean agression, the conservative government of
Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru instigated a widespread "Red
Purge" in collaboration with the American Occupation
authorities.11 Further, in apparent violation of the 1947
constitution wherein Japan renounced war and its right to
possess military potential, General MacArthur authorized
the Japanese government in 1950 to form a National Police
Reserve (now the Self-Defense Force), whose stated aim was
the maintenance of internal security. Japan'" s military
build-up in cooperation with U.S. strategic operations in
the Pacific was yet another reminder of Japan's rapid
Americanization that both postwar governments fostered--a
program that threatened at times to overwhelm the nation's
11 Thousands of Japan Communist Party members and their

supposed sympathizers, including 1,200 in government service,
were purged in an ill-screened operation which effectively
reduced the JCP influence in the Diet and in the labor
144
independence and integrity. Increasing government control
over individual civil rights culminated in 1952 with the
passing of the controversial Subversive Activities
Prevention Law, which liberal intellectuals vehemently
opposed as an infringement of artistic freedom of
expression.12
Artists, intellectuals, and political agitators who
had earlier supported American reforms in Japan now joined
in opposition to the conservative shift. As Bert Winther
explains in a comprehensive analysis of Japan'' s cultural
tensions in the early 1950s, reaction against the Diet's
indiscriminate pro-American orientation caused the leftist
opposition to be "drawn towards the political semantics of
traditional culture."13 Among liberals, opposition took on
movement, where it had been dominant.
12 In June 1952, the art journal Bijutsu hihyo published a

forum of opposition to this law that included comments by
several prominent members of the art community, including
Abe Nobuya, Okamaoto Taro, and Takiguchi Shuzo. See "Nenpyo
Gendai bijustu no 50-nen, jo, 1916-1968" (Chronology: Fifty
Years of Contemporary Art Part 1, 1916-1968), comp.by
Akatsuka Yukio, Yasunao Tone, and Hikosaka Nayoshi, Bijutsu
techo (April 1972), pp. 170-75.
13 Bert Winther, "Isamu Noguchi: Conflicts of Japanese

Culture in the Early Postwar Years" (Ph.D. diss., New York
University, 1992), pp. 88-89. This is an excellent study
of the intellectual and political trends that shaped Isamu
145
"a form of nationalism" which made certain elements of
tradition the focus of their recommendations for postwar
modernization. More radical Communists and leftist
intellectuals believed that full national independence also
required an emphasis on tradition--"which at times led them
to a paradoxically conservative position of deprecating
Western modern culture in their rush to foreground a uniquely
Japanese premodern culture."
The movement to revive traditional culture was further
stimulated by an evolving critique of the canon of Japanese
art history, the contrived legacy of the Meiji educators.
With the defeat of Japanese imperialism, the propagandistic
notion of what constituted "Japanese art" was now obsolete.
At the forefront of this attack was the artist and critic
Okamoto Taro (b. 1911) , who, in a series of books and articles,
decried the subjection of Japanese tradition to an
"antiquated reality" so remote and elite that "the younger
generation tries to distance itself from tradition and even
despises i t . " 14 According to Okamoto, the term "dento"
Noguchi's extended visits to Japan from 1950 to 1952.
14 Okamoto Taro, "Dento to wa nanika?" (What is Tradition?)

in Watashi no gendai bijutsu (My Contemporary Art), (Tokyo:
Shincho-sha, 1963), p. 108. Translation by Reiko Tomii.
146
(tradition) was coined by the Meiji bureaucracy in an effort
to establish the difference between premodern
("traditional") and modern ("Westernized") Japanese
civilization. By equating their Buddhist/Shinto heritage
with the West's Greece and Rome, and their rich Momoyama
period (1573-1615) with Europe's Renaissance, the Meiji
educators created an "artificial formulation of dento"
according to Western ideals.15 Another object of Okamoto's
criticism was the "feudal morality" which governed the
rarified practice of the traditional arts in Japanese society
Opposing the craft guilds and grand-master system (iemoto
seido) that perpetuated hierarchical, stylized, and academic
conventions, Okamoto called for the liberation of tradition
from the shackles of authority. "Tradition," Okamoto
proposed, "should breathe in our lives and in our
work....Only then can tradition be relevant today."16
A revived interest in the preservation of Japan's
cultural past was also part of this broad-based progressive
movement. Poet and critic Takiguchi Shuzo undertook a
photographic documentation of the cultural properties of
15 Ibid. , p . Ill.
147
Kyoto and Nara, and Domon Ken (1909-1990), one of Japan's
leading photographers, embarked on the first of several
photography books devoted to early Japanese Buddhist
architecture and sculpture.17 What distinguished these and
similar projects was an interest in reinterpreting the past
in a modernist context by representing ancient images as
vital abstract forms. Domon's photograph of the folds in
the seated Buddha Shakyamuni' s lap was not meant as a document
of the Muro-ji Temple treasures in Nara, but rather as an
artist's investigation into the power of classical culture
to serve a modernist idiom (Plate 34) .
Isamu Noguchi made extended visits to Japan during
1950-52 to explore many of these same issues. The mutual
influence between this Japanese-American sculptor and the
Japanese avant-garde was historic in their respective quests
for new concepts and forms that could integrate modernism
and tradition. Their encounter also confirms that the
16 Ibid., pp. 112-13.
17 For Domon Ken's influential photography books devoted to

Japanese temple architecture and art, see The Muro-ji (1954) ,
Koji junrei (Pilgrimages to Ancient Temples; in four volumes,
1963-71), Taishi no Midera: To-ji (1965), and Todai-ji
(1973). See also John Szarkowski and Yamagishi Shoji, New
Japanese Photography, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of
148
relationship between artists working in the traditional arts
and those pursuing more international styles was, contrary
to myth, remarkably interdependent and collaborative.
Arising from this discourse, several arts groups
founded between the late 1940s and mid-fifties strove to
create modernist art forms based upon radically new concepts
of Japanese tradition. Foremost among them were the
BokujIn-kai calligraphy society; the Sodeisha ceramic
artists; and the Panreal group of avant-garde Nihonga
painters. Coinciding with their activities was the prominent
influence of the "Japan Style," a syncretic modernist
architectural style incorporating traditional design
elements expounded by such acclaimed architects as Taniguchi
Yoshiro, Tange Kenzo, and Maekawa Kunio. This period also
saw the rise of the Ohara and Sogetsu schools of experimental
ikebana, as well as the proliferation of contemporary craft
and design groups. The Art Life section (Seikatsu Bijustu)
of the vanguard Modern Art Association (Modan Art Kyokai),
for example, was founded in 1954 by artists who willfully
transgressed the lines between "art" and "craft."18 These
Modern Art, 1974), pp. 18-27.
18 The Modern Art Association (Modan Ato Kyokai) was founded
149
various activities are significant for the study of postwar
Japanese art history because they reveal that the search
to identify the creative role of tradition for modern culture
continued unabated in the postwar decades, despite the
perceived dominance of Euro-American styles.
The avant-garde artists working in traditional media
shared certain strategies. Just as the Taisho avant-garde
rebelled against the yoga oil-painting academies, the
postwar avant-garde traditionalists operated outside of the
established guild systems that were the legacy of the Edo
period (1615-1868)--master-disciple relationships,
factional school lineages (ryugi), and the hierarchy
determined by technical proficiency (geigoto). Their common
purpose was to liberate tradition from rigid orthodoxies,
and to universalize modern art--which was mired in staid
Eurocentricism--with an infusion from the East. In contrast
in September 1950 by Arai Tatsuo, Murai Masanarai, Yamaguchi

Kaoru, Ueki Shigeru and others who had left the Free Artists
Association (Jiyu bijutsu kyokai) to explore the
possibilities of abstract art. Originally devoted
exclusively to painting and sculpture, in 1954 it added the
"life art" seikatsu bijutsu and photography sections. For
the postwar craft art movements, see 1960-nendai no kogei:
Koyo- suru atrashii zokei/Forms in Aggression: Formative
Uprising of the 1960s, exh. cat. (Tokyo: The National Museum
of Modern Art, 1987) .
150
to their more radical political counterparts, however, the
new groups did not reject the West on ideological grounds.
Rather, they sought to integrate Western notions of modernism
with Japanese forms of culture in order to achieve an
international art of "world relevance" (sekai-sei) . During
the 1950s and sixties, the Sogetsu Art Center under the
direction of Teshigahara Sofo and his son, Hiroshi, became
an active forum not only for the research and display of
avant-garde ikebana, but also for concerts, lectures, and
demonstrations by visiting artists including John Cage,
Robert Rauschenberg, and Yoko Ono. Central to the concept
of "world relevance" was the belief that modern abstract
art expressed a universal and transcendent image free of
aesthetic, national, or cultural programming and was thus
international by nature and by credo.
In pursuit of cultural identity, the avant-garde
traditionalists applied J5mon, Shinto, indigenous folk, Zen,
and Chinese literati aesthetics to the modern abstract
tradition. Primitivism inspired a return to nature through
communion with elemental life forces, while the traditional
arts based in Zen Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian practice
taught rigorous self-analysis and refinement of the soul.
According to Iijima Tsutomu, the principal theorist of
151
avant-garde calligraphy, liberating tradition was
ultimately a means to purge oneself of moral falsehoods and
so attain the purity of "a naked human being" (ikko no hadaka
no ningen) .19 Demoralized by modern history, the Japanese
avant-garde found in reexamining tradition an occasion for
self-critique and cultural regeneration.
3.2 The Bokujin-kai Calligraphy Society
Among the most influential and innovative of the postwar
avant-garde traditional arts groups was the Bokujin-kai (Ink
Human Society) which was founded in 1952 by five Kyoto-area
calligraphers including Morita Shiryu (b. 1912, Plate 30)
and Inoue Yuichi (Yu-Ichi, 1916-1985, Plates 28 and 29) .20
Acknowledging calligraphy (sho) as the foundation of Far
Eastern religion, philosophy, and poetry, the Bokuj in-kai
society sought to reconceptualize calligraphy as a form of
19 Sekiya Yoshimichi, "Bokujin no shokaiso" (The several

classes of Bokujin), 1967; reprinted in Bokujin 40-nen (Forty
years of Bokujin), (Gifu: Bokujin-kai, 1991), p. 199.
20 The five founding members of Bokuj in-kai who had broken

away from Keisei-kai were Inoue Yuichi, Morita Shiryu, Eguchi
Sogen, Sekiya Yoshimichi, and Nakamura Bokushi. See Ibid.
and Morita Shiryu to "Bokubi" (Morita Shiryu and Bokubi),
exh. cat. (Kobe: Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art,
1992).
152
contemporary expressionist painting. It was not an easy task.
In the prewar Japanese art world, it was believed that
calligraphy, by its fundamental commitment to brush, ink,
paper, and the semantic meaning of Chinese characters, was
incapable of "modernization." Nor could writing be a "fine
art" in the imported Western sense. At the same time, some
Meiji calligraphers shunned any association with the
"technical" painting arts (yoga and Nihonga), holding that
calligraphy--which had evolved over three millennia--was
a superior, even divine art form. Calligraphy's anomalous
position in the context of prewar Japanese modernism
continued until 1948, when it was included for the first
time in official salon exhibitions.21
The potential for a modernist, experimental calligraphy
was first expounded by Hidai Tenrai (1872-1933) . His
disciples founded the independent Calligraphy Art Society
(Shodd Geij utsuka-sha) in 1933 which eventually evolved into
the postwar avant-garde calligraphy movement. Because the
brush stroke is understood in the Far Eastern tradition as
21 Amano Kazuo, "Jobun" (Introduction) in Sho to kaiga no

atsuki jidai: 1945-1969/Calligraphy and Painting, The
Passionate Age: 1945-1969, exh. cat. (Tokyo: 0 Art Museum,
1992), p. 6.
153
"an imprint of the mind"--a sign of the artist's intellectual,
psychological, and spiritual state of being--and, like
modern abstract art, represents a formal and conceptual
rather than real or descriptive image, the basis for
practicing calligraphy as a form of modern art was arguably
already in place. Hidai conceived of sho as "an art of the
line," an autonomous configuration of brush strokes whose
expressive power relied neither on traditional painting
methods nor the literal reading of Chinese characters. Hidai
and his principle disciples— his nephew, Hidai Nankoku (b.
1912) and Ueda Sokyu (1899-1968)— established the notion
that calligraphy was an expression of individuality whose
creative form was governed by certain restrictions (the
character's essential structure). Ueda, who embraced modern
European art, formed his own calligraphy society in 1940,
called Keisei-kai. He sought to dissolve the character as
a symbol in order to reconstruct it freely as abstract line
and form, and encouraged experimentation with various
non-traditional materials. But it was Hidai Nankoku's
Variation on "Lightning" of 1945 (Plate 33) that went the
farthest in its expressive "deformation" of a character.
With this work, hitsui--the artist's brush intention--
achieved full independence from the constraints of written
154
language, opening the possibilities for a new genre of
avant-garde calligraphy.
The founding members of the Bokuj in-kai society were
disciples of Ueda Sokyu.22 Morita Shiryu, editor of the
group's influential arts and literary journal, Ink Art
(Bokubi), served as the group's leader.23 Morita, along with
his close colleague Yoshihara Jiro who founded the Gutai
Art Association in 1954, was involved with the Contemporary
Art Discussion Group (Gendai Bijutsu Kondan-kai) that was
active in Osaka from 1951 to 1956. For both Morita and
Yoshihara, the Discussion Group was a crucial influence in
shaping their respective visions of postwar Japanese art
by serving as a forum for artists of diverse genres--
ceramicists, painters, dancers, ikebana artists, and
calligraphers--who were considering new ways to integrate
modern and traditional, Eastern and Western art and thought.
They discussed the Zen monk-artists Hakuin Ekaku and Nantembd
22 For Ueda Sokyu's influence in the development of

Bokujin-kai, see Bokujin 40-nen, pp. 44-45.
23 In 1948, Morita became founding editor of a journal of

experimental calligraphy, Sho no bi (The Beauty of
Calligraphy), which was the forerunner of Bokubi (Ink Art) .
He was also involved in Bojujin, the origin of Bokujin-kai,
which began publication in 1952.
155
Toju (Plate 32) in comparison to Jackson Pollock and Pierre
Soulages; and the Shoso-in Treasures, Nijinsky's dance,
children's art, and Henri Michaux's ecriture were all
regarded as models for study and emulation.
Exposure to international painting led Morita to foster
exchange between Bokujin-kai and several contemporary
Western artists, such as Georges Mathieu and William
Stanley-Hayter, who were looking to Far Eastern calligraphy
for inspiration. Calligraphers and painters alike, he
believed, were seeking a common universal language based
in gestural abstraction. In expanding his network overseas,
Morita collaborated with the artist, writer, and occasional
calligrapher Hasegawa Saburo (1906-1957), who had written
on the affinities between modern art and calligraphy as early
as 1939. A scholar of Western aesthetics who had traveled
widely abroad--including two years in Paris where he was
active in founding the influential Abstraction-Creation
group in 1931--Hasegawa was devoted to comparative
art-historical analysis in an effort to formulate an
all-embracing concept of art. As a frequent contributor to
Morita's journal, he would relate the line in Pollock's drip
paintings, for example, to the kyoso or "crazy grass" style
of calligraphic script, the freest form of self-expression
156
in Far Eastern art. At Hasegawa's recommendation, Morita
featured a calligraphic Franz Kline painting on the cover
of Bokubi's first issue. Morita's efforts were culminated
in 1955 in a collaboration with the visiting Belgian COBRA
artist Pierre Alechinsky on the film "Calligraphie
japonaise," which explored the affinities between Art
Informel and sho.24
Morita's concept of calligraphy was thus informed by
a range of contemporary art theories and practices, and
resembled Yoshihara's Gutai art in its emphasis on exploring
to extremes new methods and materials.25 The Bokujin-kai
calligraphers experimented with cardboard, sticks, and
broom-size brushes; tried mineral pigments, oil paint,
enamel, and lacquer in place of sumi ink; and used canvas,
wood, ceramic, and even glass for a surface other than paper.
Yet in contrast to Yoshihara, whom Morita criticized for
24 Isamu Noguchi introduced the work of Franz Kline to

Hasegawa, who in turn recommended it to Morita. Alechinsky's
film was completed in 1956, and was produced as a means to
explore the affinities between Japanese calligraphy and
contemporary abstract painting.
25 The influence between Yoshihara and Morita was mutual.

For Yoshihara's involvement with calligraphy, see Osaki
Shin'ichiro, "Yoshihara Jiro to sho" (Yoshihara Jiro and
Calligraphy) in Yoshihara Jiro-ten/Jiro Yoshihara, exh. cat.
157
pursuing "novelty for the sake of novelty, "26 the Bokuj in-kai
artists never aspired to an art that begins from a tabula
rasa. Rather, they pursued a rigorous reevaluation of the
fundamentals of ancient calligraphy from a contemporary,
global point of view. In the first issue of Bokubi, Morita
stated the mission of the contemporary calligrapher:
1. To research the aesthetic and philosophic expression

of calligraphy; 2. To see calligraphy in the context
of the whole life of a human being; 3. To establish
calligraphy on the basis of modern art and theoretical
ideas; 4. To see calligraphy in the larger perspective
of all the arts; 5. To expand calligraphy to a global
scale; 6. To reexamine and rediscover the classics;
7. To elevate the social standing of calligraphy.27
Despite its eclectic interests, Bokujin-kai's
extensive theoretical writings on calligraphy were chiefly
based in modern Zen philosophy. Two frequent contributors
to the Bokubi journal were the Kyoto scholars, Iijima Tsutomu,
a leading philosopher of aesthetics, and Hisamatsu Shin' ichi,
a disciple of Nishida Kitaro and author of Zen and the Fine
(Ashiya: City Museum of Art and History, 1992), pp. 179-184.
26 Morita, quoted in Bokujin 40-nen, p.84.
27 Bokubi, no.l (June 1951). See Ibid. for a summary of

contents for each of the Bokubi issues.
158
Arts (1957 ) .28 Both were influenced by Nishida's project to
transcend the subjective and objective bifurcation of
reality by positing instead "a place of nothingness" wherein
both subject and object exist and consciousness itself is
established. In this domain of absolute nothingness, "the
form of the formless is seen and the sound of the soundless
is heard."29 In similar terms, Bokujin-kai conceived of
calligraphy as a metaphysical act which uses the character
as a "site" (basho) to manifest "the dynamic movement of
life" (inochi no yakudo)— the ultimate rhythm of "absolute
nothingness" beyond intellect, emotion, or ego. 30 In
Hisamatsu's words: "What is directly manifest here is that
that which is written is also that which writes; that, instead
of form producing form, form is produced by what is without
form."31 The challenge for avant-garde calligraphers was
28 For the influence of Iijima and Hisamatsu on Bokujin-kai,

see Ibid., pp. 44-49. Hisamatsu's Zen and the Fine Arts was
first published in English in 1971.
29 Nishida Kitaro, An Inquiry into the Good, Trans, by Masao

Abe and Christopher Ives (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1990) pp. vii-xxvii.
30 See Morita Shiryu, "Watashi no mezashite-iru sho" (The

Calligraphy I've Endeavered to Achieve) in Sho to kaiga no
atsuki jidai, pp. 136-37.
31 Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, Zen and the Fine Arts, trans. by
159
thus to compose forms that could be appreciated in terms
of international gestural abstraction yet whose logical
source lay in the Buddhist concepts of reality that are so
fundamental to Far Eastern culture.
The relationship between the artist's "brush force"
(hissei) and his reliance--if any--on the "bones" of the
Chinese character was a central issue for the Bokuj in-kai
members as well as independent calligraphers such as
Teshigahara Sofu (1900-1979, Plate 31) and Shinoda Toko (b.
1913). For Inoue Yuichi, the use of characters limited his
freedom of expression. In 1955, he seized a fat brush he
made himself by binding dried reeds together, immersed it
in a bucket of black enamel paint, and— bent naked over a
large sheet of kraft paper laid out on the bare floor--he
made works of explosive wild strokes that were free of
reference to any Chinese character. Writing in his journal
(before the landlord evicted him for the mess he had made),
Inoue proclaimed:
Turn your body and soul into a brush. . .NO to everything!

The hell with it! Paint with all your strength— anything,
anyhow! Spread your enamel and let it gush out! Splash
it in the faces of the respectable teachers of
Gishin Tokiwa (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1982), p. 69.
160
calligraphy. Sweep away all those phonies who defer
to calligraphy with a capital C...I will bore my way
through, I will cut my way open. The break is total.32
The critic Takiguchi Shuzo was intrigued by the new
movement, but he questioned whether calligraphy, which by
definition is an art of visual and mental communication via
the pictorial Chinese ideogram, could actually negate the
quality of characters (moji-sei) and still function as
"calligraphy." He predicted (wrongly) that most of the
contemporary avant-garde calligraphers would eventually
become painters: Inoue returned to characters in 1956.33
Painting and calligraphy, it would be proven, are not
32 Unagami Masanomi, "The Act of Writing: Tradition and

Yu-Ichi Today" in Okina Inoue Yuichi-ten/Yu-Ichi Works
1955-85 (Kyoto: The National Museum of Modern Art, 1989),
unpaged. See also Yuichi Vivant, videotape, 20 minutes,
produced by Unagami Masaomi, UNAC Tokyo, 1993. Inoue's
inscription for Plate 29 recounts the artists memory of the
American air force bombing raid on the Koto-ku section of
Tokyo on the night of 10 March 1945, when he was trapped
in the fires along with a thousand refugees at the Yokokawa
National School. "The town plunged into darkness is
transformed into an incandescent sea....All Koto-ku is a
hell fire," he begins. "A thousand refugees have no shelter
and there is no exit." Buried all night in a heap of corpses,
Inoue concludes, "At dawn, the fire is out. Silence is all.
No cries."
33 Takiguchi Shuzo, "Sho to gendai kaiga ni tsuite" (On

Calligraphy and Contemporary Painting), 1955; reproduced
in Takiguchi, Ten (Point), (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1963), pp.
161
mutually exclusive.
Shinoda Toko, a calligrapher of Japanese waka poetry
who showed as a painter at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New
York from 1965 to 1977, exemplified further possibilities
for avant-garde sho. Using sumi ink and precious pigments
on grounds of silver or gold-paper (or sometimes on canvas),
she achieved a new formal balance between painting and
calligraphy. New York critic James Johnson Sweeney's praise
for Shinoda is instructive: "What Toko Shinoda provides...is
a visual poetry, achieved by holding in proper balance the
extra-pictorial associations of her expression and a strict
formal base; a controlled sensuousness; the painting of a
mood rather than a fact; a sign rather than a description;
in sum, the quality in painting which derives from content
and form, subtly fused."34 Other artists who throughout their
careers explored the edge between calligraphy and painting
were Sugai Kumi, Tsukata Waichi, Kenzo Okada, and Minoru
Kawabata.
Long since overlooked, avant-garde Japanese
133-41.
34 James Sweeney, 1969; reprinted in Shinoda Toko: Toki no

katachi/Toko Shinoda Retrospective, exh. cat. (Gifu: The
Museum of Fine Arts, 1992), p. 115.
162
calligraphy during the 1950s and sixties achieved its goal
of "world relevance" by identifying the abstract, conceptual,
and spiritual essence of Far Eastern calligraphy with the
defiant force and modern transcendental premise that
generated the cult of "the spontaneous gesture" known as
Euro-American action painting. 35 Simultaneously, it
remained true to its original project of forging an
"anti-modern modernity."36
3.3 Sodeisha and Okamoto's Jomon Revival
Another group dedicated to the transformation of a
traditional medium was Sodeisha, a Kyoto association of
progressive ceramic artists that was founded in 1948 by Yagi
Kazuo, Suzuki Osamu, and Yamada Hikaru, among others.37 All
three were founding members of the short-lived Young
35 Gary Snyder, "On the Road with D.T. Suzuki" in A Zen

Life:D.T. Suzuki Remembered, ed. by Masao Abe (New York and
Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1986), p. 208. For the exchange between
Japanese calligraphers and Euro-American artists of this
period, see Morita Shiryu to "Bokubi" and Sho to kaiga no
atsuki jidai.
36 Amano, p. 13.
37 The most important founding members of Sodei-sha were

Kumakura Junkichi, Kano Tetsuo, Matsui Yoshisuke, Suzuki
Osamu, Yagi Kazuo, and Yamada Hikaru.
163
Ceramists Group (Seinen Sakutoka Shudan), whose 1947
manifesto stated:
We, the young people, have turned our backs on the old
morality which has lost its purpose in this period of
flux and profound change. A new era will be born and
a genuine new culture will grow where a new morality
will invigorate our lives. As the young artists of this
era, we wish to broaden our experience by departing
from the limited ideological viewpoints defended by
ceramic artists of the past. We chose to observe the
trends both inside and outside of the art community
and hence aim to found this group on the basis of a
more profound recognition of society.38
These young potters shared strategies with the
avant-garde movements that were developing among artists
working in both modern and traditional media. Freedom from
regulation, the celebration of artistic individuality, and
hunger for contemporaneity (doj idai-sei) with the
Euro-American modernism that had been denied them during
the isolationist totalitarian regime guided Sodeisha's
experiments in clay, symbol of the elemental reality that
had survived the scorching fires of war.
A poet, composer, and photographer, Yagi Kazuo
(1918-1979, Plates 37 to 40) emerged as Sodeisha's most
38 Quoted in Nakanodo Kazunobu, "The Passage Towards the

Creation of Objects--with the Sodei-sha as the Central Theme"
164
innovative ceramic artist.39 Yagi achieved a revolution of
the revered Japanese ceramic tradition with his corpus of
non-utilitarian, non-vessel clay objects. In his hands, clay
became an expressionist medium for abstract modeling and
the wheel was merely a machine that aids, rather than
determines, the sculptural process. 40 Mr. Samsa’s Walk
(1954), whose title refers to the protagonist of Franz
Kafka's existentialist novella, The Metamorphosis, is a
circular slab with projecting pipe-like segments resembling
a headless walking spider whose body is an empty sphere.
In this and other monochrome, biomorphic abstract sculptures,
Yagi strove "to liberate" ceramics from its age-old
in Forms in Aggression, p. 39. Translation adapted by author.
39 See Yagi Kazuo-ten/Kazuo Yagi (Kyoto: The National Museum

of Modern Art, 1981); Inui Yoshiaki, ed. Yagi Kazuo, Gendai
Nihon togei Zenshu/A Pageant of Modern Japanese Ceramics,
vol.14 (Tokyo: Shuei-sha, 1981); and Frederick Baekeland
and Robert Moes, Modern Japanese Ceramics in American
Collections (New York: Japan Society, 1993) .
40 Yagi has written on technique: "I used to believe that

an artist's success or failure depended on whether he
understood the potter's wheel by heart. This was a difficult
way of thinking that relied on the arbitrary fact of whether
someone was good or bad at handling the potter's wheel, that
is to say, whether he was adept or not physically. But I
completely stopped this way of thinking, and came to consider
the potter's wheel simply as a physical means." Quoted in
Nakanodo Kazunobu, p. 43. Translation adapted by author.
165
"restrictions" by incorporating modernist sensibilities.
His approach was based on the concept of creating an "object"
that drew its force from the "materiality" of clay itself.
He often cited the modern European masters as inspirational
to his quest for universal form, and compared his interest
in the "physiology of material" (busshitsu no seiri) to the
emphasis on materiality in contemporary Art Informel
painting. "The combination of the new and the classic, this
is my intention," Yagi wrote. "My work seeks a way to
harmonize the modern painting of Picasso and Klee with the
particular refinement of what the Japanese potter's wheel
has produced."41 Yagi also praised the bold, abstract clay
objects of sculptors Tsuji Shindo and Isamu Noguchi. Of
Noguchi's ceramics produced and exhibited in Japan in 1950
and 1952, Yagi commented: "There was a brilliance to the
ancient Japanese temperament Noguchi had splendidly brought

49
to life xn this most modern appearance."
Yagi's description of Noguchi's "ancient Japanese
temperament" referred to something different from the
familiar rustic tradition of medieval Japanese ceramics
41 Yagi, quoted in Inui Yoshiaki, pp. 87-88.
166
cultivated by the arts of tea (such as Shigaraki, Karatsu,
Iga, and Oribe wares) . What was startling about Noguchi's
work at the time in Japan was his conscious appropriation
of long-neglected prehistoric Jomon vessels and terra-cotta
haniwa figurines. These forms became the source for many
of his clay objects, including the totemic masterpiece, Even
the Centipede (Plate 41) . "From the start, " Noguchi's pottery
master Kitaoji Rosanjin remarked, "he was fortunate enough
to ignore tradition, study the primitive, and believe in
nature."43
Noguchi's use of prehistoric Japanese forms coincided
with the 1952 publication of Okamoto Taro's Thoughts on Jomon
(Jomon doki-ron), a vehement critique of the passive,
overly-refined aesthetics at the center of Japanese art
history versus the "primitivism" (genshi-sei) represented
in vessels of the Mesolithic Jomon period--flaming coiled
forms with exuberant pressed-cord patterns.44 "Jomon-style
earthenware," he wrote, "exudes the smell of Japanese soil
42 Yagi, quoted and trans. in Winther, p. 300.
43 Kitaoji Rosanjin, quoted and trans. in ibid., p. 298.
44 See Chapter Four for a more complete account of Okamoto's

art and life.
167
and groans under its weight. So robust and relentless— it
is tense because it is holding back its explosive energy.
Its beauty is almost terrifying."45 As Tahiti inspired Paul
Gauguin and African sculpture served Picasso, Okamoto''s
attraction to Jomon represented a revolt against artistic
refinement and "Japonisme" in favor of bold and primal nature
The magico-religious significance of the Jomon wares also
interested Okamoto. He saw their purpose to communicate
through abstract design with the spirits of the dead as a
model for the contemporary avant-garde which also must
confront the "invisible realities" of nuclear holocaust,
the Cold War, and existential despair. Okamoto7's outrage
at the stagnation of tradition was in fact an alibi for his
call to destroy the numb "shell" of the postwar psyche and
recover the core of Japanese identity. In Yagi's Wall of
1963 (Plate 40), a magnificent unglazed urn made of slabs
of writhing intestine-like coils, Okamoto's answer is given
vital form.
The tea ceramics of artist and mystic Deguchi Onisaburo
(1871-1948) aspired to yet another kind of archaism. Deguchi,
whom the militarists imprisoned from 1935 until 1942 for
45 Okamoto, p. 123.
168
his involvement in the unorthodox neo-Shinto religious
organization Oomoto, taught that art is the means "to capture
the truth of the Realm of the Spirit, a world unseen by the
eyes, unheard by the ears, and unimagined by the human
mind." 46 Emerging from prison at age seventy-one, he
reflected on a life of creation and persecution: "I have
never pretended to be a sage. I find it a nuisance to be
regarded as some kind of god. All I want is to be a true
man and to speak and act as a free and plain man."47 In the
last two years of his retired life, the shamanistic Deguchi
became obsessed with making tea bowls (Plates 35 and 36) .
He called his highly individual style of Raku-type form which
were built by the coil method, "bowls of Paradise" or
"scintillating bowls" (yowan) . In a radical departure from
the usual austere taste in tea ceramics, Deguchi painted
his yowan in a sun-drenched Impressionist palette with a
lyrical evocation of nature in bloom. The eclectic spirit
46 Deguchi Onisaburo, "Geijutsu was shukyo no haha nari" (Art

Is the Mother of Religion), 1924; in The Oomoto School of
Traditional Japanese Arts, ed. by Okazaki Hiroaki (Kameoka:
The Oomoto Foundation, 1980), p. 58.
47 Deguchi, c.1942; quoted in Frederick Franck, An Encounter

with Oomoto (West Nyack, N.Y.: Cross Currents Paperback),
p . 40.
169
of Oomoto, which drew on Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian
elements in its vision of a unified world religion, was
embodied in Deguchi's celebration of both the human spirit
and clay of the earth.
3.4 Noguchi in Japan
In 1950, the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi
traveled to Japan "in search of the spirit of the East."48
The son of a prominent Japanese poet and American teacher,
Noguchi saw himself as the fated heir to a dual cultural
heritage, and felt that "if I could offer a continuation
of that bridge which is the common language of art, I will
have offered my part to the human outlook that must one day
find all people together."49 Immersing himself in the study
of Japanese art, Noguchi sought to absorb certain structures
of primitive and traditional Japanese culture into his
evolving notion of modern form.50 His quest was inspired in
48 Noguchi, 1952; quoted in Winther, p. 247.
49 Noguchi, 1952; quoted in ibid., p. 172.
50 See Dore Ashton, Noguchi East and West (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1992), pp. 95-141 for a sensitive account of
Noguchi's artistic and spiritual quest in Japan during the
early 1950s.
170
part by the Japanism trend in contemporary American arts
and design, whereby Bruno Taut's celebrated study of Katsura
Detached Palace, Okakura Tenshin's Book of Tea, and Suzuki's
prolific writings on Zen and Japanese culture were cherished
for their teachings in minimalist and transcendental
abstraction. Coincidentally, Noguchi influenced the
parallel, revisionist movement in Japan that aimed at
reclaiming and reinterpreting Asia's great cultural past.
As a passionate defender of traditional Japan, Noguchi
mourned the effects of American materialism, and supported
the growing reaction against the Occupation and what the
art community lamented as Japan's appearance of becoming
"a cultural colony."51 Although he was never officially
accepted as a Japanese artist because of his American
background and nationality, Noguchi's collaboration on
several major Japanese projects with leading figures of the
local art community, his profound contribution to the ongoing
discourse of modernism and tradition, and his vast production
of sculptures made at his studios in Japan from the early
1950s until his death in 1989, establish him nonetheless
as a preeminent figure in postwar Japanese art history.
51 Hasegawa, quoted in Bokujin 40-nen, p. 51.
171
For Noguchi, tradition embodied "the ever new and the
ever old. " As if embarking on a pilgrimage, he devoted several
months in 1950-51 to exploring the temples, gardens, and
art collections of the ancient capital cities, Kyoto and
Nara. He also read widely. Hasegawa Saburo, who was involved
in Morita's avant-garde calligraphy movement, became
Noguchi's guide, interpreter, and intellectual partner.
Together, they pursued three areas of research into Japanese
culture: philosophy and aesthetics, classic forms, and
traditional materials.
Drawing on Buddhist metaphysics and the Zennist poetry
of the Edo-perido monk-artists, Ryokan and Basho, Noguchi
studied the meaning of mu (in Sanskrit, shunyata), the
concept of emptiness or void so central to the Mahayana
Buddhist system of belief. According to early Buddhist
teaching, the world perceived through the senses, the
phenomenal world as we know it, is "empty" because all such
phenomena arise from causes and conditions, are in a state
of constant flux, and are destined to change and pass away
in time. Emptiness is thus the essential unifying character
of both the phenomenal and absolute worlds. In Mahayana
(including Zen) Buddhism, this concept of emptiness or
nonduality led to the assertion that samsara, the ordinary
172
world of suffering and cyclical birth and death, is identical
with the world of nirvana, and that earthly existence holds
potential for enlightenment. 52 Noguchi demonstrated his
interest in this positive concept by titling his first major
pubic commission in Japan Mu. A large, sandstone, biomorphic
sculpture, Mu was conceived as part of the overall
architectural scheme of the Shin-Banraisha faculty lounge
that Noguchi designed at Keio University in memory of his
father, who had taught there. Positioned outdoors in such
a way that the light of the setting sun would illuminate
its central void form, Mu culminated Noguchi's early efforts
to integrate "an absolutely abstract non-referential art"53
with thematics culled from Zen philosophy.
The interior of the Shin-Banraisha lounge, which
Noguchi designed with architect Taniguchi Yoshiro, reflected
another interest of Noguchi's: the aesthetics of rustic
poverty cultivated by Sen no Rikyu's wabi tea ceremony
tradition. In the room's minimal design, monochromatic
palette, and predominance of traditional country materials
52 The Lotus Sutra, trans. by Burton Watson (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1993), p. xv.
53 Quoted from an unpublished text by Noguchi in Ashton, p.
173
such as wood, rope, and rattan, Noguchi cultivated the
aesthetic ideal of poverty (hin), suggesting extreme
simplicity, age-old essence, and economy of means. Noguchi
wrote of his experiments, articulated in part as a critique
of materialism,54 during this time: "Indeed, when all the
possibilities of modern technologies are lost, one returns
once more to basic things, to basic materials, to basic
thoughts."55
Noguchi also made designs for architect Tange Kenzo's
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, including the concrete bridge
railings leading to the park entitled To Build and To Depart
(1952); and the monumental but unrealized Memorial for the
Dead at Hiroshima (Plate 43) . In both of these designs,
Noguchi confronted the central issue of the avant-garde
traditionalists' debate: the problem of "form-creation"
(zokei) . As Hasegawa wrote in Bokubi, "the essence of having
form-creation is when shape, line, point, image, and their
120 .
54 For Noguchi's comments on Mu, see Isamu Noguchi: A
Sculptor's World (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), pp.
163-64.
55 Isamu Noguchi, Arts & Architecture, no. 67 (November 1950) ,

pp. 24-27.
174
overall arrangement are ultimately connected by a spiritual
value."56 Just as Cezanne's analysis of "form-creation" was
the foundation for the development of abstraction in modern
European art, it was believed that the analysis of
traditional Japanese zokei would yield a logical structure
for modern Japanese abstraction. In Noguchi's program for
the cenotaph, he created a colossal form appropriated from
prehistoric Japanese motifs such as the ceremonial bronze
dotaku bell, the terra-cotta haniwa that were buried around
the ancient imperial tombs as a symbol of human sacrifice,
and the bean-shaped magatama bead, one of Shinto's three
sacred regalia. Noguchi wrote:
The requirements specified that the core, or repository

of names, should be underground. A cave beneath the
earth (to which we all return). It was to be the place
of solace of the bereaved--suggestive still further
of the womb of generations still unborn who would in
time replace the dead....It was to be a mass of black
granite, glowing at the base from a light beyond and
below. The feet of this ominous weight descended
underground through the box which formed its anchorage.
To be seen between heavy pillars was a granite box
cantilevered out from the wall, in which were to be
placed the names of the world's first atomic dead.57
56 Hasegawa, 1951; in Bokujin 40-nen, p. 50.
57 Noguchi, A Sculptor's World, p. 164.
175
Although finally rejected because it was deemed
inappropriate for an American to design the national memorial
to those who died by the nuclear bomb, Dore Ashton claims
that the cenotaph "takes its place among the few great
twentieth-century monuments, even in its unrealized
state."58 Culminating the social, political, and cultural
concerns of the Japanese avant-garde in the final stage of
the Occupation era, Noguchi's massive black granite arch
poignantly symbolizes the question of the heart of the
modernism and tradition discourse: What is the form of
Japan's cultural identity after Japan itself has been
practically annihilated?
~k -k -k
Despite the innovative theory and practice of
avant-garde traditional arts groups in the postwar period,
they have ultimately remained excluded from the
international modern art canon because they were perceived
as being "traditional" and therefore "antimodern" and
"anti-Western." As literary critic Karatani Kojin points
out, however, such misperception arises from a typical
conceptual conflation of the "modern" and the "Western."
58 Ashton, p. 131.
176
Since, in the West as well as Asia, the modern and premodern
are distinct from one another, modernity is a concept
separate from Westernness. But since the "origin" of
modernity is Western, the two cannot be easily separated.59
The purpose of presenting the postwar traditional arts
movements within the context of this study of Japanese
avant-garde art is to question this outdated assertion, and
to reconsider the expression of essentially modernist
notions of self, freedom, and cultural critique through
radical forms of traditional, non-Western art.
59 Karatani Kdjin, trans. and ed. by Brett de Bary, The

Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (Durham and London:
Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 191-93.
177
CHAPTER FOUR
THE YOMIURI INDEPENDANT ARTISTS AND
SOCIAL PROTEST TENDENCIES IN THE 1960S
Between 1909, when novelist Mori Ogai published his
translation of Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism" (just
three months after it first appeared in Le Figaro), and 1929,
when Murayama Tomoyoshi's Dadaist group Mavo disbanded,
performative, expressionist, and anti-art tendencies within
the Japanese avant-garde were established. Mori and Murayama
were among several artists and intellectuals who returned
from European capitals to transmit the modernist canon to
a growing community of rebels, misfits, poets, and
visionaries. From these revolutionary beginnings that were
nearly contemporaneous with European movements, certain
conditions for advanced art in Japan continued to mature
through early Showa: the role of the artist as iconoclast
and agitator in society; the practice of mixing literary,
visual, and performance art forms to create new genres; and
the free adaptation of traditional culture to serve a
contemporary idiom. After a decade of wartime suppression,
these ideas were passionately reclaimed and provided the
foundation for Japanese art of the sixties--undoubtedly,
178
the most creative outburst of anarchistic, subversive, and
riotous tendencies in the history of modern Japanese culture.
Beneath her spectacular postwar economic
reconstruction, Japan of the late 1950s was beset by social
and political turmoil. Leftist demands to revise the
unpopular U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that gave the United
States the right to use Japan as a military base in the
expanding Cold War arena in East Asia caused a succession
of massive strikes and violent demonstrations culminating
in a national crisis in 1960. From this period of
unprecedented upheaval emerged Anti-Art and Neo-Dada
tendencies, underground theater, New Wave cinema, Ankoku
Butoh, and VIVO and the Postwar School of Photography,
creating an artistic revolution that challenged established
modernist styles in the arts and authoritarian dictates in
society, culture, and politics. The artists and
intellectuals who participated in these cultural and
political movements were spurred by their disillusionment
with postwar Japanese democratic institutions, a break with
the "Old Left," and, most concretely, a quest for
alternatives to modernist orthodoxies. Rejecting the
fallacies of Japanese imperialism and Western humanism, this
new generation faced the task of rebuilding Japanese modern
179
identity from the charred ruins of post-atomic history. As
photographer Tomatsu Shomei (b. 1930) wrote of the war
generation that came of age during this tumultuous era, that
"defeat and the experience of starvation in 1945 had such
great influence that they have determined our way of living
ever since."1 Cultivating methods and images aimed to shock
and revolt the status quo, artists led culture from the
hallowed halls of museums and theaters into the streets,
shopping centers, and train stations of Tokyo, striving to
make art that would be defined by experience rather than
by its medium, author, or commercial value. Essentially
expressionistic, there artists dealt foremost with the
problems of the "individual" in a quest for self-identity,
reflecting a preoccupation with overt self-expression that
I wish to acknowledge the following individuals for their

contributions to my study of Japanese art of the 1960s:
Akasegawa Genpei, Haryu Ichiro, Isozaki Arata, Kaido Hideo,
Kashiwagi Tomoo, Kuroda Raiji, Kusama Yayoi, Nakahara Yusuke,
Nakanishi Natsuyuki, Nakamura Keiji, John Nathan, Oshima
Nagisa, Leo Rubinfine, Donald Richie, Sakurai Takumi, Ushio
Shinohara, Takamatsu Jiro, Yasunao Tone, Tono Yoshiaki, Yuri
Tsuzuki, Yamagishi Koko, and Yokoo Tadanori.

1 Tomatsu Shomei, "Japan Under Occupation" in Shomei

Tomatsu: Japan 1952-1981, exh. cat. (Graz, Austria: Forum
Stadtoark et a l ., 1984), p. 62.
180
was central to Japanese avant-garde culture of the sixties.
At the forefront of these movements were several artists
and short-lived groups that emerged from the Yomiuri
Independant Exhibitions (Yomiuri andepandan-ten) . Sponsored
by the Yomiuri newspaper and held at the Tokyo Metropolitan
Art Museum from 1949 until 1963, the Yomiuri Independant
was an unjuried exhibition open to artists who were not
affiliated with any official, academic salon.2
Initially a showcase for prominent modernist painters,
the Yomiuri Independant exhibition began to change in 1955,
with the participation of increasing numbers of younger,
unknown artists, many of whom were still students. As art
historian Kashiwagi Tomoo has related, the emergence of the
so-called "Yomiuri Independant artists" dated from the 9th
exhibition in 1957, when there was an unprecedented display
of gestural abstract painting in the manner of Art Informel.3
2 The other unjuried annual exhibition, the Nihon

Independant Exhibition, was organized by the Japan Art
Association (Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai) and inaugurated in 1947.
Based on democratic ideals, it was revolutionary as a new
type of open submissions exhibition without a jury. It became
associated with Social Realism.
3 Kashiwagi Tomoo, trans. by Robert Reed, "Fukushu no

keitaigaku: Yomiuri andepandanto to 1960-nendai no
shakai-teki purotesto/Morphology of Revenge: The Yomiuri
Independant Artists and Social Protest Tendencies in the
181
With the so-called "Informal Whirlwind," the
Fauvist-style painting that had earlier dominated the
Yomiuri Independant retreated as more and more radical kinds
of painting, assemblages, environments, and events took over.
Reviewing the 1957 show, critic and Yomiuri exhibition
advisor Takiguchi Shuzo wrote: "With the exhibition now in
its 9th holding, my strong impression is that obligatory
submissions by members of the established art associations
are almost gone."4 The exhibition, Takiguchi wrote, had
"produced a new group of young talent that was...struggling
to develop its own world of expression." He associated the
"expressionist tendency seen among the younger artists, a
tendency to use raw colors in combination with black (often
an unrestrained use of enamel)" with the dominance of Art
Informel painting, but argued that Art Informel was not the
only stimulus. Rather, the work of the new Yomiuri
Independant artists reflected "a direct outpouring into
1960s" in Sengo Nihon no zen'ei hijutsu/Japanese Art After

1945: Scream Against the Sky, exh. cat. (Yokohama: Yokohama
Museum of Art, 1994), p. 189.
4 Takiguchi Shuzo, "Hyogen no kiki: Dai 9-kai Yomiuri

andepandan-ten" (The Crisis of Expression: The 9th Yomiuri
Indeependent Exhibition) , 1957; reprinted in Takiguchi Shuzo,
Ten (Point), (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1963), pp. 299-300.
Translated by Robert Reed in ibid., adapted by the author.
182
action of pent-up creative energy that was still in search
of direction; Informel served only as a cue."
With the 10th exhibition in 1958, the Yomiuri
Indedependant became the most stimulating forum for artists
who, in Hi Red Center artist Akasegawa Genpei's words,
"strove for the extreme."5 Appropriating Art Informal's
approach to material and action, and flaunting a bold and
optimistic disregard for any cultural authority whatsoever,
the new Yomiuri Indedependant artists reveled in what Group
Ongaku member Yasunao Tone remembers as "the euphoria of
apathy." 6 Akasegawa has described their practice of
producing radical "objets" made of urban debris, food, dead
animals, and other cheap, available, non-art materials:
At first artists began timidly to mix sand or stones

with paint which they spread on their canvases. As the
trend progressed, they began to use more solid objects.
First, nails appeared, then rice scoopers, cloth, rope,
bottles, even tires. What was supposed to be the canvas
of a painting now had objects thrusting out from
it. ..until the surfaces of works hung on the wall could
no longer support the protrusions and they fell onto
5 Akasegawa Genpei. Tokyo mikisa keikaku: Hal redo senta

chokusetsu Kodo no kiroku (Tokyo Mixer Plans: Documents of
Hi Red Center's Direct Action), (Tokyo: PARCO Co., 1984),
p. 6.
6 Yasunao Tone, interview with the author, New York City,
21 Jan. 1993.
183
the floor with a thud.7
For these artists who lacked gallery, museum, or private
support--Japan did not yet have an art system in place to
sponsor or promote contemporary art--the Yomiuri Independant
exhibition offered the one and only chance each year to show
their brash, unconventional works. Among the numerous groups
that emerged from or became associated with the Yomiuri
Independant exhibitions from 1958 were Kyushu-ha, Neo-Dada
Organizers, Group Ongaku, Zero-Dimension group, Time School
(Jikan-ha) , and Hi Red Center. Obsessed with ruins and
destruction, they advocated making junk art and violent
demonstrations to protest the conventional practice of art.
In a messy and anarchistic riot they experimented with forms
of art and performance that parodied and critiqued the social
establishment, while liberating themselves from the
oppressive wartime legacy. In so doing, they created a
counterculture that was genuine to their Japanese
generation.
7 Akasegawa, Imaya akushon aru nomi! Yomiuri andependan to

iu gensho (Now There Is Only Action! The Yomiuri Independant
Phenomenon), (Tokyo:Chikuma Shobo, 1985), pp. 67-69.
Translated by Robert Reed, adapted by the author.
184
4.1 The 1960 Anpo Crisis
The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Nichi-Bei anzen hosho
joyaku, known as Anpo) was signed in 1951 as part of the
conclusion of the peace settlement between Japan and the
U.S. The so-called "Anpo crisis" surrounding the first
renewal of the treaty in 1960 brought into sharp focus Japan's
complex relationship to America— its dominant foreign "other"
that represented conflicting extremes of democracy and
imperialism, international culture and gross materialism.
The upheaval was also remarkable because of the significant
role played by artists and intellectuals. Not since World
War II had the intelligentsia been so involved in a national
political event. In 1960, they avenged their former silence
and compliance with a unified pledge to speak out--their
slogan was "Never Again!"
By 1951, the goals of the Occupation had been achieved:
Japan's military machine had been dismantled, her war-torn
economy revived, and a democratic form of government
established. At the same time, the United States faced the
threat of growing militant Communism in East Asia with the
victory of Mao Zedong in 1949 and the Communist offensive
on the Korean peninsula in 1950. In this volatile political
context, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty claimed for the U.S.
185
the right to station 100,000 troops on Japanese soil for
the stated purpose of defending Japan: however, to a majority
of Japanese, it was interpreted as a defensive Cold War
military strategy. Ratified without deliberation in the last
months of the Occupation, the treaty sparked controversy
and opposition from its beginning.
As George R. Packard has written in a comprehensive
history of the Security Treaty crisis, at the time of the
treaty's signing in 1951 the Japanese were experiencing "a
period of shock, tragedy, and of struggle for survival."8
This deep sense of uncertainty helped stimulate the revival
of prewar leftist sentiments and led to the formation of
a broad-based, Marxist-oriented opposition comprised of the
pro-Soviet Japan Communist Party (JCP) ; the Socialists, with
powerful union support; and a newly-emerged group known as
the "progressive intellectuals" (kashushin interi)—
anti-conservative artists, writers, theater people, and
underground agitators who regarded themselves as guardians
of the "new democracy." Another important political force
that appeared was a nationwide student organization united
8 George R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo: The Security

Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1966), p.11.
186
under the umbrella of the JCP as the All-Federation of Student
Self-Governing Councils (Zen Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sorengo,
abbreviated to Zengakuren) . All four groups were united by
their loathing of militarism and imperialism, and opposed
any compromise to Article IX of the postwar Constitution,
which prohibited Japan from rearmament.
To the leftist art critics associated with the new
opposition, the decorative sentimentality of most modern
Japanese painting was irrelevant to the realities of postwar
Japan; they advocated instead the growing trend toward
Surrealist-style Social Realism. Responding to the grotesque
horrors of war and the political problems of contemporary
Japanese society, this genre of leftist "Reportage Painting"
(Ruporutaju kaiga) developed in the early 1950s.9 Dedicated
to recording the terrors of imperialism, nuclear holocaust,
and social injustice, Reportage Painting was partly
instigated by the JCP, which sent artists to rural villages,
industrial zones, and the areas surrounding American
military bases to depict instances of "class struggle" and
9 Among the most prominent Reportage painters are Nakatani

Tai, Nakamura Hiroshi, and Toneyama Kojin. See
cat. (Oxford: Museum of Modern Art, 1985).
187
"imperialism."
Among the most important Reportage painters was
Yamashita Kikuji (b. 1919), whose loyalty to the Communist
Party and obsession with ghoulish and perverse allegories
of postwar Japan inspired a series of mural-like narratives
depicting such subjects as the keloidal scars of atomic-bomb
victims, the behavior of American GI's, and incidents of
feudal injustice. In The Tale of Akebono Village (Plate 44),
Yamashita illustrated a real story of a village revolt in
rural Japan against the treatment of a landowner.
Interweaving several events that occurred over time, the
painting depicts the victimized old woman dangling from a
suicide noose, with a fox, representing her granddaughter,
eating the mucous that falls from her nostrils. Lying in
a river of blood beyond her is the body of the Communist
agitator who was sent to the village to support the revolt.
Painted with house paint on unstitched jute pea bags,
Yamashita strove for a style of illustration that recalled
billboards and Soviet Socialist Realist propaganda paintings
Yamashita has attributed the political insistence of his
fifties work to a sense of guilt over his passive failure
to protest against Japanese atrocities in southern China
and Taiwan from 1939 to 1942. He was determined to be an
188
active and outspoken participant in the politics and art
of new Japan.10
The leftist artistic and intellectual trends of the
1950s may indeed have represented a "reactive nationalism"
as well as a form of "anti-Americanism."11 Tired of postwar
defeatism and anxious to apply their newly discovered
socialist concepts, the Japanese advocated a political
"neutrality" tied neither to the Soviet nor the Western bloc,
thus asserting Japan's independence as a power. During the
fifties, this new postwar nationalism was increasingly
bolstered by the nation's rapid economic growth and rising
new political prestige.12 Fears of the U.S. motives in East
Asia and a desire to escape the overwhelming political and
cultural influence of the U.S. further contributed to a
growing opposition against the ten-year renewal of the treaty,
slated for 1960.
Considerable pressure from the left to change or cancel
the treaty mounted steadily in the late 1950s.
10 Kazu Kaido, "Reconstruction: The Role of the Avant-Garde

in Postwar Japan" in ibid., p. 18.
11 Packard, pp. 338-43.
12 This term was discussed by Matuyama Masao in 1950; ibid.,

p . 30.
189
Anti-militarist sentiments and fear of involvement with
American military activities intensified. In the spring of
1960, the announcement of the pro-American government of
Prime Minister Kishi Shinsuke that it would renew the treaty
with minimum revision ignited nation-wide resentment leading
to mass popular protests, strikes, and demonstrations. The
most violent clash occurred on June 15, when riot police
wielding wooden clubs counterattacked a mob of students who
had invaded the Diet building (Plates 45 and 46) . Hundreds
of students and police were injured, 196 arrests were made,
and a twenty-year old female student, Kamba Michiko, was
crushed to death--becoming the opposition's martyr. Despite
the severe public outcry, the treaty's renewal was
automatically ratified on June 19. Kishi immediately
resigned and the opposition movement, which came to be known
as the "Old Left," was defeated.
The failure of the radicals effected Japanese artists,
many of whom participated in the protests, in either of two
ways. The collapse of faith in liberal humanism and Communism
to penetrate the authoritarian and conservative structures
of Japanese society led many to a state ofintrospective
pessimism. In 1960, the Yomiuri Independent artistKudo
Tetsumi (1935-1990) embarked on a morbid series, The
190
Philosophy of Impotence, in which he filled entire galleries
with arrangements of black, castrated penis-like objects,
symbolizing the "the loss of wholistic communication" and
the "pathetic despair of human efforts."13 Several New Wave
directors made films about Anpo and the complex politics
that characterized the postwar era. Oshima Nagisa's Night
and Fog in Japan (1960) , for instance, dealt explicitly with
the Security Treaty crisis as illustrative of the collapse
of revolutionary ideals and Japan's ineffectual attempts
to prevent the return of feudalistic values and imperialistic
aims. The film's content was so politically charged that
it was pulled from distribution on its fourth day of
release.14 Central to Oshima's interpretation of the Anpo
events was the alienation of the self, which was seen as
13 Kudo Tetsumi quoted in Nakahara Yusuke, "Erosu no

geijutsuka-tachi 4: Kudo Tetsumi. Denki jidai no sei"
(Artists of Eros 4: Kudo Tetsumi. Sex in the Age of
Electricity), Bijutsu Techo, no.297 (May 1968), pp. 143-44.
14 Referring to Anpo's "martyrs" Kamba Michiko and Asanuma

Inejiro (the chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party who
was assassinated by a rightist, Oshima claimed that the
"massacre" of his film was clearly "political oppression,"
and decried: "I really think that what killed Night and Fog
in Japan is the same thing that killed Kamba Michiko and
Asanuma Inejiro, and I protest with unrelenting anger." See
Oshima Nagisa, Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The
Writings of Nagisa Oshima, 1956-1978 (Cambridge, Mass. and
London: MIT Press, 1992), p. 57.
191
the characters' alienation from each other and from their
culture at large. This self-critical pessimism, intended
to encourage reflection upon the meaning of Anpo and the
identity of Japanese youth, pervaded much of the sixties
counterculture.
The second expression of the so-called "Anpo spirit"
dismissed political ideology altogether and celebrated
anarchistic revel. Several members of Neo-Dada Organizers,
founded in April of 1960, participated actively in the Anpo
demonstrations, mixing up slogans of "Down with AnpoI" with
"Down with Anfol" (Informel painting). According to Tono
Yoshiaki, the group's leading critic, it is believed that
Neo-Dada Organizer artist Shusaku Arakawa threw a brick at
a police trooper that triggered the bloodiest of the riots.15
To announce the opening of their third exhibition the members
paraded through the streets, one masked and bandaged like
a mummy in paper Neo-Dada posters and another wrapped in
a string of light-bulbs. As Ushio Shinohara has recorded
in his memoir of Neo-Dada Organizers, The Avant Garde Road
(Zen'ei no michi, 1968), once inside the gallery Kazekura
15 Tono Yoshiaki, "Japan" in Artforum 5, n o .5 (January 1967) ,

p. 53.
192
Sho stuck his face into a bucket of water, made bubbling
sounds, and then started shouting, "The War! The War! The
Third World War!"16 As beer bottles were smashed and chairs
split by karate chops, Akasegawa Genpei calmly read aloud
the group's manifesto. On June 18, the eve of the treaty's
ratification, they organized the "Anpo Episode Event" at
member Yoshimura Masanobu's studio, the site for much the
group's rebellious shows and Happenings. The members
stripped naked, some with bags tied over their heads, and
danced wildly. Yoshimura attached a giant erect penis made
of crushed paper bound with string to his loins, and painted
his stomach with a gaping red diamond-shape of intestines--as
if he had just committed harakiri--and marked the rest of
his body with white arrows. These and other events staged
by Neo-Dada Organizers, while teeming with the spirit of
revolt, were intentionally empty of any specific ideology.
Anarchism prevailed.
4.2 Emergence of VIVO and the Postwar School of Photography
Contemporary with the rise of the Yomiuri Independant
16 Ushio Shinohara, Zen'ei no michi (The Avant-Garde Road),

(Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1968) p. 58.
193
groups was the emergence of a movement in postwar
photojournalism. After years of wartime suppression when
amateur photographic groups were banned, leading journals
shut down, and photojournalists co-opted to serve the war
effort, the immediate postwar period saw a proliferation
of photographers and publishers dedicated to photo reportage
Their intellectual mandate was to document social realities
with fearless objectivity, to use the camera as an instrument
of truth that would counter the distortions of history. New
magazines such as Sun Photo News (San shashin shinbun)
published by Mainichi Newspapers, one of Japan's largest
dailies, soon dominated the industry. Under the slogan,
Photographs Convey the Truth, Sun Photo asserted that its
photographs fearlessly turn their lenses to any subject in
order to preserve the truth. 17 Working within a social
realist framework, the postwar photojournalists focused on
images of the atomic-bomb survivors, victims of industrial
pollution, and rural poverty.
17 See Edward Putzar, Japanese Photography, 1945-1985

(Tuscon, Arizona: Pacific West, 1987), p. 8. Other photo
magazines that were influential in the 1950s and 1960s were
Asahi Camera and Camera Mainichi. Iwanami Photo Library,
under the editorial supervision of Natori Yonosuke from 1950,
was also significant.
194
The work of Domon Ken (1909-1990) arose from this milieu.
A radical who had once been imprisoned, Domon was
instrumental in founding the Shudan Photo Group that held
annual exhibitions with Western photographers whose work
expressed social commitment, including Margaret
Bourke-White, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier Bresson, and W.
Eugene Smith. Working in Hiroshima and the Chikuho coal mines,
Domon achieved national acclaim for his startling portraits
of children damaged by war and exploitative labor
conditions. 18 In the Hiroshima hospitals devoted to
atomic-bomb survivors (hibakusha), he focuses close-up on
the daily lives of children deformed by radiation. Framed
like a snap-shot, his image of a boy receiving treatment
on his keloid scars relates an immediate experience,
compelling the viewer's empathy/revulsion as if confronting
the actual scene itself (Plate 47). Clinical, even
dispassionate, Domon rejects artfulness to perform the duty
of witness and establish a legacy of evidence. His objective
18 Domon Ken's series of these subjects were published as

the following: Hiroshima (Tokyo: Kenko-sha, 1958); Children
of Chikuho Coal Mines (Tokyo: Patoria-shoten, 1960); and
Rumie's Daddy Is Dead (Tokyo: Kenko-sha, 1960). His Hiroshima
work was also featured with Tomatsu Shomei's work in Nagasaki
in the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Document (Tokyo: Gensuikyo, 1961).
195
documentary style forged the Realistic Photography Movement
(Riarizumu Shashin Undo) that informed the history of postwar
photoj ournalism.
The debates on photographic realism influenced several
photographers who would later found the photography group
VIVO, including Narahara Ikko (b. 1931) and Kawada Kikuji
(b. 1933) . Like Domon Ken, Nakahara and Kawada trained their
cameras on the dark side of modern Japanese social reality.
Nakahara's series, Human Land, Island without Green,
Gunkanjima (1954-1957) documents a coal mining island near
Nagasaki. His cropped, uncentered, close-up portrait of a
half-naked miner, emerging from the pitch-black and drenched
in filth and sweat, captures the social conditions with a
straight realism similar to Domon Ken's (Plate 48) . But here
the subject's psychological presence adds layers of visual
meaning, beyond raw description, to the image. In another
photograph from the same series, Narahara suggests the
confounding depths of this industrial wasteland by shooting
the angular, concrete labyrinth of an apartment structure
from above. Narahara's abstract and expressive compositions
made his work more personal than journalistic, and when shown
in a historic two-part exhibition in 1956, they aroused
controversy among the orthodox social realists. Domon Ken's
196
objective realism would become its limitation, and he was
among the first to declare that the realist period of
objective documentary was over and subjective documentary
had taken its place. Gunkanjima thus heralded a shift in
postwar photography from objective toward subjective realism,
and anticipated much of the 1960s style that would define
the new Japanese photography.
The pivotal figure in the emerging school was Tomatsu
Shomei (b. 1930), whose series recording the fragmentary
relics of traditional Japan, the forgotten lives of
Nagasaki's Catholic hibakusha, and the disjunctive culture
of the American military bases, caused a sensation in the
late 1950s and early sixties. Tomatsu was trained in the
conventions of photojournalism, with pictures representing
a slice of time within a larger, coherent narrative, but
he gradually rejected the concept of journalistic
illustration and refused commercial jobs. As he matured,
his subject became less a critical document of Japan's
postwar social conditions as an existential essay on everyday
life amidst the ruins of war, the irrationality of loss.
An introspective perception marks his pictures with an
expressionist style and psychic urgency that was radical
within the context of contemporary photography. Tomatsu's
197
images of the Nagasaki hibakusha, for example, convey less
information than Domon's of Hiroshima, and yet have far more
pathos. By employing an abstract, even surreal style to frame
his composition of a man's face entirely lost in shadow,
Tomatsu universalizes the particular terror of his condition,
emphasizing the power of art over journalism, humanite over
ideology (Plate 51).
The VIVO photographers first showed together in an
historic series of three shows, The Eyes of Ten (Junin no
me) , that was organized by critic Fukushima Tatsuo and held
at the Konoshiroku Gallery in Tokyo from 1957 to 1959.19 The
ten included Nakahara, Tomatsu, Hosoe, Kawada, and Tanno
Akira, who then separately formed VIVO, from the Esperanto
word for life. They gathered as an agency with the aim to
promote innovation through their work as magazine
photographers. The editor of Mainichi Camera, Yamagishi
Shoji (1928-1979), became a passionate champion of their
work and emerged as their most important critic both within
19 Fukushima Tatsuo, an organizer of the avant-garde arts

group Democrat that was active in the early 1950s in Tokyo,
was a proponent of such existential writers as Sartre and
Camus. The other photographers who were featured in the Eyes
of Ten included Kawahara Shun, Ishimoto Yasuhiro, Nakamura
Masaya, Sato Akira, and Tokiwa Toyoko (the only woman in
this group).
198
Japan and abroad. These artists were all born in the 1930s,
raised under Japan's imperialist regime, and came of age
amidst war, defeat, and devastation. They emerged in the
mid-fifties as radicals who, disappointed in
institutionalized politics and resisting capitalist
socialization, were dedicated to the possibility of art to
transform Japan's socially-entrenched statism. Using the
camera to give enlightened evidence of real social experience,
these artists articulated an avant-gardist subjectivity by
focusing on the freakish surplus and detritus of Japan's
modern capitalist state. What the VIVO artists made visible
on film was all that the state ideology desired to make
invisible; they documented what the state would not see.
Most of all, their subject was postwar Japan— its modernity,
its identity, and its wartime past that was silenced but
not gone. As Tomatsu reflected: "In Nagasaki, I witnessed
not only the vestiges of war, but a postwar without end.
I once believed that ruins were cities reduced to ashes.
Nagasaki taught me that ruins can also be found in the human
soul."20
20 Tomatsu Shomei, "Genjidai no kurisuto" (Christ in the

nuclear age), in Nagasaki 11:02: August 9, 1945: Photographs
by Shomei Tomatsu, trans. by Linda Hoaglund (Tokyo:
199
Like the earlier photojournalism, VIVO was concerned
with the dire condition of manual laborers, the ghostly
vestiges of native culture existing in the shadows of urban
sprawl, and the baroque effects of Japan's Americanization.
What distinguishes their work from the earlier generation
is their obsession with how to describe immediate experience:
their pictures are not comments on experience but experience
itself, not records of the uncanny but uncanniness itself.
Exploiting the violent, cruising, Beat style of William
Klein's New York (1956), the VIVO artists aimed to express,
rather than merely document, the visual and existential
discord that pervaded everyday life. However short-lived
as an agency, the term, VIVO, has come to signify this larger
phenomenon associated with Tomatsu and Yamagishi, and
spanning the 1960s decade.
Although VIVO had been active only since 1959, it
culminated a movement in postwar Japanese photography with
roots dating back to the early fifties, and anticipated and
profoundly influenced Japanese photographic style of the
1960s and seventies. Using a grainy and high contrast,
cropped and abstract style to depict the fragmented reality
Shinchosha Photo Musee, 1986), unpagenated.
200
of Japanese urbanism and the eerie conditions of Japanese
modernity, these photographers forged a discourse on the
fundamental questions of photography as praxis--its
relationship to social and political revolution, its
ambiguous function as both documentary evidence and art,
and its structural dialectic between subjective and
objective realism. Drawing on the prewar history in Japan
of both photojournalism and surrealist art photography, and
inspired by contemporary American photography, especially
the gritty cityscapes of William Klein, VIVO arose in
response to the existential and radical ideas that shaped
Japan's postwar intellectual and cultural vanguard.
4.3 Moriyama: Photography as Postwar Landscape
Although nearly a decade younger than the VIVO
photographers, Moriyama Daido was profoundly impacted by
their work. In his writings and interviews, he gives great
importance to his relationship with Tomatsu and Hosoe in
particular. Moriyama understood the political and social
engagement at the heart of Tomatsu's project, an abiding
humanism that was allied to leftwing sentiments. Although
he wrestled to be free of such external forces, striking
against ideology to give form to his own individual
201
experience, Moriyama'’s work remains part of the prevailing
oppositional consciousness of much postwar photojournalism.
In contrast, what he drew from Hosoe was a sense of
theatricality and eroticism. Artaud-like occultism pervades
Moriyama's work, and lurid scenes of street sex, like
Yokosuka Whore (Plate 55), are recurring themes. The dark
lyricism of Moriyama's urban landscapes and their obsession
with uncanny realms of experience is deeply connected to
the larger avant-garde culture of the 1960s that he lived
and worked amidst— a radically innovative culture of film,
literature, and performance art shaped by societal trauma.
"Chaotic everyday existence is what I think Japan is all
about," Moriyama has commented. "This kind of theatricality
is not just a metaphor but is also, I think, our actual
reality."21
A third photographer who looms large in Moriyama's
pantheon is Nakahira Takuma (b. 1938) . AMarxist intellectual
regarded as a charismatic young genius by his peers, Nakahira
was editor of the influential leftist journal, Geridai no
21 Moriyama Daido, letter to Sandra- S. Phillips, undated

(1998).
202
me (The Modern Eye) when he and Moriyama met in 1964. 22
Tomatsu, eight years their senior, introduced them. Deeply
engaged in the political and social protest movements that
beset Japan in the early 1960s, Nakahira was also involved
in the massive student protests of 1968-1969. A critic and
activist, Nakahira was committed to bringing radicalism into
the forefront of contemporary reality, into actual lived
experience. In 1968, he co-founded a quarterly journal,
Provoke, that involved young poets and photographers in a
provocative strategy to challenge received notions of art
and photography by breaking down formal conventions.
Moriyama contributed to the second and third issues, and
remained close friends with Nakahira until 1977, when he
collapsed from alcohol poisoning and lost his memory. What
Moriyama gained from years of working closely with Nakahira,
meeting daily in bars in Shinjuku and later Zushi, is the
will to push the medium to its limit, to break through the
22 Gendai no me featured photography and essays, and

Moriyama's fetus series was first published there. Among
his most influential writings and photographic anthologies
are: Mazu tashikarashisa no sekai o sutero (First, Throw
Out the World of the Seemingly Real) , (Tokyo: Tabatake Shoten,
1970); Aratanaru gyoshi (A New Gaze), (Tokyo: Shubun-sha,
1983); and Adieu a Okinawa: Shashin genten (Okinawa: The
Starting point of Photophraphy).
203
prevailing orthodoxies of aestheticism and conceptualism
in Japanese photography, to search for a new and relevant
reality of photography. Moriyama has commented: "Nakahira'' s
logic lies in recognizing that a photograph's reality is
in humanity, in history, in society."23
Moriyama emerged at the end of VIVO's formal activity
and ultimately forged a far more radical and independent
style. But long before he had a camera of his own, he spent
months studying Tdmatsu's contact sheets in an effort to
analyze the master's iconography, method and style. In his
first published series, Japan: A Photo Theater (1968),
Moriyama demonstrates certain affinities. Like Tomatsu,
Moriyama finds his subjects in urban back-alleys, among
raucous theater troupes, and around the Yokosuka naval base.
Tomatsu's famous image of a man shoveling mud in the aftermath
of a typhoon shares with Moriyama's Shinjuku Station (Plates
53 and 54) a concern with the bizarre underworld of Japanese
street life. Both figures are de-humanized, their forms
cropped to exaggerate the awkwardness of their extreme
condition. Eschewing artistry, Moriyama deliberately seeks
an anonymous approach to shooting the present as immediately
23 Moriyama, letter to Phillips.
204
as he experiences it. "I was not against America, or the
war, or against politics," he has argued. "I was against
photography. "24
In contrast to Tomatsu, Hosoe Eiko's sense of theater
enabled him to transcend the documentary ethic that had
dominated his photographic education . Hosoe's 1959 encounter
with dancer Hijikata Tatsumi, founder of the Anko-ku Butoh
school, inspired his investigation of sexual debauchery and
death as a means to uncage a primal energy at the core of
man's physical being--an energy suppressed and forgotten,
Hijikata believed, by the mechanisms of modern society. The
outcome of their collaboration, Kamaitachi, presents
Hijikata's phantasmagorical performance set in the rural
landscape of northern Japan (Plate 95; see Chapter Five).
The theatrical, the occult and the erotic— ideas deeply
connected to the larger avant-garde culture of the 1960s—
would also characterize Moriyama's work. Focusing on the
uncanny realms of Japanese modernity, where dark and ancient
customs erupt back into daily life, unsettling normalcy,
Moriyama was fascinated with the aberrant as a subversive
24 Moriyama Daido, interview with the author, July 1998,

Tokyo.
205
way to represent Japan by what is officially hidden. Moriyama,
who assisted Hosoe on his famous Barakei production with
Mishima Yukio, began his independent work with the poet and
dramatist Terayama Shuji in 1964. 25 Exhibiting an
eclecticism that anticipates a postmodern sensibility,
Terayama's clash of traditional and popular culture
expressed the crisis of modernity in 1960s' Japan. The
eccentric figures that populate Moriyama's Japan: A Photo
Theater (1968) were regulars on Terayama's legendary Tenjo
Sajiki stage, and the dramatist contributed an absurdist
prose-poem for the book's preface. Through Terayama,
Moriyama invokes a universe of terror, of splits in
appearance, of the irrational and fantastic all as signs
of an unofficial non-West that resists oblivion by western
modernity and the central state.
Moriyama's preoccupation with what he has called "this
grotesque, scandalous and utterly accidental world of
humanity,"26 remained central to his art. Unlike Hosoe whose
25 Terayama initially approached Moriyama to commission him

to record his theatrical activities. Moriyama, interview
with the author, July 1998, Tokyo.
26 Moriyama Daido, Jikokakunin no shudan toshite no kamera
(The Camera as a Means of Confirming the Self) in Shashin
to no taiwa (Dialogue with Photography), (Tokyo: Seikyusha,
206
theatricality is achieved by literally staging his subjects
(Hijikata, Mishima) in artificial, mythological roles aimed
to shock, Moriyama finds his theatricality erupting
naturally at the periphery of urban landscapes--in the
Yokosuka bars, at Tokyo's stripper joints and backstage in
cheap, downtown Kabuki theaters. His cabaret performer
caught with false breasts exposed or his wailing folk singer
are not symbolizing a primitive, aestheticized otherness;
they are rather a form of diaristic anti-art whose realism
lies in a professed lack of artistry or intervention.
Moriyama's theatricality operates on several levels.
In the lurid spectacles that comprise the Accident series
(Plate 56), for example, a Warholian decadence geared to
voyeurism pervades. Here, Moriyama aimed to capture a
carnivalesque violence by riding in a late-night patrol car
through Shinjuku and shooting what he saw through the car
window. Like Weegee whom Moriyama admires, the Accident
series suggests a criminal atmosphere in the most banal,
everyday environment.27 Central to Moriyama's strategy with
Accident was also the practice of using advertising
1985), p l 9 .
27 Moriyama, Sakuhin Kaisetsu (Commentaries on Works) in
207
billboards, movie posters, police placards and other forms
of image reproduction that create such visual density in
the urban landscape, as elements of his photographs. "The
plurality of images were part of my own singular reality,"
Moriyama has written, "and I presented them as such."28 This
appropriation that came to mark Moriyama's style further
expresses his vision of the kitsch voyeurism that so pervades
modern city life. Theatricality as a sign of modernity's
debauched conditions hence becomes the subject of Moriyama's
art, and fulfills the postwar photojournalist ideal of
shooting evidence of history gone awry.
Moriyama Daido emerged at a time when debates on
photography and its relationship to objective or subjective
realism dominated the discourse. Many lesser photographers
were quick to emulate the styles associated with each school,
hastening the ascendancy of orthodox styles. Moriyama's
critical importance in the history of postwar photography
is that he was among the first to break through the formal
and ideological constraints of each approach to forge an
expressive style that was wholly his own. Rather than locate
Shashin to no taiwa (Dialogue with Photography), p. 22.

28 Ibid., p. 24.
208
realism in either the objective or subjective realms, as
static subjects of photography, Moriyama finds realism in
the act of taking a photograph itself. In a revealing essay,
"The Camera as a Means of Confirming the Self," he describes
his method and concept:
I brush aside words and ideas, and focus on photography

as a means of expressing a message that is both
physiological and phenomenological. With that
framework, my approach is very simple--there is no
artistry, I just shoot freely. For example, most of
my snapshots I take from a moving car, or while running,
without the finder, and in those instances one might
say that I'm taking the pictures more with my body than
with my eyes. I think that the process gives my photos
more a sense of place and existence, more atmosphere. ...
Whether it's the perception of a certain object, or
the atmosphere of a situation, if one always thinks
about the composition of the picture, one will lose
the freshness of the moment, and little by little the
photos reveal their contemplated and formatted nature ..
[My] photos are often out of focus, rough, streaky,
warped etc....But if you think about it, a normal human
being will in one day perceive an infinite number of
images, and some are focused upon, others are barely
seen out of the corner of one's eye. The blurry photos
too can be related to real life. A person's line of
vision will often change over the course of a
day— there's no way for it to be perfectly still and
gradually shift from one thing to another. In fact,
it is more normal to move around for one to only have
a rough sense of one's surroundings. I do not mean to
give excuses for my photos, but perhaps this is the
underlying structure, the crucial origins of my
photographic style. For me, photography is not the
endeavor to create a two-dimensional work of art, but
by taking photo after photo, I come closer to truth
and reality at the very intersection of the fragmentary
nature of the world and my own personal sense of time.
To differentiate subjective and objective photography
209
is nonsense. The exploration of the possibilities of
photography is, in the end, inseparable from the
individual's explorations of the possibilities of
life.29
Ultimately, Moriyama's radicalism lies in his
insistence on photography as a kind of action art focused
on recording the fragmentary substance of time itself.
Informed by the intellectual and cultural concerns of the
Japanese postwar avant-garde with its pervasive existential
and nihilistic bent, Moriyama dismisses its over-determined
nostalgia and politics to forge a far more immediate--and
unmediated--art. To Moriyama, early postwar photographers
such as Domon and Tomatsu were finally limited by their own
doctrinaire dedication to narrative, a romantic belief in
the possibility of art to serve an ideological end.30 What
Japanese critics have identified in Moriyama's art is a style
euphorically free of these narrative conventions of postwar
photography.
The culmination of Moriyama's conceptual methodology
as a photographer was his 197 4 exhibition and publication
29 Moriyama, Jikokakunin no shudan toshite no kamera, p. 19.

30 See Moriyama's criticism of Domon and Tomatsu as
doctrinaire (kyojyo-teki) in Moriyama Daido, Shashin yo
Sayoanara (Tokyo: Shashin Hyoronsha, 1972).
210
of Tono Monogatari (The Tales of Tono, Plate 57) .31 After
years of training his 35mm camera on city scenes, he traveled
to the rural village of Tono in northern Japan. To Moriyama
and other artists and intellectuals of his age, Tono was
known as the subject of a literary classic that was the
founding work of Japanese folklore studies, Tono monogatari
(The Tales of Tono) . The tales, compiled as oral history
in 1910 by the pioneering ethnologist Yanagida Kunio, recount
episodes of murder, incest, and grotesque births, ghosts
and mountain apparitions, deities and monsters--the
surviving numinous of an older world that had seemingly
escaped the rational systems of the modernizing state.
Through Yanagida's influential work, Tono itself came to
emblemize an authentic yet disappearing Japan, an arcadia
inextricably linked to the afterlife and threatened by
effacement. Mishima Yukio, writing on The Tales of Tono
shortly before his ritual suicide in 1970, stated that, "The
Tales of Tono speaks, coldly, of innumerable deaths."
31 The exhibition was held at the Nikon Salon in Tokyo.

32 Cited in Marilyn Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing:
Modernity, Phantasm, Japan (Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 66. For Ivy's discussion of The
Tales of Tono, see pp. 66-140. See also J. Victor Koschmann,
Oiwa Keibo and Yamashita Shinji, International Perspectives
211
Moriyama''s choice of Tono as the subject of his first
one-person show was informed in part by his affinity with
Yanagida's treatment of his elusive topic. Yanagida compiled
the Tales, told to him by a local storyteller, as a series
of "present day facts" (genzal no jijitsu)--an approach
Moriyama follows on his own expedition to record Tono
village.33 Yanagida's 119 tales are brief and episodic,
fragmentary and anti-narrative, structured overall without
beginning or end, like a collage--recalling Moriyama's own
cinematic survey of contemporary Tono's village life. His
are random shots cropped and paired in fragmented
juxtapositions of, for example, a futon quilt hung out to
air and the leathery face of an old farm woman. The debates
over whether the Tales were "scientific" (an unmediated
record of spoken language) or "literary" (an interpretation
shaped by the conventions of written language) also relate
to Moriyama's own dilemma between objective or subjective,
photojounalistic or art photography. Ultimately, the works
of Yanagida and Moriyama achieve the status of both
of Yanagita Kunio and Japanese Folklore Studies (Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1985).
33 For Moriyama's rationale for undertaking Tono, see his
introduction, "Naze Tono nanoka?" (Why Tono?) , in Tono
212
"document" and "art." But Moriyama is emphatic that his is
not a literal illustration or lyrical evocation of Yanagida's
work, and even states that "the present reality of Tono and
Yanagida's Tono are incompatible in almost all respects."34
Rather, in his focus on shooting the "visible present" as
he experiences it, he seeks not Yanagida but what Yanagida
sought: he concludes that "photography might as well be
folklore itself."35
Over and over, Moriyama seeks out the immediacy of time
and place by surrendering to the power of site, what he calls
"the original landscape" (genkei) . In his writings on Tono
Monogatari, he argues for the direct experience of existence
that site itself evokes. To Moriyama, the photographer who
disregards the formal aspects of his trade and concentrates
on time and place can uniquely express this reality in the
modern era. Integral to Moriyama's understanding of
landscape, however, is an abiding sense of the ephemeral,
the incomplete, and memory. Empty streets, a person's face
in a doorway, stray dogs--these are all elements of a
marginalized landscape he wants to recover.
monogatari, pp. 14 0-72.

34 Ibid. , p . 159.
213
This desire to return to "the original landscape," he
writes, causes a sort of "personal reincarnation" (rinne
tensho), a recognition of some facet of the self lodged in
the past that is aroused by an unexpected encounter with
the image of a place. Moriyama invokes the classical Japanese
aesthetic precept, ichi-go ichi-e (one time, one meeting) ,
to suggest what he calls "the tragic nature of human
existence" that comes from the "paradox of this reincarnation
and the return to the original landscape."36 It is as though
his photographs were constructed as a double exposure— one
aspect reflecting the information of a passing moment (images
of contemporary Japan); the other penetrating into the
elusive meaning of Japanese cultural identity (evocations
of premodern Japan) . Far more complex than straight objective
or subjective viewing, Moriyama's art creates a landscape
wherein the real and illusory, history and memory all coexist
It is a world he calls "another country."
4.4 The Yomiuri Independant Groups
The various groups that emerged from the Yomiuri
35 Ibid. , p . 161.
36 Ibid., p. 167.
214
Independant exhibitions from 1957 through 1963 represented
both a reaction against and a transformation of the dominant
avant-garde practices of postwar Japanese art. As the third
generation of postwar artists, the Yomiuri Independant
groups inherited first the lessons of Surrealism practiced
in the late forties by the first generation including Abe
Nobuya, Fukuzawa Ichiro, and Okamoto Taro--whose paintings
depicted such fantastic horrors of war as skeletal corpses
lying in the sand or piled in a heap before a demonic
landscape--which taught the necessity for art to function
as a violent assault on the complacency of mundane
consciousness. They also inherited the Social Realism of
the second postwar generation, transforming its essential
"realism" from one that served a Marxist dogma to one that
embraced the detritus produced by mass capitalism. The
Reportage painters' belief in art as a non-elite activity
that is an integral part of social reality provided a
foundation for the Yomiuri Independant groups. Further, the
Reportage painters' preference for large-scale works made
of non-art materials and heroic disregard for performance
expressed by the artists' frequent destruction of their works
influenced the Yomiuri Independant artists' approach to art
as part "found object" and part "event."
215
By the mid-1950s, the didactic nature of leftist Social
Realism was already being challenged in contemporary
criticism. Concern over the danger of artists' dependency
on subject matter prompted Haryu Ichiro (b. 1925) , a leading
left-wing critic and member of the JCP, to criticize the
Nihon Independant exhibition of 1953 that concentrated on
Social Realism for lacking originality and formal innovation,
despite his well-known ideological sympathies with the
movement. To the Yomiuri Independant artists who had
witnessed the failure of Japanese Communism, Reportage
painting was a form of "art as propaganda" no different in
its authoritarian righteousness from the war paintings that
many Japanese artists had produced under coercion a decade
earlier. Further, the weakening of the "Old Left" exposed
the futility of subjecting oneself to any organized political
cause, leading the Yomiuri Independant artists to embrace
unfettered individualism instead.
The catalyst for a new approach to the problems of
self-expression and identity was provided by Okamoto Taro
(b. 1911) who, in a series of influential books and essays,
advocated the progressive regeneration of Japanese
216
culture.37 In his best-selling Art of Today (Konnichi no
geijutsu, 1954), Okamoto stated that "Postwar Japan must
peel off the heavy shell of the past and forge a new young
culture as if being reborn, and venture out into the world,"
and called upon young artists to overthrow the "authority
blackened with age [that] still presses down stiflingly over
our lives."38 Believing that modern art was a universal
property belonging neither to the East nor West, he advocated
using its language to communicate the particular realities
of contemporary Japan— but realities that went beyond the
"isolation, helplessness, and bitter struggle" documented
by the Social Realists. Okamoto called for young artists
to make strident efforts to "destroy everything with
monstrous energy...in order to reconstruct the Japanese art
37 Okamoto lived in Paris from 1929 to 1940. Early in his

career, he believed in abstract art as the new international
language and in 1933 became the youngest member of the
Parisian Abstraction-Creation group. Later, he developed
a fantasy Surrealist style and was included in the Exposition
internationale du surrealisme of 1938 that Andre Breton
helped organize. His career in Europe, where in spite of
his success he always felt acutely aware of being an
"outsider," came to an end with the war; he was forced to
return to Japan and enlist in the military. His most important
publications are Nihon no dento (Traditions of Japan, 1956)
and Watakushi no gendai geijutsu (My Contemporary Art, 1963) .
38 Okamoto Taro, 1954; quoted and trans. in Winther, p. 113.
217
world."39 Significantly, the purpose of such activism was
to communicate the raw power of contemporary Japan to a
Western audience--which was still, Okamoto lamented, mired
in a romantic and misconstrued pro jection of Japonisme. "That
which is muddied in the struggle of Japanese soil must be
thrust before them [the West] as is," Okamoto wrote. "The
strike must be made.,,4° Okamoto's revolutionary call for a
new art that implied a physical engagement bordering on
violence, his desire to forge a challenging Japanese art
that would be contemporaneous with Western modernism, and
his belief that art should communicate the realities
indigenous to contemporary Japan became the guiding
principles of the Yomiuri Independant groups.
Okamoto encouraged art that was not aesthetically
pleasing, not technically skillful, and not complacent in
any way. Art, Okamoto declared, must be "disagreeable." In
The Law of the Jungle (1950), Okamoto depicted a monstrous
creature in the form of a zippered change-purse devouring
Okamoto, c.1948; quoted and trans. in Kaido,

Reconstructions, p. 14.
40 Okamoto, 1954; quoted and trans. in Bert Winther, "Isamu

Noguchi: Conflicts of Japanese Culture in the Early Postwar
Years" (Ph.D.diss., New York University, 1992), p. 116-17.
218
a human being and terrifying a host of surrealistic creatures
The confrontationalism of Okamoto''s absurdist image would
become the hallmark of the Yomiuri Independant artists, many
of whom regarded Okamoto as their mentor. Shinohara, who
considered himself among those who had "rejected the pursuit
of eternal beauty," also advocated the urgent necessity for
Japanese artists to "produce an original Tokyo style" that
could be presented to the international art world "with
pride." He identified as sources for the new art the noisy
and brightly-lit pachinko pinball machine parlors that had
become ubiquitous sights in Japanese cities since the war;
Akasaka, Tokyo's burgeoning entertainment center; and the
"spirit of Tokyo" itself, "packed with people and all their
confused energy."41
One of the earliest groups that became identified with
the tendencies that were to dominate the Yomiuri Independant
exhibitions was Kyushu-ha (literally, "Kyushu School"), a
group of avant-garde artists based in Fukuoka on the
southernmost island of the Japanese archipelago.42 Founded
41 Shinohara, pp. 108-9.
42 Isolated in rural Kyushu, the group was highly critical

of the Tokyo-based art establishment (gadan) and positioned
itself as "anti-Tokyo" (han-Tokyo) and "anti-central"
219
in 1957, when the group published the first issue of its
journal, Kyushu-ha included in its fluctuating membership
artists, poets, and Socialists gathered around Sakurai
Takami (b. 1928), Ochi Osamu (b. 1936), Matano Mamoru (b.
1914), and Ishibashi Yasuyuki (b. 1930). Advocating at first
gestural abstract painting in the manner of Art Informel
(Plate 72) , the members of Kyushu-ha always believed in the
importance of instilling their art with social causes. But
unlike their Tokyo counterparts, they were concerned with
issues that related specifically to Kyushu and its rural
realities--leading them to incorporate into their work
allusions to the contemporary struggles of coal-mining and
agriculture.43
(han-chuo). Not surprisingly, their attacks were rebuffed

by most Tokyo critics as a limited "local avant-garde"
(dozoku-teki zen'ei). From 1962, Kyushu-ha artists
increasingly staged Happening-like events such as Hataraki
Tadashi's 1963 performance. See Kyushu-ha-ten/Group
Kyushu-haf exh. cat. (Fukuoka: Fukuoka Art Museum, 1988).
43 While they supported the Anpo demonstrations, they were

more closely involved with Kyushu's massive coal mining
strikes of the late 1950s and the consequent murder of a
laborer by a right-wing thug at the Mitsui Miike coal mine
in 1959. This incident made Miike the symbolic site of the
defeat of the postwar labor movements. Responding to this
local crisis, many of the Kyushu-ha artists began using
asphalt and coal tar in their works as a means of
communicating their identity with the labor movement and
their protest against the all-out modernization program
220
Members of Kyushu-ha began showing at the Yomiuri
Independent exhibition in 1957, and participated every year
thereafter. Increasingly, their works displayed a tendency
towards totemic structures made of debris such as discarded
tires, broken bits of metal machinery, old bicycles,
weathered wooden scraps of farmer's tools, and piles of
cigarette butts. Kyushu-ha's subversive critique of
technological modernization and high modernism as a system
took the form of ritualistic agrarian primitivism in the
work of Kikuhata Mokuma (b. 1935) . In Slave Genealogy (Plate
73) , two telephone poles, one symbolizing male and the other
the female, recline on a platform made of common red bricks.
The surface of the male timber was hammered with hundreds
of five-yen coins and displayed a phallus rising from its
center; the female timber was encased with twisted ropes
made from shreds of old cloth, evoking the tools and labor
of rural women. Tono Yoshiaki commented on the Shintoist
symbolism of this work when he wrote of Kikuhata's "posts
like wayside kami (gods) over which were spread offering
instigated by the government bureaucracy. For the

socio-political issues that informed Kyushu-ha, see ibid.,
pp. 10-13.
221
By the late 1950s, the term objet had come to designate
an art form similar to the American proto-Pop combine and
assemblage. To make objets was to confound the art system
that the young Yomiuri Independant rebels aimed to destroy
by their obstinate refusal to accommodate traditional
definitions of art, and by their brazen transgression of
the accepted division between art and life. Referring to
Nakanishi Natsuyuki's Clothespins Assert Churning Action
(Plate 58)— a multiple-panel relief composed of underwear
and hundreds of tin clothespins attached to burned
canvases— Akasegawa reflected: "In the knowledge that was
not paint but simple, everyday objects, had we not discovered
the minimum separation between painting and real life?"45
In 1960, the trend towards appropriating junk into
high-relief or free-standing forms at the Yomiuri
Independant exhibitions was termed "Anti-Art"
(Han-geijutsu) by Tono, who had recently returned from a
44 Tono, "Exhibition Review," Bijutsu techo (August 1962),

p. 173.
45 Akasegawa, quoted and trans. in John Clark, "The 1960s:

The Art Which Destroyed Itself: An Intimate Account" in
Reconstructions, p. 86.
222
trip abroad where he had been in contact with the neo-Dada
movement and the corresponding revival of the term "anti-art"
in art critical discourse. 46 Responding in part to the
publication of Robert Motherwell's The Dada Painters and
Poets: An Anthology (1951), the American neo-Dada movement
opposed the institutionalization of modern art and rejected
the sublimity of Abstract Expressionism in favor of everyday
imagery. Coined in 1958, "neo-Dada" referred to Jasper Johns'
paintings of targets, numbers, and maps, and to Robert
Rauschenberg's "combine paintings."47 Fluxus founder George
Maciunas, in one of his early programmatic statements,
"Neo-Dada in Music, Theater, Poetry and Art," also attempted
to cast his intermedia movement in the iconoclastic tradition
of "concrete... non-art, anti-art, nature, reality." 48
Tono's application of the term "anti-art" to describe Kudo's
46 T5no first used "anti-art" to describe a work by Kudo in

a review of the 12th Yomiuri Independant that was published
in the Yomiuri Shimbun. See Tono, "Neo-Dada et anti-art"
in Japon des avant-gardes 1910-1970, exh. cat. (Paris: Centre
Georges Pompidou, 1986), p. 329.
47 The term neo-Dada was fist applied to the work of Johns,

Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, and Cy Twombley in an
unattributed comment in the January 1958 issue of Artnews.
48 For George Maciunas, "Neo-Dada in Music, Theater, Poetry,

and Music," see In the Spirit of Fluxus, pp. 156-57.
223
Proliferating Chain Reaction--an ameoba-like work composed
of a web of scrub brushes enmeshed in string web and attached
to an iron frame-reflected the vanguard's growing sense of
contemporaneity with and participation in the international
art scene, a markedly different attitude from the former
Social Realists' isolationist and regionalist identity. As
part of this trend, a few galleries became active in promoting
contemporary art from abroad in the early sixties. Foremost
among them was Minami Gallery, which became the international
center of the Tokyo avant-garde under its founding director
Shimizu Kusuo.49
Tono's interest in the Anti-Art trend at the 12th
Yomiuri Independant show in 1960 focused on the works of
Kudo, Arakawa, and Shinohara--all of whom were affiliated
with the newly-founded group, Neo-Dada Organizers, gathered
under the charismatic leadership of Yoshimura Masanobu (b.
1932) and Ushio Shinohara (b. 1933) .50 (Kudo and Miki Tomio
were never officially members of the group, but participated
49 The leading galleries for contemporary art in Tokyo were

Nantenshi Gallery (founded 1960) and Minami Gallery (founded
1956, closed 1979).
50 The group's name was derived from the American neo-Dada

movement, which they learned of through Tono.
224
in several of its events.) For that year's Yomiuri
Independant, Shinohara made a version of George Mathieu's
"action painting" by dipping his boxing mitts wrapped in
cloth rags into buckets of Japanese rice glue mixed with
sumi ink and then punching his way with large black splats
across the surface of a makeshift canvas of discarded
packaging; a similar work was exhibited in 1962.51 Other
group members included Akasegawa Genpei and Kazekura Sho,
who were later active in Hi Red Center, and Shusaku Arakawa
(b. 193 6) , who had made his debut at the Yomiuri Independant
in 1958 with a series of coffin-like wooden boxes. Inside
each of these boxes, which the viewer was invited to open,
was entombed a congealed mass of cement whose surface was
corrupted with odd bits of organic fur or hair. Each concrete
forms lay embedded in a cloth-lined case, conjuring a feeling
of melted flesh deformed by atomic radiation and left to
petrify in a compartmentalized casket (Plate 74).52 Tono
51 Shinohara produced several versions of his "boxing

painting." One such performance was documented by the
visiting photographer William Klein. See William Klein,
intro, by Maurice Pinguit, Tokyo (New York: Crown Publishers,
1964).
52 The young architect Isozaki Arata (b. 1931), who designed

Yoshimura's atelier (dubbed the "White House"), the center
225
later reflected on his encounter with the Neo-Dada
Organizers:
Their exhibits reflected the immense junkyard of the

teeming city of Tokyo. The junk which they first saw,
which influenced their way of feeling objects, was the
junk of the burned ruins of the city during the war.
The blasted city had been their playground: their first
toys had been bottles melted into distortion from fire
bombs, pieces of roof-beams found in the ashes. Now,
their shows were full of these junk-flowers, with their
queer blossoms. . .,53
Despite certain affinities, Tono's term Anti-Art did
not sit well with the artists. Shinohara especially was
displeased, for it was not "anti-art" but an expansion of
the very definition of art that they sought. For Tokyo's
Neo-Dada Organizers, art was an extension of life and a
discovery of the shocking grit of everyday, found materials
spawned by the devastation of postwar Japan and contemporary
urban reality. "One by one, " Akasegawa recalls, "unobtrusive
articles of daily life became redolent with new secrets. ..as
I clambered up these mountains of rubbish I began to find
in them objects which had an unmistakable quality of their
of the group's activities, was also associated with Neo-Dada

organizers. The August 15, 1962 event "Something Happens"
was held at Isozaki's atelier.
53 Tono, "Japan," p. 53.
226
own."54 Exactly contemporaneous with the French Nouveaux
Realistes, whose manifesto by critic Pierre Restany is dated
April 16, 1960, Tokyo's Neo-Dada Organizers embraced the
mass waste emitted by the rampantly materialistic and
overly-Americanized cities of the postwar industrialized
world.55 Both groups legitimized their radical departure
from abstract painting toward assemblages made of junk by
associating their activities with the Dada heritage (the
title of the Nouveaux Realistes' Paris show in 1961 was 400
au-dessus du Dada) , and both owed to Surrealism their
practice of assembling found objects by fragmentation,
juxtaposition, or accumulation. Unlike American Pop Art,
it was not the directness, deadpan banality, and commercial
anonymity of urban reality that appealed to the Paris and
Tokyo groups, but rather the "hitherto unrecognized
strangeness latent in every object, old or new."56 Yet where
Arman, for instance, selected junk such as smashed violins
to make permanent objects that still functioned as "art"
54 Akesagawa in Reconstructions, p. 87.
55 See 1960 Les Nouveaux Realistes, exh. cat. (Paris:

MAM/Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1986).
56 Lucy R. Lippard, Pop Art (New York and Toronto: Oxford

University Press, 1966), p. 176.
227
in the traditional sense, the Neo-Dada Organizers used junk
to create impermanent manifestations of their chaotic
environment within the context of Happening-like
performances--which is how they saw each opportunity to
exhibit. As in Gutai art, physical interaction of body and
material, and reliance on viewer or media participation to
complete each "event," was fundamental to the their strategy.
Because the artists approached art-making as a theatrical
act, their junk objects were thus destined to become
themselves temporal and discarded: Almost no original
Neo-Dada Organizer objects are extant today.
Although the Neo-Dada Organizers disbanded within a
year, members continued to be active in the Tokyo avant-garde
until the mid-1960s. Anticipating postmodernist
"appropriation art" by several years and offering an ironic
critique on the meaning of Pop Art, Shinohara embarked in
1963 and 1964 on a series which he promoted as "Imitation
Art."57 These were copies of masterworks by leading American
57 According to Tono, the series began in 1963; the first

use of the term "imitation" in a title of a work was at the
Left Hook exhibition held at Tsubaki Gallery in December
1964. See Shinohara Ushio-ten/Ushio Shinohara, exh. cat.
(Hiroshima: Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art et
al., 1992) .
228
Pop artists, such as Johns' Three Flags and Rauschenberg's
Coca-Cola Plan (Plate 76) . Prompted in part by Rauschenberg's
visit to Tokyo in November, 1964--when he demonstrated the
construction of a work, Gold Standard, at an open forum held
in Sogetsu Hall--Shinohara was inverting the common foreign
view that modern Japanese art lacks originality. What was
prescient in Shinohara's idea was that contemporary culture
had reached a level of simultaneity, commodification, and
mass reproduction that works of art no longer held any
authentic or unique value: They were reduced, in
Baudrillard's terms, to "simulacra." Eschewing the modernist
conceit that avant-garde art must always create something
new and original, Shinohara proclaimed: "I think imitation
is something ultimate in our age."58
The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum attempted to exclude
the increasing numbers of works it decreed "markedly
offensive to viewers" by issuing a set of regulations for
the 1962 Yomiuri Independant show. Nonetheless, artists
continued to provoke profound consternation. When museum
guards found Kazekura Sho standing naked in a gallery, they
threatened to call the police and asked, "Where is your work
58 Shinohara, p. 141.
229
and what is its title?" Kazekura replied, "It's me right
here. It's called The Real Thing (Jitsubutsu) 59 Not
surprisingly, in early 1964 the Yomiuri Newspapers announced
that its annual exhibition would be discontinued, citing
that its initial goal of fostering new talent had been
achieved. The move to control riotous tendencies reflected
the government and media's exploitation of the 1964 Tokyo
Summer Olympics as an occasion to usher in a positive "beyond
postwar era" defined by the exemplary twin miracles of high
economic growth and a vast, prosperous middle class.
Unruliness had no place in this official image of Japan.
Yet despite the loss of the Yomiuri Independant as a
venue, the Tokyo avant-garde continued to stage activities
and stimulate critical debate on the nature of Anti-Art.60
59 This anecdote is recorded in Akasegawa, Tokyo Mikisa

Keikaku, pp. 48-49.
60 Aside from several solo exhibitions held primarily at

Tokyo's Naiqua Gallery, the following exhibitions were
influential in the careers of Yomiuri Independant artists.
In 1963: Fuzai no heya (The Room as Alibi) organized by
Nakahara Yusuke at Naiqua Gallery; Group Sweet at Kawasumi
Gallery, Shinjuku Dai-Ichi Gallery, and Lunami Gallery. In
1964: Young Seven organized by T5no Yoshiaki at Minami
Gallery; Off Museum and Left Hook at Tsubaki Gallery. In
1965: Big Fight at Tsubaki Gallery. A public forum, Anti-Art,
Like It or Not was held at the Bridgestone Museum in January
1964. Moderated by T5no, panelists included Haryu Ichiro,
Ichiyanagi Toshi, Isozaki Arata, Sugiura Kohei, Ikeda Tatsuo,
230
At the forefront of the post-Yomiuri Independant avant-garde
were the artists Takamatsu Jiro (1936-1998), Akasegawa
Genpei (b. 1937), and Nakanishi Natsuyuki (b. 1935), who
in May 1963 formed the group Hi Red Center--an acronym
composed of the English for the first character of each of
its members' names.61 What connected these artists (who had
been collaborating together for several months) was their
conception of objet as the focus of "events" that would go
beyond the walls of the museum or gallery, as well as their
informed leftist concern for the social inequities of modern
Japan. In the Yamanote Line Event of October 1962, Nakanishi
rode Tokyo's busiest trainline carrying an egg-shaped
"compact object" composed of junk set in polyester, while
Takamatsu dragged around a long black string attached to
various everyday objects (Plate 62) . With his face painted
white, Nakanishi crouched on a station platform and licked
his egg, then calmly boarded a train where he hung it from
the hand straps and observed people's reactions with a
and Miki Tomio.
61 Takamatsu (high pine), Akasegawa (red rapids river), and

Nakanishi (center west).
231
flashlight. 62 According to Akasegawa, Nakanishi and
Takamatsu's purpose for using the train as a site for their
event was to destroy the hierarchical status of art by
bringing it into the "space of daily activities." Taking
their cue from Okamoto, who stated in 1955 that, "Utter
nonsense may have more power to change social reality than
seriousness,"63 Hi Red Center used satirical performances
staged in public spaces to critique the mechanical banality
and covert authoritarianism underlying Japan's mass
capitalist society (Plates 67 to 71) . The group's cooperative
exploration of the inherent relationship of art to daily
life attracted the attention of visiting Fluxus artists Nam
June Paik and Yoko Ono--both of whom participated in the
Shelter Plan event of January 1964 (Plates 67 and 68)--which
led to the reenactment of two Hi Red Center events in New
York by Fluxus artists.64
"Utter nonsense" collided with "social reality" in
62 Akasegawa, Tokyo Miklsa Keikaku, pp. 12-18
63 Okamoto Tard, 1955; quoted and trans. in Kaidd, p.20.
64 New York-based Fluxus artists staged versions of Shelter

Plan (at the Waldorf-Astoria), and Be Clean! in New York.
Information about Hi Red Center's activities was made
available through the poster, Bundle of Events.
232
January 1964, when police authorities accused Akasegawa of
counterfeiting currency, for which he was indicted in
November 1965. Their evidence was Akasegawa's series of works
(impounded by the police) in which the artist had used
monochrome, one-sided prints of a thousand-yen note to wrap
common objects such as a fan and an attache case. Akesegawa
had used the same "bill" as an invitation to his solo show
at Shinjuku Dai-Ichi Gallery in February 1963 (Plates 63
and 64) .
Brought to court in August 1966, the spectacular series
of public trials that followed are legendary in the annals
of Japanese art. To demonstrate the definition of "event"
and "Happening," Hi Red Center re-staged some of their most
notorious works in the courtroom, insisting all the while
that their accompanying objets d'art (which to the
prosecutors looked like strange junk) be treated with
museum-quality care. Critics Takiguchi, Haryu, andNakahara;
artists Nakanishi, Takamatsu, and Ikeda Tatsuo; and Kyoto
Museum of Modern Art director Imaizumi Yoshihiko all joined
in Akasegawa's defense, which centered on the question, "What
is, or is not, art?" Akesegawa claimed that a "copy" is not
a "fake" of the real object, but rather a "model" which denies
the hierarchical relationship between the real and the fake.
233
Akasegawa lost the case and appealed twice; it was finally
closed in 197 0 when the Tokyo Supreme Court pronounced the
artist guilty of contravening the law. Akasegawa responded
to his first sentence by making an oversize replica of a
thousand-yen note, Morphology of Revenge (Plate 65) ; at the
end, he produced a zero-yen note printed with the words,
"Legal Art--Genuine Article" which he sold for 300 yen.

k k k
Culminating the passionate anarchism that had animated
the Yomiuri Independant phenomenon, the defeat of the radical
artist by the conservative forces of bureaucracy in
Akasegawa's famous case symbolized a death similar to the
"Old Left" in 1960, when demonstrations failed to effect
the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Like the
figures in contemporary writer Oe Kenzaburo's (b. 1935)
novels who like "a fuck rife with ignomy," the Yomiuri
Independant artists practiced bacchanalian revel, public
satire, and terrorist fantasies--like blowing-up the Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum65— as a means to subvert and escape
from the faceless socio-political system of the postwar world
65 See Yoshimura Masunobu, "Neo-Dada Organizers" in "Hyakka

seiho 60-nendai shoki" (Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom: The
Early 1960s), Bijutsu techo (October 1971), p. 56.
234
Ultimately, however, they are left powerless. All they can
do is cultivate what authority deems "perversions" that will
hopefully liberate them from "the territory" of society.66
What is true of Oe's protagonists applies as well to the
Yomiuri Independant artists: Raised amid the rubble of
Japan's catastrophic defeat and witness to the collapse of
national myths, they reflected the gestalt of the postwar
Japanese psyche--absolute loss and absolute freedom.
At the center of the Anpo crisis that so influenced
the Yomiuri Independant groups as well as the avant-garde
photographers who founded VIVO and the Postwar School of
Photography, was the conflicting response of the Japanese
people to the cultural and political "Americanization" of
Japan. They recoiled from the horrors inflicted by the
detonation of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and
yet were drawn in their state of starvation and
impoverishment to the world of plenty that the Occupation
culture represented, including jazz and Hollywood films.
Writing for the theme, "Japan Under Occupation," Tomatsu
stated: "If I were to characterize postwar Japanese history
66 See John Nathan, "Introduction" in Oe Kenzaburo, trans.

John Nathan, Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness (New York: Grove
Press, 1977).
235
in one word I would answer without hesitation:
'Americanization.'"67 He and other postwar photographers
captured the ruins and refuse of post-atomic civilization,
focusing on what critic Otto Breicha describes as "all sorts
of war relics, boots sunk into mire, walls soiled by many
hands, dead rats...the neurosis of an overwhelmed presence,
Occupation forces with their fences and fighter planes."68
With its emphasis on fringe and perverse elements of
contemporary Japan, the Postwar School of Japanese
Photography captured the nation in a decade of doomed revolt.
67 Tomatsu, p. 62.
68 Otto Breicha, "Not to Be Passed Over" in Shomei Tomatsu,

p. 6.
236
CHAPTER FIVE
ANKOKU BUTOH AND OBSESSIONAL ART
A striking characteristic of vanguard Japanese culture
of the 1960s is a grotesque and absurd imagination of the
dark and primal forces of sex, madness, and death. A
preoccupation with the aberrant forms of human nature and
the underside of Japanese culture pervades the contemporary
fiction of Oe Kenzaburo and Mishima Yukio, the films of
Japan's New Wave directors Imamura Shohei and Oshima Nagisa,
and the plays of Tokyo's leading underground dramatists,
Kara Juro and Terayama Shuji. In the tradition of Antonin
Artaud, whose dark images of pestilence and defiant posturing
had assumed cult status in the Tokyo underground, Terayama
agitated for "subversion through theatrical imagination"
by staging spectacles peopled with dwarfs, giants, naked
women, deformed men, and live grotesqueries of all
descriptions. His plays also drew freely upon native Japanese
legends, folklore, and popular Buddhism as well as heroes
in Japanese juvenile literature, television, and movies.
Exhibiting an eclecticism that anticipated a postmodern
sensibility, Terayama's interweaving of the eerie, grotesque,
and traditional expressed the philosophical dislocation and
237
psychological disorientation that colored contemporary
Japanese Society of the sixties.1
Several avant-garde visual and performance artists were
likewise attracted to a carnal darkness at the foundation
of the Japanese psyche: Images of physical deformity,
self-obliteration, and spiritual violence dominate the
sculptures of Miki Tomio, the objects, environments, and
Happenings of Kusama Yayoi and Kudo Tetsumi, and the
performances of Hijikata Tatsumi, originator of Ankoku Butoh
or the "Dance of Utter Darkness." Independent of established
genres, and heirs to the legacies of Dada, Surrealism, and
Existential thought in the Japanese avant-garde, these
artists shared a peculiar sensibility that was rooted in
personal trauma and societal crisis.
The term "Obsessional Art" was conceived by Kusama to
I am grateful to the following individuals for extensive

interviews and insights into the nature of Japanese
Obsessional Art: Asaoka Keiko, Kobata Kazue, Kusama Yayoi,
Motofuji Akiko, Nakamura Keiji, Ono Masaharu, and Donald
Richie.

1 See "Robert T. Rolf and John K. Gillespie, eds. Alternative

Japanese Drama: Ten Plays (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1992), pp. 227-37.
238
define her work as the unique, visionary expression of
personal neurosis. Although she is the only artist of the
four presented here who has been clinically diagnosed and
treated for mental illness, "Obsessional Art" may apply
to a particular aesthetic tendency in Japanese culture of
the 1960s that is also found in the work of Miki, Kud5, and
Hijikata's coterie--including Mishima and the photographer
Hosoe Eiko. For these artists, obsession was both an artistic
style and psychological state. Consumed by thoughts of the
void, they were driven by fantasies of fragmentation and
irrationality, repetition and endlessness. While these
"obsessions" were the subject of their art, "obsession" was
also the process by which their spiritual despair was
released through the creative act. As Miki remarked, human
beings exist "between a human obsession and inhuman desire."2
Any act of expression is but one possible manifestation of
the "endless methodologies" of establishing consciousness,
which is constantly being denied and negated. Thus the
particular symbolism, if any, of Miki's choice of the ear—
2 Miki Tomio, "Anketo ni taisuru kaito" (In Answer to

Questionnaire), Bijutsu Techo (October 1965) . Reprinted in
Tokubetsu-ten: Miki Tomio/Tomio Miki (Tokyo: The Shotd
Museum of Art, 1992), p. 130.
239
whose sculptural form he repeated in a kind of chain-reaction
sequence from 1963 until his death in 1978-- was less relevant
than his compulsive need to repeat making the same image:
In Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, Monsieur Roquentin

suddenly vomits against the existence of the roots of
a tree. I had a similar experience in a train, when,
for no reason, I suddenly felt myself surrounded by
hundreds of ears trying to assault m e ....I can hardly
say I chose the ear. More precisely, isn't it that the
ear chose me?3
The critic Tono Yoshiaki once described the Anti-Art
{Han-geijutsu) groups that emerged in the early 1960s as
the "post-Hiroshima generation." He wrote: "The rubble, the
smell of death and the social confusion of the postwar era
had constituted their everyday environment. The ruins were
their playground and this state of absolute void became
necessarily the foundation for their art."4 What hope this
generation may have garnered during the recovery years of
the 1950s was once again reduced to despair when Japan failed
to oppose the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty
3 Miki, quoted in Tono Yoshiaki, "Miki to mimi/Miki and

Ears," exh. Broch. (Tokyo: Minami Gallery, 1968), unpaged.
4 Tono Yoshiaki, "Neo Dada et Anti-art" in Japon des

avant-gardes 1910-1970 (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou,
1986), p. 331.
240
(known as Anpo) in 1960. The sense of defeat by the force
of American political hegemony aroused passionate revolt
among artists and intellectuals; this so-called "Anpo
spirit" was anti-authority, anti-establishment, and
critical of all forms of orthodox Japanese modernism. Rage
at their impotence as radicals, as youth, and as Japanese
led many of this generation to reflect on the meaning of
identity and action--to probe, as Mishima confesses in Sun
and Steel, "the outermost edges of the body and spirit" in
order to find the merest sign of original being, of reality
other than void.5 One demonstration of this research was
Kudo's Philosophy of Impotence (1961), a room-size
installation filled with hundreds of deformed and distended
black penis-like objects dangling from the walls and ceiling,
a morgue of repugnant futility.
The beginnings of Obsessional Art are related to the
emergence of riotous, "off-the-wall" tendencies at the
Yomiuri Independant exhibitions, where Kudo and Miki showed
from 1957 and 1958 respectively. Several of the Yomiuri
Independant artists collaborated with Hijikata—
5 Mishima Yukio, Sun and Steel, trans. John Bestor (Tokyo

and New York: Kodansha International, 1970), p 91.
241
particularly Nakanishi Natsuyuki and Akasegawa Genpei of
Hi Red Center--and others regularly attended his
performances.6 From the sixties, Kusama and Kudd who had
left Japan for New York and Paris respectively, staged
numerous Environments and Happenings that shared images of
primitive ceremony, fantastic deformity, and post-atomic
apocalypse with Hijikata's dance. Called Self-Obliteration
or Body Festivals, Kusama''s nude, anti-war Happenings
dreamed of toppling the Establishment--capitalist
materialism, political imperialism, patriarchy, and
"uptight" sexual morality (Plate 88). As artists and
performers of the counterculture, the Obsessional artists
saw the riots and student uprisings that swept the streets
of Tokyo, New York, and Paris as a call to use the body as
a tool of rebellion. They were also fascinated by the
nightlife underworld of sexual perversity as recounted in
novels such as Forbidden Colors, Mishima's homoerotic novel
6 The artists who collaborated with Hi j ikata, or were somehow

associated with his circle, included the filmmakers Donald
Richie, Teshigara Hiroshi, Shinoda Masahiro, and Takahiko
Iimura; the photographers Nakahara Ikko, Nakatani Tadao,
Fukae Masahisa, and Shinoyama Kishin; the artists Tanaka
Ikko, Usami Keiji, Enokura Koji, Ikeda Masuo, Kano Mitsuo,
Kikuhata Mokuma, and Nonaka Yuri; and the composers Kosugi
Takehisa, Mayuzumi Toshiro, and Yasunao Tone.
242
which inspired Hijikata's scandalous first solo dance.
Indifferent to audience reaction, they staged outrage to
incite outrage.
Kamaitachi, a collaboration between Hijikata and the
photographer Hosoe Eiko, illustrates how the Obsessional
artists consciously explored the mind of premodern Japan
as a way of revolting against the veneer of modernism, the
assault of materialism, and the fallacies of European
humanism. Drawing upon wartime childhood memories of the
Japanese countryside, where the land was haunted with ancient
ghosts and demons, Hosoe invited Hijikata to portray
kamaitachi ("weasel-sickle"), a small invisible animal that
was believed to attack people in the rice paddies at night.
When it struck, a person would find his limbs and flesh sliced
as if by a flying blade, but strangely, the wounds were
bloodless (Plate 95) . The poet and critic Takiguchi Shuzo
described the importance of Hijikata's collaboration when
he wrote:
It's foolish to ask whether [Hijikata] is a nose-diving

eagle or a suddenly leaping weasel. It is the dancer
who gets wounded. The villagers are the witnesses of
the strange visitor, finding in him a lost image of
the magician-priest forgotten in a remote past, wearing
an innocent and broad smile at the visit of a "fool"
(oko in the old term) quite lost now, too. This is the
very smile to be worn on the footpath of the rice field,
243
often enough a smile next to terror.7
This was not the first time that grotesque imagery
appeared on the stage of Japanese culture. For over a
millennium, native shamanism and Buddhist tales of hell,
both rich with fearsome deities, had animated the Japanese
view of nature. Horror and cruelty were also common themes
of popular culture in the late Edo period, as the Kabuki
plays, literary fiction, and wood-block prints of the day
attest. Ghosts, terror, crime, and bloody retribution
pervaded the Osaka theater of the early nineteenth century,
and among the most popular Ukiyo-e narratives by Kunisada,
Hokusai, and Kuniyoshi were ghost stories, sadism, and battle
scenes of Japan's bloody past. The most graphic images of
this genre were designed by the late Edo-period artist,
Yoshitoshi: his Hag at Adachigahara depicts a pregnant woman
who is gagged, tied, and hung by her feet while an old woman
prepares to cut her open. Again in the 1960s, it was the
country's disturbed mood which brought about this interest
in strange horror, reflecting an ambivalent fascination with
7 Takiguchi Shuzo, preface to Hosoe Eiko, Tatsumi Hijikata

et al, Kamaitachi: Hosoe Eiko shashin-shu (A Photo Anthology
by Hosoe Eiko), (Tokyo: Gendaishicho-sha, 1969), unpaged.
244
and revulsion against an undertow of violence.8 In both
periods, such expressions of the darker impulses of the
Japanese psyche were a form of subversive protest against
the oppressive social system--late Edo Confucianism in the
former, and the hypocrisy of postwar democracy in the latter.
5 .1 Hijikata and the Dance of Utter Darkness
The Ankoku Butoh movement originated on May 24, 1959
with Hijikata Tatsumi's (1932-1986) first major performance,
Forbidden Colors {Kinjiki) .9 Performed in silence on a bare
stage, a young boy smothered a live white chicken between
his thighs simulating the act of sex; an older man then
strangled the bird to death over the boy's prone body. The
dance--where one viewer recalls "all the movements expressed
8 See Eric van den Ing and Robert Schaap, Beauty and Violence:
Japanese Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839-1992, exh. cat.
(Amsterdam: Society for Japanese Arts, 1992).
9 Ankoku Buto derives from the word ankoku, meaning "pitch

black," and buto, composed of the character bu, meaning "to
dance," and to, to step or tread. By the fifties, buto had
become a common term referring to most foreign dance forms
that were distinguished from traditional Japanese dance
(known as buyo)--including all the "step dances" such as
the waltz, flamenco, jazz, and even belly-dancing. With the
emergence of Ankoku Buto's second and third generations,
Hijikata's radical style come to be more commonly known
245
pain, where everyone seemed to be tied to the stage and
straining at the bonds, and where death appeared on the
boards"10— concluded in pitch blackness with the sound of
running footsteps as the boy fled from the older man's
advances. In its representation of perverse savagery,
primitive sacrifice, and homosexual passion, Hijikata's
expressionistic performance aimed to uncage a primal energy
at the core of man's physical being--an energy suppressed
and forgotten, he believed, in modern society. Eschewing
music, interpretative program notes, and conventional dance
technique in favor of "natural" and "desperate" movements,
Forbidden Colors was a seminal work for the development of
the Butoh aesthetic: It was this dance of darkness that closed
in darkness that gave Ankoku Butoh its name. Butoh looked
back, a follower of Hijikata's later remarked, to a "world
of darkness that our modern age has lost, where the gap
between words and things disappears and where existence
unfolds before us."11
simply as Buto (or Butoh).
10 Donald Richie, "Tatsumi Hijikata" in Different People:

Pictures of Some Japanese (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha
International, 1987), p. 99.
11 Eguchi Osamu, 1980; quoted and trans. in Susan Blakely
246
Together with Hijikata, the Butoh movement originated
with the work of Ono Kazuo (b. 1906) , one of Japan's greatest
solo dancers who was trained in the thirties by Ishii Baku,
the pioneer of modern Western dance in Japan, and later Eguchi
Takaya, who had worked with the Expressionist dancer Mary
Wigman in Germany. Both Hijikata and Ono grew up amid severe
poverty in rural Northern Japan (Tohoku) where they spent
their childhoods surrounded by death, hunger, and irrational
loss: The youngest of eleven children, Hijikata was
profoundly effected by the disappearance of one sister who
was sold into prostitution, and by the death of another whose
body, Hijikata often claimed, lived on inside his own. "I
keep an older sister inside my body," he wrote. "When I am
immersed in creating a dance, she scratches away the darkness
inside me, finally devouring it all."12 Working separately
and in collaboration, Hijikata and Ono attempted to create
an original Japanese dance form that, while drawing
eclectically from each, would transcend the constraints of
Klein, Ankoku Buto: The Premodern and Postmodern Influences

in the Dance of Utter Darkness (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University East Asia Program, 1988), p. 22.
12 Hijikata Tatsumi, trans. by Kobata Kazue and Arturo Silva

in Hijikata Tatsumi buto taikan: Kasabuta to kyarameru/
Hijikata Tatsumi: Three Decades of Butoh Experiment (Tokyo:
247
both Western modern dance and traditional Japanese
performance.
Like the Anti-Art and underground theater tendencies
to which it was linked, Butoh emerged from Japan's bleak
postwar landscape as a provocative form of social criticism
and cultural subversion. As Butoh scholar Susan Blakely Kline
has explained in an excellent study, Butoh reflected the
avant-garde's disenchantment with Western cultural and
political dominance and was part of a growing antagonism
among Japanese artists and intellectuals against both the
American and Soviet superpowers, which they held responsible
for the threat of imminent nuclear holocaust.13 The West was
also attacked for imposing the modes of industry and
technology that haddisrupted the "sacred bond" between the
Japanese people and nature, contributing to a widespread
sense of alienation, dehumanization, and loss of
self-identity. Related to this pursuit of "purity" (junsui)
was a revival of interest in the workof folklore
anthropologist, Yanagida Kunio (1875-1962), whose research
into Japanese rural village culture, agrarian rituals, and
Yushi-sha, 1993), unpaged.
13 Klein, Ankoku Buto.
248
oral traditions appealed to the Anpo generation as it sought
to establish an autonomous culture drawn from Asian, rather
than Western, sources. For Yanagida, the marginal elements
of Japanese rural society--women, the elderly, children,
and the mentally insane— were central to an understanding
of the essential character of Japanese culture. With the
Anpo protests acting as a catalyst for change, Ankoku Butoh
was among the first artistic movements to give form to a
post-Westernized, neo-nostalgic Japanese culture. Other
influential performance groups that insisted on the
legitimacy of being Asian and anomalous included the
Situation Theater (Jokyo Gekijo) led by Kara Juro; the Waseda
Little Theater (Waseda Sho-gekijo) led by Suzuki Tadashi;
Black Tent (Kuro Tento) led by Sato Shin; and Terayama's
The Gallery (Tenjo Sajiki) . What these diverse performance
experiments shared was an obsession with the atomic bomb
experience, fascination with eschatological issues,
interest in premodern Japanese culture, and an embrace of
kitsch and the grotesque, bizarre, fringe, and supernatural.
Ankoku Butoh evolved from both a negation and
transformation of various performance traditions in Japan.
As the eminent dance critic Tsuno Kaitaro proclaimed, "No
and Kabuki appear to us today as hollow forms. They have
249
lost touch with the popular imagination that created
them...."14 Ankoku Butoh was among several avant-garde
performance groups in the sixties that looked instead to
plebeian forms of entertainment, including "Asakusa Opera"
(a popular musical theater that combined traditional and
Western styles), Misemono (a form of theatrical spectacle
that included acts comparable to a circus side show), and
Yose theater (a vaudeville-like show centering on comic,
often scatological, monologues). 15 Mocking the staid
respectability of the No and Kabuki practices, these ribald
and carnivalistic theaters flaunted a raucous, decadent,
and occasionally obscene style that appealed to the Ankoku
Butoh dancers, many of whom supported themselves by
performing in basement cabarets. Drawing on the expressive
power of agrarian fertility rites, Hijikata excavated the
ancient repository of human sexuality, death, and rebirth
collected as memory in the unconscious body. Hijikata once
commented: "In what we call 'ethnic dance' we discover the
14 Tsuno Kaitaro, trans. by David Goodman, "The Tradition

of Modern Theater in Japan," Canadian Theater Review (Fall
1978), p. 13.
15 Donald Richie, "Japan's Avant-Garde Theater," The Japan

Foundation Newsletter (April-May 1979), p. 2.
250
truth that the more vulgar something is the greater is the
beauty expressed. Conquerors may have deprived their victims
of their language, art, religion, kings and architecture,
but dance, ever fertile, slipped past the conquering
grasp."16
The Western theater establishment, Shingeki, was no
alternative to the traditional one for Hijikata and Ono.
Literally "new theater," Shingeki developed in the early
twentieth century as a genre of realistic drama after Ibsen
and Stanislavsky. In the prewar Showa period, however,
Shingeki became highly politicized through its association
with the Japan Communist Party (JCP) and was increasingly
influenced by Soviet Socialist Realism. Suppressed during
the war for its Communist sympathies, the Shingeki movement
by the late 1950s reclaimed its former status to the extent
that it became itself the orthodoxy of the Japanese theater
world. But its affiliation with the ''Old Left," which by
and large did not endorse the radical Anpo demonstrations,
created a rift with the younger, more radical theater people.
To the Anpo generation, Shingeki's alliance with the Soviet
Union was no different from one with the West; both were
16 Hijikata, Hijikata Tatsumi buto taikan.
251
equally "repugnant." In this context, the far less
politicized Western dance establishment {buto, literally
"step dancing") was in a better position to accept and foster
innovation by those interested in liberating performance
from the indiscriminate commitment to dominant Western forms
Embracing flamenco, belly dancing, waltz, and modern dance,
it was the buto world that starred Ono which ultimately
fostered the development of Ankoku Butoh.
Hijikata's school {Ankoku Buto-ha) was active from 1960
until 1966. During this period, his studio was a center for
Tokyo's artistic, dramatic, and literary avant-gardes.
Playing in small, informal theater cafes, Hijikata was
surrounded by writers such as Shibusawa Tatsuhiko (who
translated the Marquis de Sade), the poet Takahashi Mutsuro,
and Mishima. Author of Confessions of a Mask (1949), an
autobiographical novel focusing on the adolescent
discoveries of a sexuality linked to "death, blood, and
muscular flesh," Mishima found in Hijikata's dance a form
of "heretic ritual." He was attracted by Ankoku Butoh which,
contrary to classical ballet's aspirations towards "balance
at the verge of crisis," was itself the expression of crisis:
252
When I met him the other day, Hijikata used the word
"crisis" a number of times. He said, ''Through dance
we must depict the human posture in crisis, exactly
as it is." He mentioned an example of such a posture
in crisis and it was unusual: the back of a man urinating
on the side of the street. Indeed he was right.17
Inspired by Hijikata, Mishima's "sensuous craving" for
a forbidden erotic theater of the naked male body was
celebrated in Hosoe Eiko's (b. 1933) photograph series,
Ordeal by Roses (1963, Plate 96). Set in Mishima's
rococo-style house in Tokyo, this cumulative photographic
portrait presents the bodybuilder-author clad in fundoshi
(traditional male loincloth) and posing before reproductions
of Renaissance paintings and gaudy European furniture. One
image shows Mishima assuming the posture from Guido Reni's
painting of Saint Sebastian being martyred, standing
contrapposto with his hands tied in back, symbol of an
"immolative sacrifice."18 Mishima's interest in exploring
17 Mishima, "Kiki no Buyou" (The Dance of Crisis), trans.

by Kobata Kazue in Ethan Hoffman and Mark Holborn, Butoh:
Dance of the Dark Soul (New York: Aperture Foundation, 1987) ,
p. 123.
18 "Hangi Daitokan" (The Great Mirror of the Dance As an

Immolative Sacrifice) was the title for a poster designed
by Yokoo Tadanori for a performance by Hijikata in 1965.
The title was derived from the poet Takahashi Mutsuro, and
the calligraphy used on the poster was by Mishima.
253
sexual psychology, however perverse, and glorifying death
with an obsession that led to his sensationalist suicide
by seppuku in 1970, resonated with Hijikata's own need to
illuminate the primordial darkness seething beneath the
surface of human imagination. Mishima recalled:
The world to which I was abducted under the spell of

[Hosoe's] lens was abnormal, warped, sarcastic,
grotesque, savage, and promiscuous.... It was, in a
sense, the reverse of the world we live in, where our
worship of social appearances and our concern for public
morality and hygiene create foul, filthy sewers winding
beneath the surface. Unlike ours, the world to which
I was escorted was a weird, repellent city--naked, comic,
wretched, cruel, and overdecorative--yet in its
underground channels there flowed, inexhaustibly, a
pellucid stream of unsullied feeling.19
Appropriation of the "comic and overdecorative" also
informed the work of graphic designer, Yokoo Tadanori (b.
1936), who designed several posters for Hijikata as well
as for Kara Juro and Terayama Shuji (with whom, as art
director, he co-founded the Tenjo Sajiki theater in 1967) .
In a style that was at once nostalgic and satiric, Yokoo's
profane Pop juxtaposed Meiji and Taisho advertising images
of Golden Bat cigarettes and Betty Boop with sadistic scenes
19 Mishima, "Preface to Ordeal by Roses" in Eikoh Hosoe:

Photographs 1960-1980 (Rochester, N.Y.: Dark Sun Press,
1982), unpaged.
254
drawn from Edo-period erotic prints, all set before blazing
backgrounds of M t . Fuji and the Rising Sun. Yokoo also made
satiric comments on the U.S. and the Americanization of Japan
One magazine illustration shows a miniature John F. Kennedy
squatting in the red panties of a topless Marilyn Monroe,
one hand holding the American Flag and the other reaching
for her crotch. Combining the psychedelic style of sixties'
rock'n'roll culture with the mannerist, Japanesque ukiyo~e
of Hokusai and Hiroshige, Yokoo chronicled the splendid sham
and decadence of Japanese society much as Andy Warhol did
America's during the same period. A frequent stage designer
for Hijikata, Yokoo created, in the words of Donald Richie,
"not only the end of the world but, especially, the end of
Japan. The stage resembled a flea market and the effect was
purposefully poignant. Here is the postwar wasteland, filled
with spastic cripples holding aloft these pathetic emblems
of vanished civilizations."20
Hijikata's most symbolic performance was perhaps
Hijikata Tatsumi and the Japanese— Revolt of the Flesh, held
in 1968 (Plates 93 and 94) . Entering the theater on a
makeshift palanquin, Hijikata, wearing a bride's white
20 Richie, "Japan's Avant-Garde Theater," p. 2.
255
wedding kimono backwards, was accompanied by a procession
of terrified animals: a pig in a baby crib and a rabbit on
a platter held at the top of a pole. Once on stage, the savage
virgin stripped off her kimono and revealed a naked man,
a golden phallus strapped to his groin, whose trance-like
convulsions conjured an ancient fertility rite. Leaping amid
large reflective metal plates that hung from the flies,
Hijikata grabbed a rooster and killed it with his bare hands.
In the second act, Hijikata donned a red satin ballroom gown
and with desperate, grotesque, and discontinuous movements,
mimicked the polka, the waltz, and other romantic Western
dance. In the final scene, swaddled in white and tied up
in ropes which suspended him in a lateral crucifixion, he
was lifted high above the audience until his form disappeared
into the dark. Hijikata''s "Ascension," which was both a
parody of and identification with Christ, was also suggestive
of traditional sexual bondage acts, marking Revolt of the
Flesh as the apotheosis of Ankoku Butoh's style of "heretic
ritual." Although frequently interpreted as Hijikata's
"Farewell to the West,"21 this work does not symbolize
21 Jean Viala and Nourit Masson-Sekine, Butoh: Shades of

Darkness (Tokyo: Shufunotomo Co., 1988), p. 71.
256
rejection as much as transcendence of the Western world,
culminating one phase of Hijikata's metamorphosis of local
and primitive Japanese culture into a new and universal
expression. Ankoku Butoh's legacy developed through the work
of several followers of Hijikata and Ono, including Ono's
son, Yoshito, and Hijikata's closest protegee, the female
dancer Ashikawa Yoko. What Takiguchi called Butoh's
commitment to "dig on, day by day, deeper and deeper, to
get to the origin of the phantom of ecstasy"22 has continued
through the work of Amagatsu Ushio, Maro Akaji, Nakajima
Natsu, Tanaka Min, and Hi jikata's widow, Motofu ji Akiko--all
of whom have gained international stature. While successive
generations have contributed to the on-going evolution of
Butoh, Hijikata, who declined to travel abroad, most
intensely realized the original idea of Butoh dance as a
rite of obsession with "utter darkness."
5.2 The Obsessional Artists
As an acute tendency in postwar Japanese avant-garde
culture, Obsessional Art found expression in a variety of
art forms. In the visual arts, Kusama Yayoi (b. 1929), Kudd
22 Takiguchi, Kamaitachi: Eiko Hosoe shashin-shu.
257
Tetsumi (1935-1990), and Miki Tomio (1938-1978) best
exemplify its particular aesthetics of the "diseased" mind.
Working within the experimental traditions of the Surrealist
objet and neo-Dadaist assemblage, these artists claimed
their respective media out of a necessity to heal: "Survival
by concentration,"23 rather than the modernists' "art for
art's sake," generated their prolific creation. As Kudo once
remarked: "For me, art is to doubt everything completely.
To doubt God, to doubt myself, to doubt the world. The
accumulation of these doubts became my art. To doubt to the
extreme... that is my starting point."24
For Kusama, Miki, and Kudo, the source of obsessional
imagery lies in a specific vision of infinite repetition
and its force of self-negation that each experienced as a
result of neurosis or existentialist reverie. Kusama's
vision of allover, interconnecting patterns--dots, nets,
and later, soft-sculpture phalli— not only provided images
for her work; it also generated a compulsion to make art
23 Murakami Ryu, "Survival" in Kusama Yayoi Hanga-shu/Yayoi

Kusama: Print Works, (Tokyo: Abe Corporation, 1992), p. 29
24 Kudo Testmi and Nakamura Yujiro, "Gendai bijutsu no

senryaku" (Strategies of Contemporary Art), Gendai shiso
9, no.12 (November 1981), pp. 36-58.
258
as a means of pacifying the terror of "self-obliteration"
and expressing a feminist outrage against authoritative male
regimes. Diagnosed early with an obsessive-compulsive and
hysteric condition, Kusama, who has been resident in a
psychiatric institution since 1977, attributes her life-long
obsession with themes of repetition, aggregation, and
accumulation to a recurring hallucination:
One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of

the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw
the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and
the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and
the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate,
to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the O c
absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness.
A self-taught artist who emerged on the fringe of the
Japanese modern art establishment in the fifties, Kusama
was among the first postwar artists to leave Japan for New
York, where she arrived in 1958 for a fifteen-year period.
Entering downtown Manhattan as the wave of Abstract
Expressionism was ebbing, she embarked on a series of
large-scale, monochromatic paintings composed of repeating
25 Kusama Yayoi, 1975; quoted in Alexandra Munroe, "Obsession,

Fantasy, and Outrage: The Art of Yayoi Kusama" in Bhupendra
Karia, ed. Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective exh. cat. (New York:
Center for International Contemporary Arts, 1989), p. 14.
259
dots. Within a short time, the Infinity Nets established
her in the vanguard of proto-Minimalist abstraction. 26
Conjuring the primal memory of woman as isolated prisoner,
Kusama saw the nets as "curtains which separated me from
people and reality."27 In her obsessive production of a
single image, the nets both served and defended against her
alienation from the world and the feminine resignation to
monotony and anonymity.
In 1962, Kusama began Accumulation and Compulsion
Furniture, her first sculptural series that featured a common
object covered with protruding phallic forms made of
sewn-and-stuffed cloth. In Accumulation #1 (Plate 85),
Kusama transformed an ordinary armchair into an explosive
growth of groping penises, a perverse fantasy of sadism and
orgy. She continued over the following years to cover larger
and larger pieces of found furniture with thousands of the
same white phallus form, and adorned as well such fetishistic
female emblems as high-heeled shoes and mini-dresses, baking
tins and tea pots. In 1964, Kusama's parody of women's
mechanistic function in society defined by sex and food,
26 See ibid.
27 Kusama, c.1960; quoted in ibid., p. 18.
260
and her recurring hallucination of infinite repetition and
obliteration, extended to room-size, environmental art. In
the Driving Image series, first presented at the Castellane
Gallery in New York, repeating patterns of pointillist nets
and polka-dotted phalli covered the walls, furnishings, and
objects of mock domestic rooms, some of which were hosted
by naked female mannequins spotted with Day-Glo measles.
Experimenting with new materials, Kusama-~in advance of
Lucas Samaras's similar Mirrored Room (Room #2) of 1966— also
created rooms of mirrored walls that elicited a psychedelic
vision of the self caught in a labyrinth of infinity.
Kusama's relentless use of the phallus, which can be
interpreted as a defiance of oppressive male power by
symbolic appropriation, arose in part from her deeply-rooted
anger against the rigid and conventions of Japanese
patriarchy and social conformism. Kusama's psychosexual
aggression evolved as stubborn protest against the
restrictive social, economic, and political environment of
prewar and wartime Japan. Accompanied by sensations of
anxiety, displacement, and isolation, her
obsessive-compulsive state was driven by a fixed image of
the phallus and a need to control its threatening
proliferation through the act of giving it form. In the
261
context of American art criticism, Kusama's series of
sculpture and environments are significant for combining
Minimalism's modular or grid-like structure and use of
non-art materials with autobiographical, psychological, and
erotic content, which led critic Lucy Lippard to cite Kusama
as a precedent for the emergence of "Eccentric Abstraction"
in 1966.28 But the violent and primal imagination of sex,
madness, and death in Kusama's phallus-studded objects can
also be understood as a critical expression of Japanese
Obsessional Art during its formative period.
An image of infinite repetition and its force of
self-negation also provided Kudo Tetsumi with the concept
for Proliferating Chain Reaction (1956-1960), his first
found-object series in which he expressed his
quasi-scientific and disturbing analysis of human behavior.
The mechanism of human beings, he proposed, is "slave to
the preservation of the species." While a painting student
at The Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, Kudo became
fascinated by the parallel relationships between new
biological and mathematical theories and the structure of
Lucy R. Lippard, "Eccentric Abstraction," Art

International 10, n o .9 (November 1966), pp. 28, 34-40.
262
mass society. Looking at his canvas one day, he felt a "sudden
urge" to overcome a "hotbed of depression" and started
filling the canvas with hundreds of points until "the
multiplying dots began to spin and approach a condition
similar to a mathematical set." 29 Kudo saw in his
hallucination a metaphor for the human condition. In his
subsequent assemblages composed of "sea-urchin-like
scrubbers (tawashi) and amoeba-like knitted cotton (gunte),"
Kudo explored the concept that human beings, like bacteria
and all lower forms of life, exist within a perpetual
"proliferating chain reaction." Observing how humans are
controlled by complex social and cultural structures as well
as by increasing electronic mechanisms, Kudo aimed to shock
his audience with visible evidence that the modernist
ideologies of freedom, progress, and romance are blind
falsehoods.
In 1962, after gaining critical recognition as one of
Japan's most talented young artists, Kudo moved to Paris
where he remained active until his death.30 Struck by the
29 Kudo, "Kudo Tetsumi," Gendai no me, no.325 (December 1981),

p. 6.
30 In 1962, Kudo won the Grand Prix at the Young Asian Artists'
exhibition (Ajia Seinen Bijutsu-ten); with the funds he
263
"foolishness" of European humanism in a post-atomic age,
he embarked on a series of objects and Happenings that were
aimed at exposing and destroying Western dualistic thinking
that opposed man versus nature, man versus machine, and man
versus electronics. "I wanted to challenge and deconstruct
binary thinking," he claimed.31 In a method he called "sowing
doubt by provocation," Kudo shattered the moral and
ideological conditioning of European society by creating
images in which man's spiritual and erotic life was reduced
to horrifying mechanical relationships. In L'Amour (1964),
Kudo presented two huge, hairless, pig-like heads facing
each other on chairs with their "rotting lips" touching in
a kiss . Connected by electric circuits to a Morse code machine
that tapped "je t ’aime," Kudo's monstrous lovers represented
the human body when everything has disintegrated but the
head— center of the physiological signals (smell, heat,
humidity) that elicit the response of love. "I wanted to
tell [Europeans] that humanism and love and sex are virtually
on the same dimension as such mundane commodities as instant
received from this prize, Kudo traveled to Paris.
31 "Diarogu 30: Kudo Tetsumi" (Dialogue 30: Kudo Tetsumi),

interview by Haryu Ichiro, Mizue, no.814 (December 1972),
p p . 55-71.
264
soup or cigarettes," Kudo explained.32 Anti-classical and
anti-romantic, L'Amour is a grotesque revelation of man's
dehumanized, impotent state. The eminent Surrealist critic
Alain Jouffroy, who found Kudo's works of "barbaric
originality," wrote: "Kudo confronts us directly with the
present, and in no way facilitates the escape of the viewer,
nor his liberation from the material categories of
existence."33
The series, Your Portrait, preoccupied Kudo from 1962
through the seventies (Plates 81 to 84) . Like so much detritus
from an atomic-bomb explosion, these works present fragments
of a face and hands with dismembered organs of the human
body--the brain, heart, and penis--arranged among electronic
gadgets and dead plants in boxes, fish tanks, or cheap metal
cages. Exploring the notion of human beings as "formless
transparent organisms," Your Portrait collapses the idea
of human sublimity by displaying the rotten remains of its
autopsy. Kudo's Obsessional works reflect his intellectual
32 Kudo, quoted in Nakahara Yusuke, "Erosu no

geijutsuka-tachi 4: Kudo Tetsumi, Denki jidai no sei"
(Artists of Eros 4: Kudo Tetsumi, Sex in the Age of
Electricity), Bijutsu texho, no.297 (May 1968), pp. 143-44.
33 Alain Jouffroy, "La resistance de Kudo et la resistance

a Kudo," XXe siecle no.46 (September 1976), pp. 138-144.
265
despair that "the hanamichi of suicide" offers the only
liberation from an existence fated to be consumed by the
interconnecting, proliferating, and destructive forces of
nature, humanity, and electronics.
Miki Tomio made his first modeled sculpture of an ear
in 1962. Over the following sixteen years until his early
death at age forty, he produced hundreds of ears in various
manifestations to the exclusion of any other form. There
are grid-like panels displaying rows and rows of identical
life-size ears; ears a few feet tall and others twice the
size of a man; and one, commissioned for Expo '70, that
occupies a plaza. Some ears exhibit distended,
intestine-like growths and others are cast as broken
fragments . Made primarily of aluminum, the ears are presented
as independent objects that have been amputated or torn from
the head; their function as hearing organs is lost. "I don't
consider the ear as one part of the human body or as a part
relating to any whole, but as a self-sufficient and
self-containing object," Miki claimed. "In this way, the
ear, for me, does not constitute a relative relationship
to myself or to the subject which chose it; rather, it exists
266
in the self-negation that the ear chose me."34
Tono Yoshiaki, who wrote frequently on Miki's work in
the context of Japan's neo-Dada and Anti-Art movements, has
proposed to view Miki's ears as an extension of the Duchampian
aesthetic of "appearance versus apparition." While his
sculpture presented on one hand the reproduction of an ear,
its formally manipulated organic form transported the object
into a realm of the visionary and bizarre.35 Yet where the
Surrealists favored soft materials for their fetishistic
objets, Miki deliberately chose the cool, hard medium of
aluminum and rejected the found-object approach for the more
classical method of sculptural modeling. Contrary to the
Duchampian Readymade, Miki's was not an everyday object that
depended on its displaced context to become provocative;
rather, as critic Tatehata Akira has written, Miki's ear
is "almost transcendent."35 Others compared Miki's enlarged
ears to Pop Art's preference for exaggerated
34 Miki, "Anketo ni taisuru taito."
35 Tono, "Miki Tomio to ieba" (Speaking of Miki Tomio) in

Miki Tomio, exh. Cat. (Tokyo: Galerie Tokoro, 1988), pp.
10 - 11 .
36 Tatehata Akira, "Gaibu no mimi" (Outside Ears) in

Tokubetsu-ten: Miki Tomio, p. 12.
267
transfigurations of common objects. Yet, whereas the Pop
artists parodied mass-produced images or consumer goods—
such as Claes Oldenburg's giant soft ice-cream cone, Floor
Cone (1962)--Miki could not fathom the luxury of making art
as satiric social critique. He once stated that Oldenburg's
work "has a sadistic aspect that destroys the concept of
the object. Sometimes his work is so simple it bypasses or
circumvents its will or starts asserting its own 'humor.'"
In contrast, Miki continued, "I have a deep and persistent
attachment (shuchaku) to the object I create."37
Miki was frequently asked what meaning his choice of
ear had: Ultimately, he was not drawn to any symbolic
significance but to the act of repetition itself. In his
writings and interviews, Miki referred to an "obsessional
feeling" (kydhaku ni nita kannen) that compelled him to make
the ears, yet admitted that each attempt was but another
"turn of unfulfilled consciousness [that] drives a person
to self-torturing desperation."38 In an insightful essay on
Miki's personal and artistic transformation, Akita
37 Miki, "Gendai sakka no hatsugen: Nihon no sen'ei-tachi"

(Statements by Contemporary Artists: Japan's Radicals),
Mizue, no.707 (January 1964); reprinted in ibids., p. 130.
38 Ibid.
268
Yoshitoshi suggests that Miki's repetition of a single theme
arose from a "state of paranoic excitement" in which he
identified his self with the fragmentary object of his
obsession.39 By the mid-1970s, Akita proposes, this had
progressed into a "schizophrenic state" in which he struggled
between the familiar obsession to repeat and a new desire
to escape the art-making process. During his last destitute
years when he suffered from drug addiction and virtually
gave up art, Miki's psychological obsession was transformed
into a spiritual preoccupation with death, with
self-annihilation. It was only at this point, Akita argues,
that Miki could reclaim his projected identity and realize
the "wholeness of his individual self."
The concept of body as site is central to Obsessional
Art. Miki's Ear No.1001, an ear with great wings that was
his last sculpture, represents the body as a site of
transfiguration. The passage from a thing of flesh to a
monument of immortality is documented in Asaoka Keiko's
twenty-two drawings of the sculpture, which she completed
39 Akita Yoshitoshi, "Miki Tomio no metamorufoze: Kozo to

'seido' to jiga o megutte" (Miki Tomio's Metamorphosis:
Concerning Structure, "System," and Self), Bijutsu techo,
no.539 (February 1985), pp. 171-81.
269
after destroying the clay model that Miki had made in her
New York loft but was unable to cast (Plates 89 to 91) . Asaoka
made these drawings in memoria based on "the impressions
burnished into my mind.... There was no other way out for
a wanting person such as I was."40
The darker impulse--the body as a site of
disfiguration--can be found in other works of the Obsessional
artists. Hijikata's contorted gestures and agonized
expressions, based on his study of wild animals and human
terror, gave form through dance to the primal fears of the
blind, unborn, and dead. For Kudo, whose works reflect his
"scientific" philosophy of human disintegration and mutation,
the body was a metaphor of the decaying human condition.
In Homage to the Young Generation--The Cocoon Opens, Kudo
presents three humanoid forms in alternate states of disease
and automation, demonstrating his pessimistic belief that
human beings are "slave to the mechanistic forces" of nature
and society, and hence "powerless to evolve." Related to
this is Kusama's obsessional notion of the body as site of
sadistic revel.
40 Asaoka Keiko, The Ear No. 1001: Asaoka Keiko to Miki Tomio:
The Ear No. 1001: Kay-ko Asaoka and Tomio Miki, exh. cat.
270
The Obsessional artists are also preoccupied with death.
During his last years, Miki's obsessive-compulsive needs
were transformed into a transcendental longing for the
dissolution of self and consciousness. In 1975, he wrote:
"Right now, I do not know where I am. I do not even want
to know. I am liberated from that. Right now, I am inside
a golden light, and I am a dead thing."41 For others, death
represents a state of self-obliteration by infinity: In
Kusama's Driving Image environments of 1964-1966 entire
rooms are covered with the repeating and engulfing pattern
of nets . For Kudo, death symbolizes the putrid disintegration
of human beings and nature, while for Hijikata, death is
nature itself. Speaking on the essence of Ankoku Butoh, he
once said:
To make gestures of the dead, to die again, to make

the dead reenact once more their deaths in their
entirety--these are what I want to experience within
me. A person who has died once can die over and over
again within me . Moreover, I've often said that although
I'm not acquainted with Death, Death knows m e ...the
dead are my teachers.42
(Osaka: The National Museum of Modern Art, 1992), p.9.
41 Miki, "Gendai-ten to wa nan no kankei mo arimasen" (I Have

Nothing to Do with Contemporary Exhibitions), Bijutsu Techo
(July 1975); reprinted in Tokubetsu-ten: Miki Tomio, p. 131.
42 Hijikata, "Kazedaruma," text of speech given in Tokyo on
271
Writing on the modern artist, Susan Sontag perceived:
"It is well-known that when people venture into the far
reaches of consciousness they do so at the peril of their
sanity, that is, of their humanity." 43 For Japan's
Obsessional artists, this state of peril was
indistinguishable from mundane life.

* * *
The rejection of European humanism and the perverse
transcendence of its dualistic principles characterize
Hijikata's "Dance of Utter Darkness" and the eccentric
Obsessional Art of Kusama, Miki, and Kudo. Outrageously
fearless, these artists confront the self's darkest impulses
as if it were an inevitable, even noble task, and use art
as a method of disciplining and exposing their attraction
to the psyche's extremes. In their focus on sexuality,
interiority, and sickness, their themes relate to the modern
Japanese literary tradition of the confessional, I-novel
(shi~shosetsu) which arose partly in reaction against the
9 February 1985; trans. and reprinted in Butoh: Dance of

the Dark Soul, p. 127.
43 Susan Sontag, Styles of Radical Will (New York: Farrar,

Straus and Giroux, 1987), p. 44.
272
inflexible establishment of the modern social system and
its adopted Christian morality. Drawing from this literary
tradition of revolt, the artists in this chapter flaunted
their shamelessness as a form of defiant protest against
the terror of system as monolith. Because the system was
the product of modernism and asserted subjecting the
individual will to the public good, they sought to subvert
it by liberating Japan's suppressed premodern consciousness
and by boldly transgressing the dominant social taboos of
sex, madness, and death. What Hijikata's disciple Maro Akaji
said of Butoh can also be said of Obsessional Art: "Butoh
draws its energy from the earth. .. .It comes out of a specific
Japanese culture, and out of a Japanese avant-garde."44
44 Maro Akaji, 1986; quoted in Butoh: Dance of the Dark Soul,

p. 76.
273
CHAPTER SIX
TOKYO FLUXUS AND CONCEPTUAL ART
The convergence around the world in the early 1960s
of East Asian aesthetics, poetry, and metaphysics and
elements of Euro-American modernism stimulated, for the
first time in modern art history, international movements
that Japanese artists helped to originate: Fluxus and
Conceptual A r t . In the West, loss of faith in "high modernism"
and "progressive rationalism" spurred a subversive and
philosophical interest in non-Western cultures--especially
in China and Japan--to the extent that the 1963 Fluxus
Manifesto summoned the vanguard to, "Purge the World of
'Europanism' !"1 In this milieu, certain Japanese artists
I am grateful to the following individuals for granting me

substantial interviews and sharing their materials with me:
Akiyama Kuniharu, Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins, Alison
Knowles, Shigeko Kubota, Ichiyanagi Toshi, Iwaya Kunio,
Kawaguchi Tatsuo, Kosugi Takehisa, Nakahara Yusuke, Nam June
Paik, On Kawara, Yoko Ono, Satani Kazuhiko, Shiomi Mieko
(Chieko), Takamatsu Jiro, Takemitsu Toru, Yamaguchi
Katsuhiro, and Yasunao Tone. I am especially grateful to
the artist and scholar, Jon Hendricks, for so generously
inducting me into the world of Fluxus, and for impressing
upon me the importance of Yoko Ono's Sogetsu works.
274
abroad, such as Yoko Ono, Shusaku Arakawa, and On Kawara,
were embraced and assimilated as mediums of an anti-Western,
anti-rationalist aesthetic. Reacting against the heroics
of Abstract Expressionism and commercialism of Pop Art, the
new movement emerged in the early sixties as an arch critique
of modern art and theory.
Simultaneously in Japan, the failure of the leftist
opposition movement to influence conservative foreign policy
and the ensuing activism of the "Anpo generation" gave rise
to a highly intellectual counterculture that was both
critical of U.S. "imperialism" and acutely self-aware of
its Japanese identity. Drawing on Mahayana Buddhist
philosophy and contemporary scientific theory, several
artists based in Japan, including Matsuzawa Yutaka,
Kawaguchi Tatsuo, Okazaki Kazuo, and Takamatsu Jiro,
developed an independent practice of Conceptualism that
dealt with metaphysical issues. Together, Fluxus, Conceptual
Art, and the Japanese "School of Metaphysics" generated
materials are by the author.
1 For a reproduction of George Maciunas's Manifesto of 1963,

see Elizabeth Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss, eds. In the Spirit
of Fluxus, exh. cat. (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1993),
p. 24.
275
alternative forms and theories of art — including information
or language art, intermedia, and video— that revolutionized
the definition of the art object and the artist's creative
role within the broader traditions of Dada and Zen, Duchamp
and Cage.
The correspondence of thought and attitude among
Euro-American and Japanese artists in the 1960s was no
coincidence. The activities of both groups represented a
resurgence of interest in early twentieth-century
anarcho-cultural sensibilities, specifically Dada. In Japan
as elsewhere, this legacy taught outrage against the staid
idealism of bourgeois culture and prompted the defiant
pursuit of an aesthetic of negation: negation of the
comodification of art; negation of art as an illusion rather
than presentation of reality; and negation of the boundaries
between object and action, word and image, art and life.
Yet, the international neo-Dadaists of the postwar era
did not engage in art as an agent of radical political change
as had their prewar predecessors: in the shadow of Auschwitz
and Hiroshima, belief in the individual's power to affect
the drastic scheme of history was slight. Influenced by
postwar existentialism, absurdism, and Zenism, they chose
instead to make the social and mental nature of being the
276
site of their aesthetic and philosophical investigations.
Foremost in Neo-Dada Organizers artist Arakawa's mind when
he decided to leave Japan in 1961 was to find a place where
he could best pursue the "possibilities to concentrate on
the task of living."2
6.1 Takiguchi and the Japanese Interpretation of Duchamp
In the mid-1960s, renewed interest in Marcel Duchamp
(1887-1968) stimulated the international Conceptual Art
movement. When Duchamp took an ordinary urinal, signed it
"R. Mutt," and exhibited it as a "Readymade" sculpture
entitled Fountain in 1917, he established the irreverent
notion that the status of art as conferred by academic,
critical, and commercial systems was bogus: Artistic
activity should rather become an enquiry into the nature
of art itself, a practice where idea takes precedence over
form. Joseph Kosuth, writing on the significance of the
Duchampian revolution and its impact on changing the function
of art from one of "appearance" to "conception," made the
2 Shuaku Arakawa (1961) ; uoted in "Arakawa Shusaku Nenpyo"

(Chronology) in Arakawa Shusaku-ten: Miyakawa Atsushi e/
Exhibition of Shusaku Arakawa: To Atsushi Miyakawa, exh.
cat. (Tokyo: Touko Museum of Contemporary Art and SCAI, 1990),
277
famous statement that "All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual
(in nature) because art only exists conceptually."3
The postwar Japanese avant-garde artists revered Marcel
Duchamp not only as a great teacher, but as a kindred spirit.
Their understanding of his art and thought was shaped by
the Surrealist poet and critic Takiguchi Shuzo (1903-1979),
who wrote on Duchamp as early as 1937. Along with Gutai
founder Yoshihara Jiro and the artist-critic Okamoto Taro,
Takiguchi emerged in the postwar years as an influential
cultural leader: In Nam June Paik's words, he was the "Grand
Daddy of the Japanese avant-garde." Takiguchi's following
included visual artists, poets, composers, dancers,
photographers, filmmakers, and architects.4 His generous
capacity to nurture talent at home was matched by his
prescient and profound grasp of vanguard sensibilities
developing abroad. In addition to his early appreciation
of the New York neo-Dadaists, Takiguchi developed a
p p . 73-74.
3 Joseph Kosuth, "Art After Philosophy," Studio

International 178, no.915 (October 1969), p. 135.
4 For Takiguchi's influence on the postwar Japanese art

community, see Takiguchi Shuzo to sengo Nihon no
bijutsu/Shuzo Takiguchi and Postwar Japanese Art, exh. cat.
(Toyama: The Museum of Modern Art, 1980) .
278
correspondence and exchange of art works, poems, riddles,
and objects with Duchamp. Takiguchi oversaw the construction
and installation of the Tokyo version of The Bride Stripped
Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), and edited,
translated, and designed the anthology, To and From Rrose
Selavy: Selected Words of Marcel Duchamp (Plates 120-1 to
120-5) .5 Writing on the Readymades, Takiguchi revealed his
mastery of the Duchampian discourse that would become central
to Fluxus and Conceptual Art: "Duchamp has reduced the fatal
ties between art and human existence to the most common
relations in everyday life. So the 'readymades' exist as
a monument, so to say, of the visible invisible, just before
they become a silent attack upon every ostentation and the
mean self-sufficient estheticism cherished in the name of
Art."6
Central to Takiguchi's practice of Surrealism, and by
extension his identification with Duchamp, were poetry and
metaphysics. Indeed, it may be said that poetry and
5 See The 7th Exhibition Homage to Shuzo Takiguchi: Marcel

Duchamp and Shuzo Takiguchi, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Satani Gallery,
1987).
6 Takiguchi Shuzo, "Toward Rrose Selavy" in Maruseru Dushan

goroku/To and From Rrose Selavy: Selected Words of Marcel
279
metaphysics were the link between Japanese cultural
sensibility— what theologian Joseph M. Kitagawa calls
Japan's "world of meaning" as conditioned by Buddhist and
Shinto philosophies 7 — and the Duchampian lineage of
Euro-American modernism. For despite Takiguchi's embrace
of the Western avant-garde, he frequently confronted the
issues of Japan's need for autonomous cultural identity by
seeking affinities between modern and indigenous traditions .
What fascinated Takiguchi was Duchamp's use of language,
the "extraordinary cases of association of ideas and images,
sometimes taking the form of expressions reminiscent of
proverbs and particularly theorems and definitions full of
poetic irony...."8 Takiguchi, who had written on haiku's
"quality of surreality" and "complex of multiple
implications" as early as 1938,9 recognized in Duchamp's
"anti-sense" devices— which conflate image and word in a
highly concentrated and minimal structure— analogies to the
Duchamp (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1982), p. 3.
7 See Joseph M. Kitagawa, On Understanding Japanese Religion

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
8 Takiguchi, "Toward Rrose Selavy", p. 4.
9 Takiguchi, 1938; trans. by Vera Linhartova in Japon des

avant gardes: 1910-1970, exh. cat. (Paris: Centre Georges
280
poetic traditions of haiku and renga, as well as the cryptic
Zen koan. Wit, elegance, and profundity are conveyed through
irrational, paradoxical, often punning phrases intended to
jolt the reader/viewer to a higher, alternative
consciousness. This approach to language made Duchamp, in
Takiguchi's estimation, "poetic beyond the poetic." 10
Contrary to the Existentialist notions of nonsense and
nothingness that reflected a subjectified, alienated, and
pessimistic world of meaning, the Japanese literary and
Duchampian views shared an affirmation of being and existence
through a metaphysics of the everyday here and now. To
Takiguchi, Duchamp was "an unprecedented seer of Time and
Space in continuum, not exactly of a physicist's sequence,
but in his genuine principle of life...."11 Influenced by
Takiguchi's interpretation, the Japanese artists who became
active in Fluxus, Conceptual Art, and the School of
Metaphysics explored, above all else, the poetic and
metaphysical aspects of Duchampian art and thought.
Pompidou, 1986), pp. 166-69.
10 Takiguchi, "Toward Rrose Selavy", p. 4.
11 "Shuzo Takiguchi" in Anne D'Harnoncourt and Kynaston

McShine, Marcel Duchamp (New York: The Museum of Modern Art
and Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1989), p. 223.
281
6.2 Yoko Ono and Early Fluxus
From the mid-1950s in New York, a convergence of East
Asian aesthetics, poetry, and metaphysics and elements of
Euro-American modernism were upending traditional art forms.
Reacting against the heroics of Abstract Expressionism and
the commercialism of Pop Art, the new movements--Neo-Dada,
Assemblage, Happenings, and Fluxus— championed
anarcho-cultural sensibilities drawn from Dada, Western
phenomenology and existentialism, and notions of minimalism,
indeterminacy, and everyday realism extracted from Buddhist
thought. Loss of faith in "high modernism" and "progressive
rationalism" spurred a subversive and philosophical interest
in non-Western cultures— especially in China and Japan— to
the extent that the 1963 Fluxus Manifesto summoned the
vanguard to, "Purge the World of 'EuropanisnJ !" 12 They
challenged the staid idealism of bourgeois (Western) culture
12 The opening lines of George Maciunas' Manifesto of 1963

read: "Purge the world of bourgeois sickness,
'intellectual,' professional & commercialized culture,
PURGE the world of dead art, imitation, artificial, abstract
art, illusionistic art, mathematical art,— PURGE THE WORLD
OF "EUROPANISM'I" This manifesto was distributed at Festum
Fluxorum Fluxus in Dusseldorf at the suggestion of Joseph
Beuys.
282
and its corollary angst of subjective alienation. But the
so-called "anti-art" movements were far from negative. Their
affirmative subject was everyday life and its natural, often
humorous, relation to art. Theirs was a cry to give art back
to a social, rather than merely aesthetic, realm of meaning.
Just as earlier manifestations of Dada and anti-art arose
in Berlin in response to the cultural and moral blight wrought
by World War I, when all that modernist progress had promised
went severely wrong, so too the postwar avant-garde, emerging
from the unthinkable holocausts of World War II, renounced
the abstractions of high art for the poetry of quotidian
existence. Once again, concrete everyday being was the only
universal a humanist could place any faith in--only this
time, that universal was cast largely in terms of Asian
philosophy and aesthetics. In this milieu, certain Japanese
artists abroad, including Yoko Ono, her husband Ichiyanagi,
and her friend Arakawa Shusaku, were embraced and assimilated
as mediums of a non-Western, anti-rationalist aesthetic.
The exploration of Asian thought in American art was
linked to a broad intellectual and cultural movement that
demanded alternatives to modern Western rationalism and
utilitarianism. It also evolved from a desire to seek
affinities among modern and indigenous cultures, to identify
283
some common spirituality. "It's not simply the realization
that boundaries don't count, but that in the most important
issues there are no boundaries," Fluxus artist Dick Higgins
explained.13 The aspects of Buddhist thought, especially Zen,
that countered modern Western philosophies was its radical
empiricism and embrace of spontaneous, unmediated
experience.14
In America, the roots of postwar Zenism date to the
early twentieth century, when the Asian thinkers Okakura
Kakuzo (Tenshin), Ananada Coomaraswamy, and D.T. Suzuki
first promoted an aesthetics of the East whose genius was — as
Okakura wrote in The Book of Tea in 190 6--"the adoration
of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday
existence."15 The move in modern art, informed by Asian
13 Dick Higgins quoted in Ken Friedman's undated manuscript,

"Fluxus & Co.," p. 4.
14 To certain Japanese intellectuals, existentialism
corresponded with Zen Buddhism in its emphasis on personal
enlightened insight into daily existence. The work of
philosopher Nishida Kitaro was especially influential.
Arriving at a position close to mysticism, which he termed
"pure experience, " Nishida articulated a new concept of basho,
the "place" of "absolute Nothingness" wherein the full
possibilities and dynamics of the self are revealed. The
work of Nishida was central to twentieth-century Zen theology
and influenced D.T. Suzuki.
15 Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea (1906; reprint, Rutland,
V t .: Tuttle, 1956), p. 3.
284
philosophy and championed by Vasily Kandinsky, from
representation of the visible to an expression of "the inner
spiritual side of nature, " had impact among American abstract
artists like Mark Tobey, John Graham, and Isamu Noguchi.
In their articulation of spiritual content, these and other
interwar and early postwar artists drew from contemporary
writings on Daoism and Buddhism by such figures as Arthur
Waley, R.H. Blyth, and Alan Watts. Several, including Tobey
and Noguchi, traveled to Japan and China to study first-hand
the distilled conceptual power of calligraphy, ink painting,
rock gardens, haiku, and the art of tea. By the early 1950s
when D.T. Suzuki's lectures on Zen at Columbia University
were the sensation of the New York art world, Asian art and
thought was the preferred paradigm for much of the American
avant-garde. The aspiration towards satori-like
transcendence, which others found through drug
experimentation, became central to the avant-garde
imagination. From Happenings to the Beat generation and the
San Francisco Renaissance poets, Zenism was ascendent. The
Dao, Suzuki often explained, "is no more than one's everyday
experience...when you begin to think, you miss the point."16
16 D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, p. 212. Zen
285
Suzuki's disciple, John Cage, had far-reaching impact
in creating and transmitting an alternative modernist
aesthetic founded in Asian thought. His legendary 1952
concert of silence, 4'33", that tacitly turned the
surrounding environmental sounds (of an increasingly
restless audience) into music, demonstrated his
revolutionary axiom, "let sounds be themselves." His
experiments in chance and indeterminacy aspired to "imitate
nature in her manner of operation" and reflected his interest
in the I Qing, the Chinese book of divination.17 Ambient,
everyday, found sounds made music of the ephemeral,
accidental, and impersonal noises of modern life. By
releasing his artistic control, Cage was also dramatically
privileging process and audience participation over the
philosopher Suzuki was a prolific author in both Japanese

and English, and was widely translated into European
languages as well. His most influential books in the West
are Essays in Zen Buddhism (1933-49); Zen Buddhism (1956);
and Zen and Japanese Culture (1959) . For an excellent study
on D.T. Suzuki's work, see Masao Abe, ed., A Zen Life: D.T,
Suzuki Remembered (New York: Weatherhill, 1986).
17 Suzuki lectured at Columbia University from the late 1940s
until at least 1957, and his classes were famous among the
New York avant-garde. Cage attended from circa 1951 and
thereafter considered Suzuki his spiritual mentor. For
Cage's study with Suzuki and involvement with Zen, see David
Revill, The Roaring Silence. John Cage: A Life (New York:
Arcade, 1992), pp. 107-25.
286
composer's "genius." These ideas resonated with Yoko Ono,
who emerged in the lower Manhattan avant-garde in the late
1950s, as she began to score her own work for music, events,
and objects.
Ono first met Cage at one of Suzuki's lectures in the
mid-1950s. Her friendship grew through her husband,
Ichiyanagi Toshi (b. 1933) , who studied with Cage and would
later emerge as one of Japan's preeminent electronic
composers. Ichiyanagi came to New York in 1953 on a
scholarship with the Julliard School of Music. A precocious
musician, he was trained in classical music but distinguished
himself early as a composer of twelve tone (or atonal) music
in the tradition of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg.
Electronic composition fascinated Ichiyanagi, who
befriended Edgar Varese and was an early supporter of
Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ichiyanagi, an accomplished pianist
and score-writer as well, was often commissioned to write
the scores for an emerging group of avant-garde composers
in New York and would occasionally perform in their concerts .
By 1959, when Ichiyanagi attended John Cage's historic class
in Experimental Composition at the New School for Social
Research, he and Ono were regulars in the Cage circle that
287
included Henry Cowell, Morton Feldman, Richard Maxfield,
David Tudor, Stephen Wolpe, and Merce Cunningham.
This proto-Fluxus period in New York (1958-1961) saw
artists developing a form of notation known as "event
scores." Derived from Cage's codes of musical compositions,
these terse instructions proposed mental and/or physical
actions to be carried out by the reader/performer. The Fluxus
event scores were indebted as well to Marcel Duchmap, who
in 1957 stated that the creative act could only be completed
by the spectator. The early Fluxus scores were characterized
by clarity and economy of language; to reinforce their status
as art, artists often signed and dated them. They could be
performed in the mind as a thought, as simply visualizing
them was performative; or as a physical performance before
an invited audience. The events described basic actions,
such as George Brecht's score to "exit"; or, as in Alison
Knowles' score for eating a tuna-fish sandwich, they posed
the reenactment of certain habits of daily life. Humor was
an essential ingredient. Along with Brecht and the Cagean
composer La Monte Young, Yoko Ono was among the first to
experiment with the event score and its conceptual use of
language as a form of art.
288
The Fluxus event score, as practiced by Ono and others,
evolved from a range of literary and metaphysical traditions
that combined Duchampian poetics and irony with haiku and
the Zen koan. Ono's instruction pieces, with their distilled
conflation of image and word, epigrammatic structure, and
frequent reference to nature (skies, clouds, water) recall
haiku's "quality of surreality" and "complex of multiple
implications."18 They convey wit, elegance, and profundity
through irrational, often punning phrases intended to jolt
the reader/viewer to a higher state of awareness. Contrary
to the existentialist notions of nonsense and nothingness
that reflect a subjectified, alienated, and pessimistic
world of meaning, the Japanese literary and Duchampian views
that Ono embraced share an affirmation of being and existence
through a metaphysics of the everyday, here and now.
The Zen koan offer another correspondence to Ono's event
scores. These brief phrases--some just one character long
and others as cryptic as, "To turn a somersault on a needle's
point"— are used as contemplative tools between master and
18 Takiguchi Shuzo, "Toward Rrose Selavy" in Maruseru Dushan

goroku/Selected Words of Marcel Duchamp: To and From Rrose
Selavy (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1982), p. 3. Takiguchi
was Japan's foremost critic and translator of Duchamp.
289
disciple whose meaning, once grasped, leads to an experience
of satori. In one of the classic American books on Zen
well-known to the Fluxus circle, Mystics and Zen Masters,
Thomas Merton writes: "The heart of the koan is reached,
its kernel is attained and tasted, when one breaks through
into the heart of life as the ground of one's own
consciousness."19 His quote of the fourteenth-century master,
Bassui, resonates with Ono's strategy:
When your questioning goes deeper and deeper you will

get no answer until finally you will reach a cul-de-sac,
your thinking totally checked. You won't find anything
within that can be called "I" or "Mind." But who is
it that understands all this? Continue to probe more
deeply yet and the mind that perceives there is nothing
will vanish; you will no longer be aware of questioning
but only of emptiness. When awareness of even emptiness
disappears, you will realize that there is no Buddha
outside Mind and no Mind outside Buddha. Now for the
first time you will discover that when you do not hear
with your ears you are truly hearing and when you do
not see with your eyes you are really seeing Buddhas
of the past, present and future. But don't cling to
any of this, just experience it for yourself.
Typical Fluxus scores feature banal and absurd elements
of modern consumerism in a critique of the capitalist world.
Ono's work provokes contemplation on a different, even
19 Thomas Merton, Mystics & Zen Masters (New York: Dell, 1961),
p . 236.
290
supernatural level of human existence. One of her earliest
scores is Match Piece, which she wrote in 1955 and performed
in Tokyo in 1962.
LIGHTING PIECE
Light a match and watch

till it goes out.
y.o. 1955 autumn
In this and several of Ono's instruction pieces, she
isolates a sensory act of everyday life to bring us in a
direct encounter with the self--what in Zen terms is
"self-being." She calls events an "additional act," another
dimension of art that provokes awareness of ourselves, our
environment, our actions. In her 1966 work, 9 Concert Pieces
for John Cage, she scores Breath Piece with the simple
instruction, "Breathe" and Sweep Piece with the instruction,
"Sweep." To Ono, art is not a studio process but the process
itself of living. It is experiential, sensual, and intuitive.
In a critical definition of how her approach differs from
Kaprow's Happenings, she wrote: "Art is not merely a
duplication of life. To assimilate art in life, is different
from art duplicating life."20
20 Ono, "To the Wesleyan People" (1966; Anthology 14).
291
Unlike Brecht who scored music for motor vehicles, train
stations, and grocery deliveries, Ono's scores often suggest
a realm of the wonderfully implausible and imaginary. To
Ono, the mind-world is superior to the actual world that
defines our "cluttered" lives because it is goes "beyond
time." Her more implausible instructions spring the
reader/viewer from a state of complacency to a threshold
of mental reflection. In her well-known essay, To the
Wesleyan People, she states:
The mind is omnipresent, events in life never happen

alone and history is forever increasing its volume.
At this point, what art can offer (if it can at all--to
me it seems) is an absence of complexity, a vacuum
through which you are led to a state of complete
relaxation of mind. After that you may return to the
complexity of life again, is may not be the same, or
it may be, or you may never return, but that is your
problem.21
Ono's instruction pieces, compiled in Grapefruit in
1964, are divided into sections marked music, poetry,
painting, event, object, dance, and film. Of these, her
Instruction Paintings are historically the most significant
(Plates 97 to 99). In 1960, Ono rented a cold-water flat
at 112 Chambers Street and initiated a historic concert
21 Ibid.
292
series that ran for seven months, through June 1961.
Organized with La Monte Young, the "Chambers Street series"
featured artists, musicians, dancers, and poets who were
at the cutting-edge of the new avant-gardism in American
art. Together with the Reuben Gallery, where Allan Kaprow's
Happenings were first staged, Ono's Chamber Street series
are recognized as a historic forum for the development of
the kind of radical new strategies and media that would define
much of 1960s' art. The series drew such legendary figures
as Peggy Guggenheim and Marcel Duchamp, as well as George
Maciunas, who soon drew many of the artists into his Fluxus
collective. Ono presented some of the earliest versions of
her Instruction Paintings at Chambers Street, and later,
in July 1961, exhibited them at Maciunas's AG Gallery on
Madison Avenue.
The radical element of Ono's Instruction Paintings is
the concept that painting can be separated into two
functions— instruction and realization. Unlike a finished
Pollock or Johns, her sumi-ink canvasses at AG Gallery
required an action or an idea on the part of the viewer to
complete. Visitors were invited to walk on Painting to Be
Stepped On, a torn piece of linen lying on the floor, and
to drip water on Waterdrop Painting. Shadow Painting, a peice
293
of linen hanging beside a window, was completed when shadows
hit its surface in random and fleeting patterns. ArtNews
critic Gene R. Swenson offered the following description
of Smoke Painting, whose canvas viewers were asked to burn:
Yoko Ono has made a "smoke painting." It consists of

a grimy unstrung canvas with a hole in it. Into the
hole she has stuck a burning candle, withdrawing it
when the canvas began to smolder and smoke on its own.
The painting's limited life was shortened by one minute
for this report, its living presence snuffed out by
a damp cloth as soon as the idea became clear.22
The significance of Ono's AG Gallery show in the history
of Fluxus and Conceptual Art has only recently come to light.
Along with her now-historic 1961 concerts at the Village
Gate and Carnegie Recital Hall, contemporary critics like
Jill Johnston of the Village Voice were "alternately
stupefied and aroused"23 by Ono's art. Nothing like it had
ever existed before. Ono's radical strategies were at least
five years ahead of the critical discourse on the
22 Gene R. Swenson, "Review and Previews: New Names This

Month," Art News 60, n o .5 (September 1961): p. 14.
23 Jill Johnson's review of the Carnegie concert (no.52)
recounted the following: "I was alternately stupefied and
aroused, with long stretches of stupor, as one might feel
when relaxing into a doze induced by a persistent mumbling
of low-toned voices" ("Life and art," Village Voice, 7
December 1961, 10).
294
"dematerialization of the art object" framed by Lucy Lippard,
a discourse that defined "work in which the idea is paramount
and the material form secondary, lightweight, ephemeral,
cheap, unpretentious, and/or 'dematerialized. '"2i In fact,
Ono's early work in New York from 1960 until her departure
for Tokyo in early 1962 gave realization to an aesthetic
of "idea art" that was central to George Maciunas' Fluxus
movement, which he officially founded in the summer of 1961,
and that opened the way for Conceptual Art practices of the
mid-1960s.
After a decade away, Yoko Ono returned to Japan in March
1962. Ichiyanagi, who had moved back to Tokyo in the fall,
had arranged for her exhibition and concert at Sdgetsu Kaikan
Hall, the center of avant-garde art and performance. The
city of wartime ruins she had left as a young college student
had emerged as the world's first megalopolis--a sprawling
industrial combine poised to host the summer Olympics of
1964. Politically, the idealism she remembered of her
Gakushuin years had been sobered by the hardening cold war
in Northeast Asia. Adoration of America as Japan's liberator
24 Lucy R. Lippard, "Escape Attempts" in Reconsidering the

Object of Art: 1965-1975, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: The Museum
of Contemporary Art, 1995), p. 17.
295
and teacher of democracy had turned into mass protest against
"Americanization"— a mix of Hollywood, nuclear threat,
supermarkets, and prostitutes serving the American forces.
Always working out the odds of her Japanese and American
identity, Yoko's years back "home" were among her most
isolated and difficult, personally. But at age thirty-one,
in Tokyo, her unique artistic vision came into full
realization.
Ono arrived at an explosive moment in the Japanese
avant-garde. Artists clamored to take art out of the art
system, mixing genres and experimenting with language,
street performance, and sound art to create an alternative
expression rooted in the realities of everyday life rather
than the conventions of high art. Anti-art collectives like
Group Ongaku and Hi Red Center were staging events, concerts,
and exhibitions that were euphoric in their abandon of
orthodox modernism and its reliance on traditional Western
media and studio practices like oil painting. Emerging like
Fluxus in the cold aftermath of World War II, where the
horrific consequences of modern rationalism were laid bare,
the Japanese avant-garde reveled in anarchistic forms of
art and performance to subvert, parody, and critique the
political establishment. It took aim at Americanization,
296
mass consumerism, and nuclear threat, and found solace in
existentialism, absurdism, and the Buddhist void.
With assistance from Ichiyanagi, who was now a star
in Tokyo's experimental music community, Ono's concerts and
exhibitions gained immediate attention among the underground
mainstream of Tokyo's avant-garde. Music improvisionalists
Kosugi Takehisa, Yasunao Tone, Shigeko Kubota of Group
Ongaku; experimental media artist Yamaguchi Katsuhiro; Hi
Red Center's Akasegawa Genpei and Nakanishi Natsuyuki; the
Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata; and the influential critics
Takiguchi Shuzo and Akiyama Kuniharu, all welcomed Ono's
activities. She participated in their events, including Hi
Red Center's famous Shelter Plan Event (Plate 67-2) and
Tone's conceptual jury and exhibition, 1st Tone-Prize
Composition, held in September 1964. Her work was reviewed
in the leading art journals and discussed by top contemporary
art critics like Nakahara Yusuke. Together with her Fluxus
friend, composer Nam June Paik, who was active in Tokyo around
the same time, Ono introduced several members of Group Ongaku
and Hi Red Center to the Fluxus collective, and so helped
generate a critical exchange between the New York, Tokyo,
and European avant-gardes all dedicated to forging a
297
post-atomic art that found meaning in the essential
irrationality of modern urban life.
Ono staged her first concert and exhibition, "Works
by Yoko Ono," at Tokyo's Sogetsu Art Center in May 1962.
The Events and Music sections presented sixteen individual
pieces for the stage that featured recorded sounds of
everyday noises like telephone rings, contact microphone
sounds of people moving around on stage, and repetitive
somatic actions like sweeping. The Sogetsu concert
established Ono as among the most experimental composers
and performers of the Fluxus/Cagean vanguard.
Concurrently on view at Sogetsu was Ono's show,
Instructions for Paintings (E no tame no insutorakushon,
Plates 97 to 99) . This project, related to the AG Gallery
exhibition, was based on a series of instructions for
"paintings to be constructed in your head." Dismissing the
tradition of art as an "original" expression by the hand
of the artist, she asked Ichiyanagi to copy the instructions
in his fine Japanese script on ordinary sheets of paper.
For Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through, the
instructions required the viewer to "hang a bottle behind
a canvas...where the west light comes in./The painting will
exist when the bottle creates a shadow on the canvas, or
298
it does not have to exist." The idea that calligraphy made
the written language into a visual object, like a painting,
may have reinforced the acceptance of Ono's instructions
as objects of art. She then taped these sheets, some
twenty-two, to the Sogetsu gallery wall. With this gesture,
Ono quietly overthrew the entire Western tradition of
painting and its primacy of illusion and object over pure
concept. As art historian Reiko Tomii has written:
Yoko Ono revoked the self-sufficient body of the

painting: not only was paint replaced by language, the
structural syntax of the medium was also laid bare.
Moreover, the role of the viewer was reconfigured as
an active agent who completed the artwork either
physically by her/his making it, or simply as a mental
process.25
Although few critics recognized her innovation at the
time, Ono's "Instructions for Paintings" are a watershed
in the history of Conceptual Art. In Lucy Lippard and John
Chandler's historic 1968 essay, "The Dematerialization of
Art," the origins of Conceptualism are credited to those
artists who had "almost entirely eliminated the
25 Reiko Tomii, "Concerning the Institution of Art:

Conceptualism in Japan" in Global Conceptualism: Points of
Origin, 1950s-1980s, exh. cat. (New York: Queens Museum of
Art, 1999), p. 18.
299
visual-physical element" to forge an "ultra-conceptual or
dematerialized art."26 Although Ono is not mentioned, she
was in fact among the first to do just that.
During Yoko's two-year stay in Japan, the Fluxus
collective had become increasingly active in New York and
was gaining a following among the international vanguard.
Ono's Tokyo activities were known to the Fluxus group, and
when she returned to Manhattan in fall 1964, impressarios
George Maciunas, Norman Seaman, and Charlotte Moorman were
quick to claim her for their Fluxus or Fluxus-like programs
of concerts, festivals, and publication projects. Ono
presented several events, performances, and her first
conceptual films at such legendary venues as the Judson
Memorial Church, Carnegie Recital Hall, and Film-Makers'
Cinemateque from early 1965 until her departure for London
in September 1966. During this period, Fluxus' anarchist
sensibility that Maciunas imposed became increasingly
radical and absurdist, as the celebrated "affluent society"
of the early John F. Kennedy years erupted in political crises
(the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis) ,
26 Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler, "The Dematerialization

of Art," Art International 12, n o .2 (February 1968): pp.
32-33.
300
assassinations (JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King),
campus turmoil, and ever-increasing protests against the
Vietnam war. This milieu, combined with what violent
anti-nuclear turbulence she had witnessed in Japan,
stimulated in Ono a deeper commitment to art as an agent
of social and political change.
6.3 Experimental Workshop and Group Ongaku
Experimental music and intermedia provided the
foundation for the development of Fluxus in New York, and
many of the group's most advanced contributions to
contemporary avant-garde culture involved sound,
composition, and performance. Common to Fluxus's founding
members was interest in John Cage's chance composition and
process aesthetics. Likewise, the Japanese artists who later
joined Fluxus were predominantly avant-garde composers and
performance artists. Several were well-versed in Cagean
theory, including Ichiyanagi Toshi, who attended John Cage's
historic classes in experimental composition at the New
School for Social Research in New York.27
27 John Cage's class at the New School for Social Research,

New York is recognized as one of the sources for the
301
By 1960, post-serial and aleatory music as well as
musique concrete was established at the forefront of
avant-garde musical research in Japan. The central vehicle
for promoting these concepts was Experimental Workshop
(Jikken Kobo) , an affiliation of visual artists and composers
who gathered under the mentorship of Takiguchi. During its
period of activity from 1951 to 1957, Experimental Workshop
performed a series of concerts that introduced the works
of Cage and Olivier Messiaen, as well as compositions by
its own young members--including Takemitsu Toru and Yuasa
Joji, who later won international renown. Experimental
Workshop was also the first to incorporate magnetic tape
recording, auto-slide projection, traditional
instrumentation, and No drama into avant-garde
performance.28 Among its members who later became involved
development of Fluxus, Happenings, and chance-composition

music. The class was held from the fall of 1956 until summer
1960; it was first listed as "Composition" and later as
"Experimental Composition." Among those who attended were
George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low,
A1 Hansen, and Ichiyanagi Toshi. See Bruce Altchuler, "The
Cage Class" in FluxAttitudes, ed. by Cornelia Lauf and Susan
Hapgood (Buffalo: Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center and
New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991), pp.
17-23.
28 See Jikken Kobo to Takiguchi Shuzo/The 11th Exhibition

Homage to Shuzo Takiguchi: Experimental Workshop, exh. cat.
302
with Fluxus was the composer and music critic Akiyama
Kuniharu, who participated in several Fluxus events during
his visit to New York in 1964 and whom Maciunas appointed
as Fluxus' Far Eastern "bureau chief." Another member,
Yamaguchi Katsuhiro, pioneered Japanese video art and
participated in various Tokyo Fluxus events in the sixties.
After Experimental Workshop, the center for radical
innovation in the late 1950s became the Tokyo University
of Fine Arts and Music, where a group of composition and
ethnomusicology students met regularly for informal
improvisation sessions.29 In 1961, they formed Group Ongaku
and gave their debut (and only) performance, "Improvisation
and Sound Objet," at the Sogetsu Art Center on September
15. The core members--all of whom later became active in
Fluxus— included Kosugi Takehisa, Shiomi Mieko (Chieko),
and Yasunao Tone. Tone intentionally coined the name "Group
Ongaku" (meaning "Group Music") as a paradox: He wanted to
have their "anti-music" heard as "music."
(Tokyo: Satani Gallery, 1991).
29 The improvisation classes were held under the auspices

of Koizumi Fumio, who taught ethnomusicologist, and took
advantage of a range of ethnic and modern instruments.
303
Trained in classical Western instrumentation, the
members of Group Ongaku aimed to destroy composition and
technique in reaction against "the bankruptcy of European
music." They explored music as "performance time art" by
focusing on the production of sound in relation to time,
space, and action. "We experimented with the various
components of every instrument we could think of," Shiomi
wrote, "like using the inner action and frame of the piano,
or using vocal and breathing sounds, creating sound from
the (usually) unplayable parts of instruments. ..."30 As Tone
recalls, their Sbgetsu concert was "a rumble of sounds,
leftover sounds, actions, water, bells, glasses, blowing."31
Associates of Experimental Workshop, Group Ongaku, and
Hi Red Center became affiliated with Fluxus through
Ichiyanagi Toshi, who returned to Tokyo from New York in
the summer of 1961; Yoko Ono, who lived in Japan from 1962
until 1964; and Nam June Paik, who participated in early
Fluxus concerts in West Germany and then arrived in Tokyo
in 1963 for an extended period of robotics research. Active
30 "Mieko Shiomi," Art and Artists (October 1978), p. 42.
31 Yasunao Tone, interview with the author, New York, 21

January 1993.
304
in the Tokyo performance vanguard--whose nexus was the
Sogetsu Art Center--Ichiyanagi, Ono, and Paik were
instrumental in arranging for several Tokyo artists and
composers to participate via tape recordings in Fluxus
concerts abroad. The experimental music concerts Ichiyanagi
presented at Sogetsu Art Center upon his return, and the
John Cage and David Tudor concerts in Japan which he helped
arrange in 1962 and 1963, were so influential that they are
collectively remembered as the "John Cage-Ichiyanagi shock. "
Stimulated by these events, Kosugi, Shiomi, Tone, and their
colleague Shigeko Kubota eventually moved to New York where
they were welcomed by Maciunas and embraced into the Fluxus
family.
6.4 Tokyo Fluxus
Fluxus is remarkable in modern art history for the
central presence of several artists from Japan. Jon
Hendricks' comprehensive catalogue of Fluxus works records
a total of twenty-three Japanese who participated, either
in person or by mail correspondence, in some form of Fluxus
305
activity from 1961 until George Maciunas'’ death in 1978.32
No other Euro-American avant-garde group had ever before
accepted so many Japanese artists as legitimate members of
its campaign, nor conducted such direct and long-term
exchange with the underground art world in Tokyo. Its
internationalism was strategic: By embracing Asians into
its fold, Fluxus could expand the limited geography of
Euro-American modernism to manifest its anarcho-Socialist
utopia: "It's not simply the realization that boundaries
don't count, but that in the most important issues there
are no boundaries, " a Fluxus artist explained.33 The presence
of Japanese artists also reflected the group's interest in
Asian philosophy and aesthetics— especially Taoism, Zen,
and the I Ching— that is commonly attributed to John Cage's
influence. The Japanese were welcomed as a collective
manifestation of an Eastern sensibility that corresponded
with such Flux-ideas as chance, minimalism, poetics, and
the investigation of the simple and habitual acts of everyday
life and their inherent relation to art.
32 Jon Hendricks, Fluxus Codex (Detroit: The Gilbert and Lila

Silverman Fluxus Collection and New York: Harry N. Abrams,
1988).
306
"Tokyo Fluxus"34 refers both to those Japanese artists
who worked with George Maciunas during the proto-Fluxus and
early Fluxus periods in New York (Yoko Ono, Ichiyanagi Toshi,
Ay-0, Takako Saito), and to a second group of Tokyo-based
composers who were introduced to Maciunas after Fluxus'
formation in 1962. "Without doubt," Hendricks has remarked,
"without the influence and association of Japanese artists
on Fluxus, Fluxus would not have existed at all or would
have been radically different."35
The composers who emerged from Group Ongaku made
significant contributions to the practice of Fluxus music
and performance. Kosugi, Shiomi, and Tone's Fluxus events
employed the central ideas of disciplined, task-oriented
performance, gradual processes, and repetition as means to
explore the sonic materials of music and the musical practice
of performance .36 Tone's Geodesy for Piano (1961, Plate 115) ,
33 Ken Friedman, "Fluxus & Co.," undated MS, p. 4.
34 This term was coined by Yasunao Tone.
35 Hendricks, "Japanese Artists and Fluxus,"lecture

presented at the Yokohama Museum of Art,5 February 1994,
typescript, p. 17.
36 Douglas Kahn, "The Latest: Fluxus and Music" in In the

Spirit of Fluxus, pp. 102-20.
307
for example, experimented with the inevitable indeterminacy
of a precise execution of sounds. Standing on a ladder over
an open piano, the performer takes various objects including
a tennis ball, rubber ball, wine cork, metal ring, and felt
hat, and drops them sequentially onto the piano strings,
occasionally alternating his distance by changing to higher
or lower steps on the ladder as prescribed by the score.
Kosugi's Theater Music (1964), whose score reads "Keep
walking intently," consisted of the repetitive sounds of
walking footsteps (Plate 104) . In this and other works,
Kosugi experimented with repeating a single sound,
demonstrating.that each aural unit contains an infinite
variety of complex internal configurations and that
repetition is fundamentally not repetitive. In South No.2
to Nam June Paik, Kosugi instructed the performer to prolong
the pronunciation of the word "south" for a minimum of fifteen
minutes. Shiomi''s Disappearing Music for Face (1964), a
performance, film, and accordion-book that presented an
isolated smile gradually fading to no smile, employed a
similar slow process of transformation. The excruciating
duration of these acts, like the first and slowest segment
in the three-part structural tempo of No dance movement
(jo-ha-kyu) , promotes an experience of time decidedly
308
different from the measured time of traditional Western music
As attention is shifted to the act of listening as conditioned
by the interiority of sounds (including silence), "music"
is transformed into an emphatically phenomenal experience
of time outside habitual existence.
Feminism was another aspect of Fluxus performance. As
performance scholar Kristine Stiles has observed, "Strong
proto-feminist elements appear particularly frequently in
the performance of Japanese women associated with Fluxus,
and, in the case of Yoko Ono, these feminist aspects are
sometimes interlaced with commentary on race and class."37
Ono's Cut Piece (c.1964, Plate 101), in which she sat
motionless on stage in traditional Japanese feminine
position with a large pair of scissors at her side, consisted
of having members of the audience cut off her clothes until
she was left practically naked, her face a blank mask. This
and several other scores compiled in her anthology,
Grapefruit (published in Tokyo in 1964) , proposed situations
of extreme but controlled physical and psychological anguish
In Kubota's Vagina Painting (1965, Plate 102), the artist
37 Kristine Stiles, "Between Water and Stone: Fluxus

Performance, A Metaphysics of Acts," in In the Sprirt of
309
attached a paint brush dripping with red between her legs,
and, squatting like a primitive woman giving birth, made
a painting on a sheet of paper lying on the floor. In a parody
of Jackson Pollock's macho action painting, Kubota exposed
the aggressive and primal nature of woman's repressed sexual
physiognomy and physical pain. These violent performances
are significant in the history of proto-feminist performance
as records of protest against women's enforced passivity
and mute identity. In the context of the postwar Japanese
avant-garde, Fluxus was symptomatic of the broader
exploration of life and art outside the boundaries of
inherited social, aesthetic, and mental conventions.
6.5 Conceptual Art
Conceptualism, which gained recognition as an
international movement in the mid-1960s, developed from a
range of "art as idea" and "art as action" practices. Their
common impulse was, as critic Benjamin Buchloh has termed
it, a "withdrawal of visuality."38 Rejecting expressionism
Fluxus, p . 77.
38 See Benjamin Buchloh, "Conceptual Art, 1962-1969: From
the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of
Institutions," October 55 (winter 1990), pp. 105-43.
310
and the hallowed aura of objecthood, it favored a
philosophical, cognitive process aimed at redefining the
role of the object as a carrier of meaning. The proposal
inherent in Conceptualism, as championed independently by
Henry Flynt (a Fluxus artist who coined the term "concept
art" in 1961) , Sol Lewitt, and Joseph Kosuth, was to replace
the traditional aesthetic experience with devices that
reduced art to a linguistic definition or empirical structure
Spoken or written language, mathematics, numbering,
documentary photography, and "analytic propositions" all
entered the artistic realm. For example, Kosuth's Titled
(Art as Idea as Idea) presents a photostat of the dictionary
definition of "meaning", making the material reality of the
work the object of its pictorial depiction. "The absence
of reality in art is exactly art's reality,"39 Kosuth stated.
In North America, conceptual artists commonly employed
language, nonsense, participation, and minimalism to serve
a theoretical end--to critique the art system and the
definition of art itself. Japanese conceptual artists used
identical means to probe different, more metaphysical
39 Joseph Kosuth, The Sixth Investigation 1969 Proposition

14 (Cologne: Gerd de Vries, 1971), n.p.
311
issues: the nature of being, or in the words of critic
Miyakawa Atsushi, "to posit the mirror as a primary form
of the imaginary... going beyond genres and categories to
include all art and thought."40 Where Sol Lewitt and Joseph
Kosuth presented philosophical discourse as art, often
conflating the manifesto, the theoretical proposal, and the
artwork into a single interlocking system, Japanese artists'
less-weighty philosophical theorems were structurally more
provocative than didactic, more open than tautological. They
often used language but language itself was not their
concern; experience was. While artists like Hans Haacke
became increasingly devoted to the statistical collection
of factual information and refused any transcendental
dimension to their work, artists like Ono and Arakawa sought
the opposite: the imaginary was their empirical truth. In
a remarkable essay published in a Japanese art journal in
1962, Ono writes:
Anyhow, I cannot stand the fact that everything is the

accumulation of "distortion," owing to one's slanted
view. I want the truth. I want to feel the truth by
40 Miyakawa Atsushi, quoted in Arakawa Shusaku: Miyakawa

Atsushi e-ten/The Exhibition of Shusaku Arakawa: To Atsushi
Miyakawa, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Touko Museum of Contemporary
Art, 1990), p . 5 9.
312
any possible means. I want some one or something to
let me feel it. I can [not] trust the... manipulation
of my consciousness. I know no other way but to present
the structure of a drama which assumes fiction as
fiction, that is, as fabricated truth.41
In Lucy Lippard and John Chandler's historical essay,
"The Dematerialization of Art," On Kawara is cited with
Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, and Joseph Kosuth as among the
first artists who had "almost entirely eliminated the
visual-physical element" to forge an "ultra-conceptual or
dematerialized art."42 Yet where Euro-American Conceptual
artists generally employed language, nonsense, process,
minimalism, and conceptualism to serve a theoretical end--to
critique the art system and the definition of art itself--
Japanese Conceptual artists have used identical means to
probe more cerebral issues: the nature of perception,
cognition, and being. Preoccupied by philosophy (rather than
epistemology), their common means, in the words of critic
Miyakawa Atsushi, were "to posit the mirror as a primary
41 Ono, "The Word of a Fabricator." (1962, trans. by Yoko

Ono 1999; Anthology 12).
42 Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler, "The Dematerialization

of Art," Art International 12, n o .2 (February 1968), pp.
32-33.
313
form of the imaginary...going beyond genres and categories
to include all art and thought."43
One of the most acclaimed Conceptual artists is Shusaku
Arakawa (b. 1936) , who arrived in New York in November 1961.
Throughout the sixties, Arakawa exhibited at the Dwan Gallery
in New York and Los Angeles, a leading gallery that fostered
American Conceptual Art, as well as the influential Minami
Gallery in Tokyo, through which Arakawa continued to
stimulate Japanese critical discourse. Simultaneously with
his mentor, Takiguchi Shuzo--with whom he maintained a close
correspondence over the following decades--Arakawa embarked
on a rigorous investigation of the Duchampian revolution
that aimed to change art from "animal expression" to
"intellectual expression." Like Duchamp's art, Arakawa's
is "at the service of the mind." What his spare, ascetic
formalism denies in the sensuous realm of the viewer's
"retinal" plane, it restores in the evocative complexity
of perceptual experience: The visible trace of painting is
but a stimulus to the invisible work completed in the mind
of the viewer. Yet where Duchamp abandoned painting early
43 Miyakawa Atsushi, quoted in Arakawa Shusaku: Miyakawa

Atsushi e-ten, p. 59.
314
in his life, Arakawa constructed a new paradigm of "mapping"
painting that Duchamp had not visualized: "When Marcel
Duchamp said, 'painting is dead,' what he wanted to kill
was not painting itself, but materiality, which is called
retinality. On the other hand, the painting I am speaking
about has hardly yet lived."44
Arakawa established painting as a methodology and
representation of mental process with his first series of
diagrammatic works in 1962 (Plates 122-1 and 122-2). These
paintings are composed of spare linear configurations,
schematic graphic images, and words on a white ground, all
devoid of spatial illusion or illusory planes . The linguistic
elements function as "interpretants" of the graphic elements
that signify external objects or concepts--like "mother,"
which may be represented by a box or a dot, or "living room, "
which labels the semi-erased edge of an architectural diagram
Simultaneously, they form propositions whose semiotic
meaning is problematic and paradoxical. Together, these
"icons, symbols, and indices" present a convoluted system
44 Madeline Gins, "An Interview with Arakawa: I have

systematically tried to learn the true limitation of painting
by staying within instead of exiting from the medium," Flash
Art no.133 (April 1987), p. 68.
315
of perception that reflects and refers to the enigmatic
workings of the perceiving mind itself. 45 On the
revolutionary intention of Arakawa's paintings to elicit
self-awareness of the act of perception, novelist Italo
Calvino has written: "The mind can have no other color but
that of Arakawa's paintings."46
Another artist who investigated the implications of
Duchampian thought is Shigeko Kubota (b. 1937). Her
innovative series, Duchampiana, began as an extension of
Duchamp's ideas via the medium of video in 1968. These works,
many of them based on famous Duchamp objects such as Bicycle
Wheel (1913), were at once an homage and a challenge to her
"ancestral father," a form of devotion to Meta-Marcel (Plates
45 As Charles W. Haxthausen has observed, Arakawa uses three

types of signs in these early "signification game" paintings:
icons (diagrams, maps, and images that signify objects by
means of some shared visual quality); symbols (languages
that signify the basic convention, rule or code); and
indexicals (marks such as arrows that signify "not by means
of resemblance to its object or code, but by contiguity,
by means some actual, dynamic connection with its referent") .
Charles W. Haxthausen, "Looking at Arakawa" in Arakawa
Shusaku no jikken-ten: Miru-mono ga tsukurareru mono/
Constructing the Perceiver--ARAKAWA: Experimental Works,
exh. cat. (Tokyo: The National Museum of Modern Art, 1991),
p p . 313-22 .
46 See Italo Calvino, "The Arrow of the Mind, " Art forum vol.14,
n o .1 (September 1985), pp. 115-117.
316
116 to 118) . Her first use of a multiple-video installation
was the impressionistic documentation of her pilgrimage to
Duchamp's grave in Rouen, Marcel Duchamp 's Grave (1972-1975)
The work is composed of a central plywood column, like an
altar, that contains some twelve monitors. Extending along
the floor and the ceiling of the column are two long lines
of mirrors that reflect the video images in an endless
cyclical progression. In its use of video sculpture to
express notions of eternity and infinity, Nam June Paik
recognized the metaphysical dimensions of Duchampiana when
he commented, "Shigeko discovered death for video."47
If perception and cognition are the abiding subjects
of Japanese Conceptual Art, and participatory strategies
its common tool, its universe lies in the most simple somatic
and everyday processes. On Kawara's on-going series that
methodically tabulate the duration of each passing day
constitute a monumental opus exemplifying this concept. Soon
after settling in New York, the peripatetic Kawara (b. 1933)
initiated his Today Series on January 4, 1966: a serial
production of monochrome canvases inscribed in white with
47 Nam June Paik, quoted in Shigeko Kubota: Video Sculptures,

exh. cat. (Berlin: daadgalerie et a l ., 1981), p. 31.
317
a date that corresponds to the day they were made (Plate
119-2). Stretched on a thick wooden chassis whose shape
conforms to one of eight sizes standardized early in the
series, the front and sides of the canvas are uniformly
covered with several layers of acrylic paint in either grey,
blue, or (occasionally) red. The date is then painted by
hand in typographical style in the center of the canvas,
in the language of the country in which the painting is
executed (except in Japan, where Kawara uses Esperanto).
Each painting is stored in a handmade cardboard box lined
with clippings from a local newspaper, and is then subtitled
with a phrase culled from the papers or, like a journal,
with a personal thought: "Skirts go up-up-up in Britain,"
"Robert F. Kennedy in South Africa," or "I have decided to
be alone."48 The defining condition of this series, also
known as the Date Paintings, is that the work must be
completed within a twenty-four hour period or it is destroyed
The coordination of the artist's nearly-identical
representation of the present with varying socio-historical
contexts supplied by his choice of newspaper articles points
48 These subtitles from the 1966 series are quoted in Dan

Cameron, "The On Kawara Story," Arts Magazine 61, no.2
318
to the paradox of ephemera and permanence, relative existence
and eternal time. As philosopher Rene Denizot has written:
"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is no progress.
There is no decline....The individual gauges himself by the
measure of a practice which exposes him to a universal
condition. To be present in the present."49
Kawara's other continuing series include I Met, typed
sheets that record the names of every person the artist met
that particular day; I Went, city maps marked in color with
the routes the artist took on that particular day; and I
Got Up, postcards sent by Kawara from the city where he was
a resident to various associates and rubber-stamped with
the exact time he awoke on that particular day (Plate 119-1) .
The act of tabulating the contingencies of daily experience,
maintained over the period of decades, would require an acute
self-conscious awareness of, and detachment from, the
conditions of basic existence. Kawara's ascetic and
disciplined curriculum, so radically empirical, can be
understood as an existential gyo--the exercise of spiritual
(October 1986), p. 38.
49 Rene Denizot, On Kawara, exh, cat. (Frankfurt: Museum ftir

Moderne Kunst, 1991), p. 26.
319
austerities practiced in the Buddhist monastic tradition
whereby satori is attained via the performance of simple,
daily tasks that are continually repeated with minimal
variation. Underlying Kawara's dogged registration of time's
relentless passing is a resignation to cosmic infinities
that ultimately render the self obliterated. Perhaps the
overwhelming ennui of Kawara's methodical processes masks
a cultural obsession with what literary critic Karatani Kojin
terms the "nothingness" that defines the Japanese sense of
inferiority, including a consciousness of space-time
experienced as paradoxically insubstantial and
all-enduring. 50 Only occasionally has Kawara broken the
rigor of his experiment to send the telegram: "I AM STILL
ALIVE. ON KAWARA."
Akasegawa Genpei (b. 1937) employs the mundane in
another way. Originally a founding member of Hi Red Center,
Akasegawa continued his work of exposing the inanity of
modern social systems into the 1970s. Tomason is an on-going
photography series that Akasegawa began in 1972, a year after
50 Karatani Kojin, Origins of Modern Japanese Literature,

trans. by Brett de Bary, (Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press,
1993).
320
his probation for counterfeiting currency ended.51 Tomason
documents "useless things" (muyd-na mono) found in urban
landscapes--nonsensical structures and moments of
serendipity whose humorous irrationality has been
overlooked: stairs on the side of a building that lead to
no door or the shadow of a tree across the street that, when
cast on a wall at 3PM, fits perfectly into the shape of another
tree that grows on the other side. Akasegawa called the
practice of sighting these instances "ultra-art"
(cho-geijustu). Like Duchampian Readymades and Sen no
Rikyu's wabi tea, things are defined as art simply because
the radical aesthete perceives them so. "Ultra-Art has no
author," Akasegawa explains. "All that is required is an
assistant: a person to discover it."52 Further meaning of
Akasegawa's Tomason series can be gleaned from its title,
which refers to an American baseball player, Gary Thomasson
(b. 1951), whom the Yomiuri Giants hired as a "power hitter"
for an enormous fee in the early 1980s. But soon after the
tall, handsome gaijin arrived, he earned the nickname
51 See Chapter Four for descriptions of Akasegawa Genpei's

trial.
52 Akasegawa Genpei, Cho-geijustu Tomason (Tomason
321
"electric fan" because he continually struck out: ultimately,
he served so useful function whatsoever.53 In the tradition
of Japanese Conceptual Art, Tomason presents a "mirror" of
the profound and curious nature of modern existence.
6.6 The School of Metaphysics
While most Japanese artists who became active in Fluxus
and the international Conceptual Art movement left Japan
to live in New York, a third, related development occurred
among artists who stayed in Japan. Known as Gainen-ha
(Conceptual School), this loosely-affiliated group of
artists active in the 1960s and seventies included Matsuzawa
Yutaka, Takamatsu Jiro, and Okazaki Kazuo, and the sculptors
Kawaguchi Tatsuo, Muraoka Saburo, Wakabayashi Isamu, and
Miyawaki Aiko. What connects their diverse experiments is
an interest in the metaphysics, cosmology, and alchemy of
Mahayana Buddhism and modern science. More recently, Hiroshi
Sugimoto, Nomura Hitoshi, and Miyajima Tatsuo have pursued
Ultra-Art), (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1987), p. 25.
53 Ibid., pp. 25-27. I am grateful to Jeff Rothstein for

providing me with information about Gary Thomasson, who was
a player with the San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees,
and Los Angeles Dodgers before joining the Yomiuri Giants.
322
related ideas. As an emphatically philosophical
investigation into the nature of time-space-infinity and
existence-death-eternity, their work differs significantly
from the more theory-driven Euro-American Conceptual Art:
Thus it would be limiting to identify them as formal
Conceptualists. This author suggests that a more appropriate
designation would be the "School of Metaphysics"
(Keij ij ogaku-ha) .
Matsuzawa (b. 1922) graduated from Waseda University's
architectural department, and spent 1955-57 on a Fulbright
scholarship in America where he discarded architecture for
the philosophy of religion, which he studied at Columbia
University. His earliest works including a volume of poetry,
Immortality of the Earth (Chijo no fumetsu, 1949), explored
subjects that were to preoccupy him over the following
decades: Symbolist and Surrealist poetry, quantum mechanics,
and esoteric Buddhist philosophy. Derived from Indian
Tantrism and Hindu pantheism, the esoteric (mikkyo) schools
of Buddhism include Tibetan Buddhism and the Japanese Shingon
sect, which was brought to Japan in the early ninth century.
The secret teachings of Shingon, which Matsuzawa embraced,
reveal that humans can attain nirvana in this world of
phenomena by performing certain disciplines of body, speech,
323
and mind and by undergoing various initiations and
consecrations that employed ritual implements and imagery.54
In 1964, Matsuzawa printed a handbill entitled, ifr Dead
Body i/fRemains and distributed 10, 000 copies. Its text read:
"ijrDead Bodyiji Remains is a non-perceptual painting (tentative
title). Therefore it is invisible." The handbill contained
three geometric diagrams, each divided into nine sections,
simulating a Shingon mandala configuration. This work, which
presented printed words as a work of art and depended on
the reader/viewer's imagination to be completed (like
Shingon visualization practice) , is recognized as the origin
of Conceptualism in Japan. Establishing his "Void Condition
Monitoring Center" in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture,
he began sending out picture-postcards of his work (often
Happenings of a mysterious, ritualistic nature) inscribed
with such phrases as "Picture Showing a Spirit in the Mist,"
or "The Picture Which is Not Seen and Which Cannot Be Seen."
In the Tokyo Biennalle of 1970, which critic Nakahara Yusuke
curated, Matsuzawa exhibited his famous "My Own Death," a
54 See Yamasaki Taiko, trans. and adapted by Richard and

Cynthia Peterson in Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism,
ed. by Morimoto Yasuhiro and David Karr (Boston and London:
Shambala, 1988).
324
large sign hanging before an empty gallery that read in
English and Japanese:
MY OWN DEATH
(Paintings existing only in time)
When you go calmly across this room, go my own death

across your mind in a flash of lightning, that is my
future genuine death and is similar not only to your
own future death but to past hundred millions of human
beings' death and also to future thousand trillions
of human beings'.
Following the revered Matsuzawa, several other artists
developed similar tendencies in the late sixties and
seventies using various media to explore metaphysical
questions, particularly about time and space. In Land and
Sea (1970), Kawaguchi Tatsuo (b. 1940) laid four wooden
boards in parallel lines along an ocean shoreline, and
photographed a sequence of twenty-six variations of the
configuration as it shifted with the tides over time. In
COSMOS (begun 1974), Kawaguchi inscribed upon
astrophotographs the date a certain star's light was emitted,
calculated in light years. In his ongoing series since 1970,
Relation (Plate 123), Kawaguchi has investigated "what can
be seen" and "what cannot be seen." Starting with the sealing
of darkness and light, he has continued by enclosing soil,
water, air, seeds, and plants. Recently, the material used
325
for his "sight-interception" works has been lead: The lotus,
ancient symbol of Buddhism, is enclosed in lead to evoke
a sense of organic growth arrested and protected for
eternity.5 5
Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948), who has lived primarily
in New York since 1974, has undertaken three photographic
series: interiors of movie "palaces," natural history
dioramas, and seascapes. The seascape series, begun in 1980,
is composed of a central horizon line dividing sky and sea,
light and darkness, void and substance (Plates 124-1 and
124-2) . Photographing different bodies of water around the
world, Sugimoto reveals a universal and enduring terrain
of silence and stillness, what curator Kerry Brougher finds
"a world filled with essential truths beyond human
comprehension."56 Sugimoto's seascapes refute the modernist
convention of landscape as psychological inferiority and
offer instead the notion of landscape as metaphysical and
eternal time/space.
See Kawaguchi Tatsuo/Tatsuo Kawaguchi (Tokyo:

Gendaikikakushitsu, 1992).
56 Kerry Brougher, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Memories in Black and

White, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary
Art, 1993).
326
Concepts of time are also central to Miyajima Tatsuo
(b. 1957), who since 1987 has designed objects and
installations composed of hundreds or thousands of
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) wired to an integrated circuit
chip, and a timer. The LED components, each counting in linear
rhythm from 1 to 99 and back again, at differing speeds,
use the global and universal language of digits to show the
actual motion and flux of infinite time passing. As critic
Nanjo Fumio has written of Miyajima's Clock for 300 Thousand
Years (1987), it raises such philosophical questions as,
"What does it mean for time to be counted continuously for
300,000 years? Is time that we can see and count passing
the same as time that passes after our deaths? What is the
significance of time that we are unable to experience?"57
Miyajima replies with his own maxim, which he attributes
to his study of contemporary Buddhist philosophy58: "Keep
57 Nanjo Fumio, 1988: quoted in Lynne Cooke and Jos Poodt,

Tatsuo Miyajima, exh. cat. ('s Hertogenbosch: Museum Het
Kruithuis and Berlin: daadgalerie, 1991), p. 9.
58 Miyajima acknowledges the profound influence on his work

of Buddhist thinker and philosopher Ikeda Daisaku, founder
of the contemporary Buddhist sect, Soka Gakkai. See Miyajima
Tatsuo, interview in Lynne Cooke and Mark Francis, Carnegie
International 1991, vol.l, exh. cat. (Pittsburgh: The
Carnegie Museum of Art and New York: Rizzoli), p. 108.
327
Changing, Connect with Everything, Continue Forever." Once
again, repetition, recurrence, and recirculation define the
Japanese Metaphysical artists' notion of temporality, their
equanimity in expressing concepts of the eternal.

★ ~k ~k
Operating within a broad revisionist context of
Japanese metaphysical and literary traditions, certain
elements of the Japanese avant-garde thus converged with
neo-Dadaist, Duchampian, and Cagean practices in the early
1960s to forge new visual, performance, and musical cultures
whose legacies are active today. Drawing on disciplines that
traditionally lie outside of art--philosophy, psychology,
science, mathematics, and cosmology--those involved in Tokyo
Fluxus, Conceptual Art, and the School of Metaphysics chose
art for its "unrivaled power to trap the unsignifiable, to
stimulate within us processes and operations that are as
yet little understood, as yet uncharted, but which
nonetheless raise more insistently the ultimate
328
philosophical question of who we are." 59 Ultimately,
Japanese Conceptualism is about mirroring the mind.
59 Haxthausen, "Looking at Arakawa," p. 313.
329
CHAPTER SEVEN
MONO-HA AND THE POSTWAR CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY
Mono-ha, literally "School of Things," changed the
course of Japanese contemporary art by positioning Asia as
central rather than peripheral to contemporary artistic
practice and discourse . In contrast to Gutai, whose explosive
experiments became more myth than catalyst, Mono-ha''s
theoretical and formal innovations continued to evolve and
be debated well beyond the group's short-lived duration from
1968 through the early seventies. Indirectly related to
international tendencies abroad, Mono-ha yielded neither
to Minimal Art's didactic literalism nor to Arte Povera's
anguished theatrics. A century after the Meiji Restoration,
it was no longer valid or necessary to "follow" the
Euro-American avant-garde with the aim to assimilate or be
assimilated; in fact, the group moved to reclaim
"Asian-ness." The Japanese Mono-ha artists, all born in the
1940s and raised under the powerful influence of American
thought and culture, resisted what they considered to be
Japan's blind appropriation of the modern system, and
advocated a contemporary Asian art that gave form and meaning
to their own particular world view.
330
The Mono-ha artists applied contemporary philosophy
and critical theory to construct a model of alternative
modernism that permitted Asian aesthetics and cultural
sensibilities to be expressed and reinterpreted in a
contemporary context. Lee U Fan (b. 1936), the architect
of Mono-ha theory, drew upon the phenomenological studies
of Martin Heidegger and the religious philosophy of Nishida
Kitaro to challenge modern aesthetics and theories of
ontology. Korean-born, Lee came to Japan in 1956 as a student
of philosophy and soon became critical of Japan's massive
program of Westernization and lack of national identity in
the contemporary arts.1 Partly a critique of the Western
objectification of self and other, idea and matter, Lee's
theory posited an alternative structure for the
I am grateful to the following individuals for their

contributions to the preparation of this study: Chiba Shigeo,
Endo Toshikatsu, Kawamata Tadashi, Howard N. Fox, Janet
Koplos, Koshimizu Susumu, Lee U Fan, Minemura Toshiaki,
Okazaki Kenjiro, Saito Yoshishige, Suga Kishio, Takamatsu
Jiro, Tatehata Akira, Tani Arata, and Toya Shigeo.

1 Lee interrupted his studies at Seoul National University

and went to Japan at the age of twenty, where he entered
Nihon University and graduated with a degree in philosophy
in 1961.
331
interdependent relationships between consciousness and
existence, things and site. "We must learn to see all things
as they are," Lee wrote, "without objectifying the world
by means of representation which is imposed by human
beings."2 Lee's critique was recognized as one of the most
thoughtful protests in the history of modern Japanese art
against dominant Eurocentric art theory, and in favor of
a radically new artistic standard. Influenced as well by
such philosophers as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel
Foucault, who themselves critiqued modern Western thought,
Lee's ideas were neither anti-Western per se nor an
anachronistic call to tradition. Rather, they represented
a historic effort generated by the passions of cultural
nationalism to deconstruct the monolith of modernism.
Mono-ha's strategy arose in response to specific
conditions within Japanese art, culture, society, and
politics of the 1960s. With the exception of Lee, who was
a decade older, most of the Mono-ha artists were just
beginning their careers when the violent university
2 Lee U Fan, "Sekai to kozo" (The World and Structure, 1969),

reprinted in Mono-ha to posuto mono-ha: 1969-nen iko no Nihon
no bijutsu/Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha: Art in Japan since 1969,
exh, cat. (Tokyo: The Seibu Museum of Art, 1987), p. 170.
332
upheavals of 1968-69 occurred. Massive student protests
paralyzed the nation's universities as strikes, boycotts,
demonstrations, bloody clashes with riot police, and
thousands of student arrests beset the campuses. The
conflicts originated at the elite Tokyo University where
protests were waged against the exploitive conditions under
which medical graduates served a one-year unpaid compulsory
hospital internship, but quickly escalated into an
ideological attack on the University itself as a bastion
of privilege and linchpin of an oppressive and reactionary
educational system. Also in early 1968, combative
demonstrations broke out against entrenched corruption among
administrative authorities at the private Nihon University.
Organized under the left-wing Zenkyoto, or All-Campus
Joint-Struggle Councils, the militant protest movement
spread like wildfire throughout the country, demanding
control of student facilities, free-speech rights, and the
revamping of the feudal authoritarian system that regulated
Japanese higher education and, by extension, Japan itself.
The student riots of the late 1960s represented the most
vehement assault on the traditional bases of Japanese power
333
in the postwar era.3
Art students targeted their own agenda. On July 5, 1969,
the Artists' Joint Struggle Council (Bijutsuka Kyoto Kaigi,
commonly known as Bikyoto) comprised of Tama Art University
students Hikosaka Naoyoshi, Hori Kosai, and Yamanaka Nobuo
among others, distributed its agitational handbill,
"Proposal to Artists," which declared: "Let us win the fight
to destroy modern rationalism by dissolving the art power
system!" Calling for freedom and independence from "this
present society of information control" and age of "Japanese
capitalism that functions as imperialism within Asia," the
artists proposed the destruction of such "fortresses" of
the art establishment as the Tokyo Bienalle, the Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum, the National Museum of Modern Art,
and the public competition system perpetuated by the official
salon (Nitten) and art association (kobo dantai) . 4
3 See Patricia G. Steinhoff, "Student Conflict" in Conflict

in Japan, ed. by Ellis S. Kraus, Thomas P. Rohlen, and
Patricia G. Steinhoff (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1984); and Henry D. Smith II, Japan 's First Student Radicals
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1972).
4 Bikyoto, "Bijutsuka e no teisho" (Proposal to Artists),

agitational flyer dated July 5, 1969, reprinted in Hikosaka
Naoyoshi, Hanpuku: Shinko geijutsu no iso (Repetition:
Phases of New Art), (Tokyo: Tabata Shoten, 1974).
334
Japan's activist student movement stimulated the
emergence of the "New Left" around 1969. Whereas the former
student movement (Zengakuren) and the "Old Left" had been
aligned with the Japan Communist Party (JCP), the new
organizations flaunted more radical alliances with Trotsky
and Mao.5 Incited by the 1968 campus protests in the U.S.
and France that advocated anti-Establishment,
anti-imperialism, and Anti-Vietnam War activism, the new
student and leftist movements mobilized against American
"imperialism" in East Asia and Indochina, and helped launch
a grass-roots campaign against the Vietnam War. The pacifist
anti-war movement, Beiheiren, founded by the charismatic
author and critic of modern-day civilization, Oda Makoto,
set up "Antiwar Teashops" on university campuses that sold
"U.S. Imperialist Coca-Cola" and "U.S. Imperialist Juice."6
5 The New Left was comprised of anti-Japan Communist Party

left-wing political organizations, Beheiren (Betonamu ni
heiwa wo--Shinmin Rengo) or the Citizen's League for Peace
in Vietnam, and the Antiwar Youth Committee (Hansen Seinen
Iinkai), which developed among the younger ranks of the
established giant labor unions. See Fukashiro Junro, "The
New Left," Japan Quarterly 17 n o .1 (January-March 1970),
pp.27-37.
6 Ibid., p. 34.
335
Protest against the automatic extension of the U.S.-Japan
Security Pact in 1970, which made Japan a virtual military
base for the war in Indochina, and demands for the reversion
of Okinawa by 1972 and expulsion of American nuclear warheads
positioned there, aggravated the growing mistrust of U.S.
political hegemony and its control of Japanese foreign policy
and defense.
Critical of Western superpower intervention in Asia
and Japan's passive cooperation with the American military,
the protests newly spurred a call for political autonomy
and pan-Asian nationalism. In this climate, China's ongoing
Cultural Revolution with its anti-Western rhetoric attracted
followers in Japan, where Mao's "little red book" became
fashionable among the radical elite in the late sixties.
The normalization of diplomatic relations with China in 1972,
and the ensuing rediscovery of Japan's cultural ties with
the Asian continent leading to the "Silk Road boom" in
Japanese culture and tourist industries in the late seventies,
further stimulated a realignment of Japanese identity with
the ancient East versus the modern West. America's ultimate
failure in Vietnam and the Watergate incident of 1973 further
confirmed the need for Japan to establish independence and
critical distance from its former occupier. As Lee U Fan
336
has remarked, "The times forced us to reconsider our
situation as modern artists in Japan, and to think about
the significance of being free from American influence."7
Underlying the protest movement's chief goals--to
overcome Japan's authoritarian social systems and assert
political autonomy from the U.S.--was a profound
disillusionment with Japan's successful postwar
reconstruction, booming economic prosperity, and
Americanized culture. Although Expo '70 (the first World's
Fair held in an Asian country) was conceived as an extravagant
showcase of Japan's modernization and technological equality
with the West, several leftist and artists' groups denounced
it. The avant-garde Zero-Dimension (Zero-Jigen) staged
"Crash Expo '70" rituals throughout 1969 to oppose the fair,
while Bikyoto compared Expo to the enforced production of
propaganda paintings that glorified the imperial cause
during World War II.8 Disenchanted by the national "ideals"
of modernization, rationalization, progress, and efficiency,
artists and leftists lamented the social and ecological
disasters of the modern age. Pollution, overpopulation, the
7 Lee U Fan, interview with author, Yokohama, 9 January 1993.
337
threat of nuclear holocaust, and the alienation of self from
nature were seen, in critic Minemura Toshiaki's words, "as
the product of the excessive anthropomorphism and modern
rationalism which originated with the West."9
Within this context, various schools of Buddhist and
Taoist metaphysics provided a philosophy and methodology
for creating an alternative system of artistic practice.
Unlike the avant-garde traditional arts movements of the
1950s, however, which worked within long-established art
forms such as calligraphy or ikebana, and contrary to Isamu
Noguchi, who at times appropriated Buddhist themes for his
titles (such as "mu") or followed classic Zen forms (such
as the enso or circle), the Mono-ha artists rejected any
derivative, symbolic, or exotic use of Oriental motifs. Suga
Kishio's in-depth study of the Madhyamka, a central doctrine
of the Mahayana Buddhist teaching that "all existence is
interdependent and existence itself is void," imparted an
abstract logic to his approach to art making but was never
8 See Bikyoto, "Bijutsuka e no teisho."
9 Minemura Toshiaki, "A Blast of Nationalism in the

Seventies," in Art in Japan Today II: 1970-1983 (Tokyo: The
Japan Foundation, 1984), p. 17.
338
a source of representation.10 Like several others affiliated
with Mono-ha in the late 1960s and seventies, Suga's
significance remains that of an artist working at the
international forefront of post-Minimalist
experimentation--only from a radically different cultural
perspective.
7.1 Saito and the Critique of Modernity
Mono-ha evolved in part from the teachings of the
preeminent abstract artist, Saito Yoshishige (1904-2001) .u
A professor of Tama Art University in Tokyo from 1964 until
1973, Saito influenced several students who originated the
Mono-ha movement, including Koshimizu Susumu, Sekine Nobuo,
Suga Kishio, and Yoshida Katsuro. An unorthodox modernist,
Saito was among the few artists in prewar Japan to pioneer
Constructivism, inspired by an exhibition in 1920 of works
by visiting Russian Futurist, David Burliuk (1882-1967).
10 See Minemura, "Suga Kishio ron no tame ni (Shisohen)" in

Suga Kishio/Kishio Suga 1968-1988 (Tokyo: Kaneko Gallery,
1988), pp. 191-95.
11 See Saito Yoshishige ni yoru Saito Yoshishige-ten: Jiyu

no ki/Yoshishige Saito: Time, Space, Wood, exh. cat.
(Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art and Tokushima: The
Tokushima Modern Art Museum, 1993).
339
Saito was further stimulated by his encounter in the early
1920s with the Dadaist/Futurist groups Mavo and the Third
Section Plastic Arts Association (Sanka Zokei Bijutsu
Kyokai) whose founder, Murayama Tomoyoshi (1901-1977),
created a sensation in the Taisho era avant-garde with his
constructions of signs, painted boards, heavy paper, and
found objects. Drawing on the Dadaist notion of "art as
totality" and the Constructivist eschewal of illusion in
favor of "real materials" and "real space," Saitb developed
two series during the 1930s: non-objective constructions
composed of lacquer, nylon thread, and wood (Kara Kara) ;
and monochromatic, geometric wood reliefs (Toro-Wood) . These
series--which were destroyed and later reconstructed in
1973— developed in part out of Saito's conviction that the
operation of phenomena, rather than their appearance, is
the subject of art.12 Saito's works investigated the Kinetic
tension arising from forms that combined the planarity of
painting and dimensionality of sculpture, yet were neither;
Saito continued to explore this "quality of ambiguous dual
structure" (niju kozd-sei) throughout his career. As critic
12 Saito's assistant for reconstructing his prewar works was

Koshimizu Susumu.
340
Chiba Shigeo has written: "What exists in Saito's works
is...the belief that art must surpass art itself."13
In 1938, Saito joined with abstract artists Yamaguchi
Takeo, Yoshihara Jiro, and Hasegawa Saburo to found the
vanguard Ninth Room Association (Kyushitsu-kai), and with
leading Surrealists Fukuzawa Ichiro, Ai-Mitsu, and the
poet/critic Takiguchi Shuzo, he founded the progressive Art
Culture group (Bijutsu Bunka Kyokai) in 1939. Intimately
involved with the early Showa avant-garde, Saito was among
the leading abstract artists and theorists to provide a link
between the prewar and postwar art worlds.14
Throughout his various phases of formal innovation,
Saito continued to explore the Constructivist idea that art
must reflect the structure and dynamic process of reality.
To critics and students, his importance lay in his passionate
attempt to synthesize these principles of Constructivism
with Japanese concepts of time, space, and materials .15"While
13 Chiba Shigeo, Bijutsu no genzai chiten (The Present Place

of Art), (Tokyo: Goryu Shobo, 1990), p. 173.
14 Along with Saito, Horiuchi Masakazu (b. 1911), Iida

Yoshikuni (b. 1923), Nagare Masayuki (b. 1923), and Tatehata
Kakuzo (b. 1919), remained committed to modernist sculpture.
15 Minemura Toshiaki, interview with author, Tokyo, 12

December 1992.
341
looking at European art," his student Koshimizu recalls,
"Saito always seemed to us to express an individual stance."16
A well-read artist of uncommon intellect (he had begun his
career as a writer), Saito was conversant with a wide range
of contemporary philosophy and criticism. During the period
that he taught at Tama Art University, Saito frequently
discussed the ideas of Merleau-Ponty, Claude Levi-Strauss,
and the writings of Donald Judd---all of which contributed
to his investigation into the phenomenological problems of
perception versus illusion, existence versus cognition.
Through his frequent travels abroad, he also kept
well-informed about contemporary art. On a trip to New York
in 1965, he attended a John Cage concert which confirmed
his interest in indeterminacy and chance composition.17
Saito's intellectual aspiration to the metaphysical
properties of "concrete" art and his broad knowledge of the
modern art discourse would contribute to the Mono-ha artists'
historicist claim that their experiments could "eradicate
16 Koshimizu Susumu, interview with author, Osaka, 8 January

1993.
17 Saito visited New York in 1965 with Tono Yoshiaki on the

occasion of The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition, "The New
Japanese Painting and Sculpture," in which Saito
342
the remnants of Modernism and [explore] a new art raising
a candid vision of an undisguised world."18
Saito's ideas were by no means limited to Euro-American
thought. He was a devoted student of Lao Tzu, whose classic
Tao Te Ching espoused "inaction" as the way to harmonize
one's being with the natural principles of the universe:
"Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will
prevail."19 Saito's attitude of allowing his material (wood)
to represent itself in arrangements that were "eternally
unconcluded and incessantly ready" reflected this Taoist
notion of natural process. Remarking upon his on-going series
since 1979 of large-scale installations composed of
black-lacquered, spruce wood boards assembled in loose,
nonsymmetrical arrangements on the floor or wall, Saito
explained: "I think [of my creation] more as an occurrence
or an event than as an object."20 Rejecting monumentality
and permanence, Saito's anti-stable installations of
participated.
18 Minemura, "A Blast of Nationalism in the Seventies," p.

17.
19 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. with an introduction by

D.C. Lau (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 59.
20 Saito, quoted by Kashiwagi Tomoo and trans . by Ogawa Haruko
343
accidental inclinations whose elements are variable
depending upon a given situation or environment celebrate
a view of existence as a process of natural outcome (Plate
136) . Other East Asian traditions that Saito explored in
his search for a form beyond Euro-American modernism included
calligraphy and the spatial/temporal notions of yohaku
(blank or void) and ma (the interval or distance between
two or more phenomena occurring continuously) . As Chiba has
written, "If we are to discern a certain Japanese quality
in Saito's work, it perhaps can be found in the fact that
he is able to go beyond boundaries or genres, and promote
possibilities inherent in Japanese art."21
Saito's commitment to foster an art among his students
that was modern but not bound to Western formulations can
be understood as part of a postwar revival of the 1930s
discource, "overcoming the modern" (kindai no chokoku).
Concerned with the tension between tradition and modernity,
it strove to protect indigenous culture from the threatening
forces of Westernization and industrial development. The
postwar discourse, known as "modernity critique" (kindai
in Yoshishige Saito: Timef Space, Wood, p. 81.
21 Chiba, p. 17 9.
344
hihan), accepted the achievement of Japan's economic and
industrial transformation but criticized the corresponding
loss of human spirituality.22 Rejecting the "progress and
standards and goals" that the West imposed upon Japan in
blatant disregard for her traditional culture, the new
discourse called for the installation of a genuinely
"comprehensive Japanese culture." According to historian
H.D. Harootunian's insightful analysis, it juxtaposed the
"Japanese Things" (Nihon-teki naru mono) rather than
"tradition" against the image of modern Western society:
The new representation no longer conforms to the simple

opposition between traditional and modern, seen as
moments in evolutionary narrative. Rather, it reveals
the operation of a newer division between what the text
describes as the "Japanized View" and the "Westernized
View," now facing each other as absolutes standing
outside of history, accountable only to an unchanging
"nature" (read culture) and "race."23
Like the prewar discourse, the new critique
acknowledged the necessity to systematically reassess the
22 For a thorough summary and analysis of the kindai no

chokoku discourse, see H.D. Harootunian, "Visible
Discourses/ Invisible Ideologies" in Postmodernism and Japan,
ed. by Masao Miyoshi and H. D. Harootunian (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1989).
23 Ibid. , p . 86 .
345
"special quality of Japan's culture" in order to confront
the end of modernization. This was identified as the
inherently Japanese avoidance of dichotomous thinking in
favor of nondualism, selflessness, and relationism. For
Saito'’s students who founded Mono-ha, the critique of
modernity corresponded to their own investigations into
"relationality" (kankei) in the practice of art. Focusing
on the "encounter" of things (existence), site (space), and
viewer (consciousness), the Mono-ha artists proceeded from
a decidedly un-Western premise that the artist is but a medium
of circumstantial events within a larger, continuous process
Believing that "everything possesses its own position
through mutual interdependence," Suga Kishio stated in 1971:
"I do not create the limits of a thing, but rather they are
created by the circumstances which determine its optimum
position when existing in its most natural way."24 Among the
various political, cultural, and intellectual forces that
gave rise the 1970s call for "a new culture," Mono-ha
represents its most articulate manifestation in the visual
arts.
24 Suga, statement in Kishio Suga, p. 146.
346
7 .2 The Origins of Mono-ha
Mono-ha originated in October 1968 with Sekine Nobuo's
site-specific outdoor work Phase-Earthi a huge cylinder
built of packed soil that rose beside a cylindrical hole
in the earth, a dug-out void of the same shape and volume
(Plate 129) .25 By "phase" (iso) Sekine (b. 1942) referred
to contemporary topological mathematics (iso-sugaku), in
which, he describes, "a certain form can be transformed
continually by such methods as twisting, stretching,
condensing until one form it is transformed into another."26
But beyond its play of convex and concave forms, Phase--Earth
was revolutionary for its quality of sheer earthen presence
and for the artist's passive attitude toward the act of
creation, which merely rendered the earth as earth. As Sekine
reflected in his notebook: "The world exists as the world
25 This work was presented as part of the first invitational

outdoor sculpture competition at "Biennale of Kobe at the
Suma Detached Palace Garden: Contemporary Sculpture
Exhibition." Sekine's design, which took one week to execute,
involved several assistants: Sekine's wife, Koshigemachi
Yoriko; Yoshida Katsuro and his wife, Kon Noriko; and
Koshimizu Susumu, who as the only sculptor major among the
Mono-ha artists at Tama Art University, served as Sekine’s
technical advisor.
26 Sekine and Tono, dialogue, "Mono no ninshiki to kozo" (The

Structure of Recognizing Things, 1969) , reprinted in Mono-ha
341
is, so how are we supposed to create? All I can do is to
be as I am, in the world as it is, and to show that state
clearly."27
Sekine's outdoor work attracted the interest of several
critics who would become influential in the Mono-ha movement,
but it was Lee U Fan's series of commentaries that appeared
in various art magazines from 1969 to 1970 that most clearly
identified the emergence of "a new structure" revealing "the
world as it is." 28 Focusing his discussion on the
implications of Sekine's Phase--Earth and related works,
Lee's theory privileged "things or substances" arranged in
a "site" which together produce an "encounter with being"
vividly real and free of subject/object bifurcation.
"Sekine's act, then, does not mean to turn the world into
an object of cognition as with the case of objet," Lee wrote,
"but to liberate it amidst non-objective phenomena, into
the realm of perception; that is, to let the world be in
and Post Mono-ha, pp. 171-72.
27 Sekine, quoted in Lee U Fan, "Sekai to Kozo," p. 171.
28 For Lee U Fan's principle writings on Sekine, see Deal

o motomete: Atarashii geijutsu no hajimari ni (Searching
for Encounter: In the Dawn of a New Art), (Tokyo: Tabata
Shoten, 1971) .
348
its own being." 29 Over the following year, students
affiliated with three different art schools in Tokyo— Tama
Art University (Tamabi), The Tokyo National University of
Fine Arts and Music (Geidai), and the Fine Arts Department
of Nihon University--began to explore the concept of art
as "encounter with being" (sonzai to no deal) and to share
an interest in using natural materials in their given state
to arrange impermanent "sites" (ba) and articulate

— — *3 fi
indeterminate "situations" (jokyo).
Although the term Mono-ha was loosely applied in the
early 1970s to all three groups, it most specifically
referred then, as it does today, to the Tamabi group with
which Lee was closely associated. The Mono-ha chronicler
Minemura argues that the "Lee + Tamabi Connection" (including
Sekine, Yoshida Katsuro, Honda Shingo, Narita Katsuhiko,
Koshimizu Susumu, and Suga Kishio) carried the philosophical
and structural implications of Mono-ha to their farthest
extreme, and thus represented its most essential development
It is significant too that most of the Tamabi artists
29 Lee U Fan, "Sonzai to mu o koete: Sekine Nobuo ron" in

ibid., pp. 117-73.
30 See Minemura Toshiaki, "What Was Mono-ha?" in Mono-ha,
349
continued throughout the 1970s to research the philosophical
problems first posed by Mono-ha, while those from other
schools pursued different ideas: Haraguchi Noriyuki of Nihon
University, for example, explored the sensuality of
industrial matter such as metal waste and crude oil, while
Takayama Noboru of Geidai pursued the sacred and totemic
features of creating sculpture as site.
Several forces within the Japanese art world
contributed to the emergence of Mono-ha. There was a general
consensus, as the art critics Nakahara Yusuke and Miyakawa
Atsushi pronounced in 1968, that "the institution of painting
is in decline."31 Likewise, the spectacular expressionist
"objet" that the Yomiuri Independant groups were featuring
in the early 1960s had fallen out of fashion with the rise
of Minimal, Conceptual, and kinetic art. The sense that
conventional notions of painting and sculpture were
disappearing was informed by the theory, generated by
American criticism and the influential writings of the French
exh. cat. (Tokyo: Kamakura Gallery, 1986), unpaged.
31 Nakahara Yusuke, Miyakawa Atsushi, Ishiko Junzo, "Kaiga

ni okeru gendai to wa" (Concerning Contemporary Painting),
transcript of panel discussion held at Ogikubo Gallery, 15
November 1968, reprinted in Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha, p.
170 .
350
phenomenologist, Merleau-Ponty, that illusionism was
obsolete. The function of art as a representation of a thing
or idea was now denied, replaced by what artist and critic
Donald Judd was calling "the specific object."32 Using
commercial, industrial media such as iron, steel, aluminum,
or neon tubes, Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, and Robert Morris
designed serial arrangements of geometric forms that exposed
"material as a kind of absolute."33 By reducing all formal
elements to the literal properties of the material, the
Minimalists rejected the modernist notion that the meaning
of art is a metaphor for the individual self, that a work
of art is an illusion conveying a private, unique composite
of psychological meanings. Meaning no longer hovered around
the interior forms of an object; it was the bare object itself
As in Europe, Minimalism had a profound impact on art
in Japan. Its way of placing works directly on the floor
and installing objects in relation to the space they occupy,
and the notion of the artist as a passive agent in the
presentation of material as is, rapidly became common
32 Donald Judd, "Specific Objects" Arts Yearbook 8 (1965)

p . 82.
33 See Rosalind E. Krauss, Passages in Modern Sculpture
351
practice in the avant-garde and provided a point of departure
for Mono-ha. But where the Minimalists favored hard,
industrial-commercial materials, the Mono-ha artists sought
natural materials such as stone, wood, oil clay, or water;
where the Minimalists wanted fixed objects that were factory
constructed or made from manufactured materials, the Mono-ha
artists made transient arrangements of things in a causal,
one-time-only encounter with the laws of nature--things
simply leaned, fell, hung, floated, piled, dropped, or broke
according to principles of gravity and time. While the
Minimalists were interested in revealing the structure of
anonymous, public, geometric forms, the Mono-ha artists were
fascinated by the metaphysics of structure itself, how one
thing relates in space and time to another.
Mono-ha, which negated the modernist notion of the
individual artist/creator, also drew upon contemporary
trends in Conceptualism. In June 1965, nine Kobe artists
including Kawaguchi Tatsuo formed Group I (the Chinese
character i signifies rank, place, or grade), whose mission
was to eradicate sensual and personal artistic expression
(Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1977), pp. 243-87.
352
in favor of "magnifying consciousness beyond the self."34
For the "Gifu Independant Art Festival" in August, 1965,
they created an outdoor work that was, in essence, a
performance: First they dug a large hole by the banks of
the Nagara River, and then they filled it up again, returning
the ground to its original configuration. According to
Nakahara, who became the leading Conceptual Art critic, the
intention of this work was the act itself of digging and
burying, whose nonsensical labor forced the surrender of
the artist's individuality to the universal forces of
nature.35
The problem of how to represent the paradoxical
relationship between existence and void was discussed widely
in the Japanese art world at the time, and influenced the
rise of Mono-ha. An object was no longer just itself, but
included the analysis and concept surrounding its very being
and/or non-being. At the forefront of this discourse was
the artist Takamatsu Jiro (1936-1998), a founding member
34 Group I manifesto, 1965; quoted and trans. in Nakahara

Yusuke, "Reflection on Tatsuo Kawaguchi— Imagination and
Matter" in Kawaguchi Tatsuo/Tatsuo Kawaguchi (Tokyo:
Gendaikikakushitsu, 1992), p. 13.
35 Ibid.
353
of Hi Red Center who joined the Tama Art University faculty
in 1968 and a self-proclaimed "anti-artist" who embraced
Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. Highly intellectual,
analytical, and playful, Takamatsu's work exposed the
conceptual gap between perception and existence. 36 His
influential Shadow Series (1965-1974, Plate 126) presented
the silhouette of something unseen that is cast (painted)
upon the white canvas, leaving evidence of what is absent.
Perspective Series (1967-1969) gave three-dimensional form
to arrangements seen in perspective, surprising the viewer
with the distorted optical illusion of real space. By the
late 1960s, Takamatsu's Tama students Sekine, Narita, and
Koshimizu were exploring similar themes surrounding the
ambiguous nature of seeing. Koshimizu's Wrapped Space (1968) ,
for example, presented the illusion of packing string wrapped
around carton-like forms which actually were nothing but
air. The "Tricks and Vision" exhibition at the Muramatsu
and Tokyo Galleries in spring 1968, culminated this trend
in optical illusion art. According to Minemura, the
36 For illustrated chronologies of Takamatsu's series, see

Gendai no Sakka 2: Takamatsu Jiro/Artists Today 2: Jiro
Takamatsu, exh. cat. (Osaka: The National Museum of Art,
1980); and Takamatsu Jiro-ten/Exhibition, exh. cat. (Tokyo:
354
significance of Sekine's Phase— Earth is that it converted
this trend in "visual manipulation" from the "ambiguity of
seeing" to the "discovery of being."37
7.3 The Methods of Mono-ha
Coined in the early seventies, the name "Mono-ha" or
"School of Things" signified a growing tendency in the art
community "to bring out some artistic language from 'things'
as they stood, bare and undisguised, by letting them appear
on the stage of artistic expression, no longer as mere
materials, but allowing them a leading part."38 As the
phenomenon spread through various Tokyo galleries, museum
exhibition halls, and outdoor sculpture invitationals, raw
mono such as stone, bare wood, Japanese paper, rusted iron
plates, cloth, sand, cotton, and trunks of charcoal were
presented--in and of themselves in their naked, concrete
form--as works of art.39
Tokyo Gallery, 1982).
37 Minemura, "What was Mono-ha?"
38 Ibid.
39 The principal Tokyo galleries where Mono-ha was introduced

were Pinar Gallery, Tokyo Gallery, Muramatsu Gallery,
Shirota Gallery, Ogikubo Gallery, Tamura Gallery, and Sato
355
But despite their obvious emphasis on "things," the
artists disliked the term "Mono-ha" because it failed to
convey their critical stance: It was not mono but the
"structuralization of the state in which mono reveals its
existence" that concerned them. While mono signified
"things" or "objects," the artists were more accurately
interested in the "substance" or "matter" (busshitsu) which
constituted mono and, by extension, being (sonzai) . They
did not intend like the Minimalists to present the
literalness of material as an absolute, but sought to display
open questions about the modes in which things (matter) exist
in relation to situation, location, and causality. As Lee
explained, Mono-ha's real intent "was not in any way about
presenting things, rather it was an attempt to bring action
and things together in such a way that a nonsubj ective world
could be brought into being through revelations of space,
conditions, relations, situations, and time."40 Further,
Gallery.
40 Lee U fan, "Mono-ha ni tsuite" (On Mono-ha, 1987), trans.

by Don Kenny, quoted in Yamawaki Kazuo, "Aspects of
Contemporary Japanese Art: Centered on Lee U Fan" in Seven
Artists: Aspects of Contemporary Japanese Art, exh. cat.
(Santa Monica, Cal.: Santa Monica Museum of Art, 1991), p.
29.
356
unlike conventional painting and sculpture which operated
within a "closed system" whose "organic relation to the world
has been severed," Mono-ha works of art operated in an
"expanded system" that emphasized the "depth and expanse
of objects beyond their contours" and intended to provoke
a direct, interactive contact with the world itself.41 Lee's
conception of Relatum (1971; from the Relatum series)--a
site-specific installation of several large rocks placed
like dolmens on zabuton cushions--involved zhe total
experience of the spatial and temporal relationships among
its various elements including the interior site, its
lighting, and the movement of the viewer's body through the
installation.
According to the Mono-ha artists, the function of art
is to produce a "structure" {kozo) that elicits an
"encounter" {deal) with "being" (sonzai). Unity is realized
through one's intuitive, concrete grasp of the total "site"
(jba) , an elusive term connoting a ceremonial terrain. Lee
described encounter as a satori-like moment of revelation
when one is forced into a meeting that "reveals an open world
41 Lee U Fan, trans. by Reiko Tomii, "Sonzai to mu o koete,"

pp. 117-73.
357
beyond phenomenal subjectivity." Describing another work,
Relatum (1969, Plate 130) , which consisted of a large stone
dropped on a plate of glass laid on the ground, Lee explained:
If a heavy stone happens to hit glass, the glass breaks.

That happens as a matter of course. But if an artist's
ability to act as a mediator is weak, there will be
more to see than a trivial physical accident. Then again,
if the breakage conforms too closely to the intention
of the artist, the result will be dull. It will also
be devoid of interest if the meditation of the artist
is haphazard. Something has to come out of the
relationship of tension represented by the artist, the
glass, the stone. It is only when a fissure results
from the cross-permeation of the three elements in this
triangular relationship that, for the first time, the
glass becomes an object of art.42
Lee's critique was a challenge to the Cartesian premise,
cogito, ergo sum: when human consciousness is the basis for
all existence, the existence of the world is created by
consciousness. This promotes a condition whereby humans
objectify the world, separate themselves in relation to it,
and ultimately subject is isolated from object. Drawing on
Buddhist philosophy and the East Asian world view, Lee
proposed to transcend the shackles of objective recognition
in order to "let the world express itself by allowing ordinary
42 Lee U Fan, statement trans. by Jean Campignon in Lee U

Fan (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1986), p. 126.
358
objects, which are often ignored, to be set free in the vivid
and expansive world of incidents."43
Where Minimal Art divested all illusion via reductive
means, Mono-ha actually rejected creation itself. Suga
Kishio (b. 1944), recognized as the most ascetic Mono-ha
artist and the one who worked the longest within the Mono-ha
framework, would arrange situations whereby objects would
be in a state of "being left alone" (hochi) . 44 Unnamed
Situation I (1970, Plate 138) simply presented two wooden
blocks of uneven length set diagonally in two open window
frames located in a back staircase at The National Museum
of Modern Art, Kyoto. At a lake in Ube, he balanced several
stones along the middle of a plastic board some seventy feet
long and set it afloat to take its own course across the
sunlit water. Seeking to "release objects to chance," Suga
sought the most extreme conditions for the Mono-ha concept,
"presentation as is." Yet as critic Tatehata Akira has
written, Suga's hochi was "not the absence of artifice, but
43 Lee U Fan, quoted in ibid., p. 26. Translation adapted

by author.
44 See Suga Kishio, "Mumeisei no kanata no mumei: Naze 'mono'

nanoka?" (Nameless Beyond Namelessness: Why Mono?) 1972;
reprinted in Mono-ha to Post Mono-ha, p. 17 6.
359
artifice in order to strip away all extraneous imagination
surrounding the thing itself; or, to state it another way,
artificially to render it of the same value as nature."45
Whereas Minimal Art's rigid formalism denied metaphysical
meaning in order to present form and material as equivalent
and absolute, Suga's "situations" consciously engaged the
metaphysical implications of objects in relation to site
and causality in order to reveal the relative and
interdependent nature of existence.46
To some well-informed critics, Mono-ha, intentionally
or not, shared a conceptual approach to art-making with
various international tendencies that arose around the same
time— notably Earthworks, Process Art, and Arte Povera. For
the 10th Tokyo Bienalle in 1970, commissioner Nakahara Yusuke
selected forty artists from Europe, the United States, and
Japan in an exhibition entitled, "Between Man and Matter."
The commonalities among a range of artists including Mario
45 Tatehata Akira, trans. by Kinoshita Tetsuo, Alfred

Birnbaum, and Lewis Cook, "Fringe Modernism" in Nihon no
Gendai bijutsu: Zonzu obu rabu/Zones of Love: Contemporary
Art from Japan, exh. cat. (Tokyo; Touko Museum of
Contemporary Art, 1991), p. 26.
46 See Suga, "Yorikakaru mono no shiko/Thoughts on

Interdependent Things" in Suga Kishio/Kishio Suga, exh. cat.
360
Merz, Luciano Fabro, Richard Serra, and Takamatsu Jiro were
found in their conceptualization of the human being in
relation to the surrounding environment. Nakahara (in a
translation by the prominent Tokyo-based American critic,
the Jesuit Joseph P. Love) noted in the catalogue that "works
of art have suddenly approached reality, and the art has
become almost invisible." His thesis proceeds: "Our
existence as human beings is not that of being connected
to the actual world by meaning alone. .. .The work of art does
not make relation by itself alone, but is thought of as
existing in a total situation which encompasses us."47
While the premise of both Mono-ha and Arte Povera
(active 1967-1971) was rooted in post-Minimalist
anti-formalism, their strategies of presenting "material
as is" were different: Whereas Mono-ha artists selected
inanimate objects such as stones, oilclay, and wooden logs
to reveal the nature of existence, the Arte Povera artists
favored organic materials such as live plants and animals
(Tokyo: Touko Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990).
47 Nakahara Yusuke, trans. by Joseph P. Love, "Between Man

and Matter" in Ningen to busshitsu: Dai 10-kai Nihon kokusai
bijutsu-ten/Between Man and Matter: 10th Tokyo Biennale,
exh. cat. (Tokyo: The Mainichi Newspapers and Japan
International Art Promotion Association, 1970) .
361
to emanate a supreme, paganistic life energy. Drawing on
a repertoire of Western religion, philosophy, and mythology,
Arte Povera ultimately celebrated a post-humanist Europe
still rooted in the baroque and mystical.48 In a parallel
fashion, Mono-ha represented opposition to America's
clinical modernism in favor of cultivating indigenous
cultural sensibilities. Although its material legacy is
scant--Mono-ha works, by nature ephemeral, survive mostly
through photographic documentation and artists' later
reconstructions--the movement's thoughtful reevaluation of
Japanese art from Zen rock gardens to Gutai action events
was profoundly significant. Surpassing mere synthesis,
Mono-ha gave radically new form to a pervasive cultural ideal
that rationalism and industrialization had nearly
suppressed: to make the mind and nature one.
7.4 Beyond the Sculptural Paradigm
The impact of Mono-ha on successive generations of
Japanese artists was far-reaching; indeed, the dominant
trends in contemporary art of the late 1970s and eighties
48 See Germano Celant, Arte Povera: Storie e protagonist!/Art

Povera: Histories and protagonists (Milan: Electra Editrice,
362
are generally referred to as "post-Mono-ha." 49 Endo
Toshikatsu, Kawamata Tadashi, and Toya Shigeo developed
large-scale installation works that were partly an extension
of Mono-ha attitudes towards material, process, and site.
Eschewing modernist conventions of sculpture as modeled,
carved, or cast single forms, the post-Mono-ha artists went
beyond the sculptural paradigm to create site-specific
assemblies— often of wood--that involved environments and
nature, rite and performance. These artists have clear
connections with certain aspects of what Rosalind Krauss
has termed "sculpture in the expanded field," a domain of
postmodernism that describes the complex phenomenon of
site-specific installation work that functions as both (and
neither) landscape and architecture, sculpture and site

cQ
construction, marked sites and axiomatic structure.
According to Krauss' formulation, the ultimate
1985).
49 The term "post-Mono-ha" was used in the title of the

landmark exhibition organized by Minemura and Tono, "Mono-ha
to posuto Mono-ha no tenkai/Mono-ha and Post-Mono-ha." See
Note 2.
50 Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other

Modernist Myths (Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: MIT
Press, 1987), pp. 276-91.
363
disassociation of modernist sculpture from a commemorative
function led to an "ontological absence, the combination
of exclusions" which can be seen in the Earthworks of various
American artists.
Simultaneously, the post-Mono-ha artists drew upon
investigations in Japanese culture itself, specifically
architecture, that centered on traditional aesthetics of
daily living space and construction. A remarkable effort
of these investigations was the exhibition curated by the
architect, Isozaki Arata (b. 1931), that was devoted to
expressions of ma— the essential concept of Japanese
structure found in music, architecture, stage and garden
design, and the pictorial arts.51 In formulating his thesis
for "MA: Space-Time in Japan," Isozaki posited the Cartesian
conception of space-time as a homogenous and infinite
continuum against that of Japanese philosophy, where space
and time are conceived as correlative and omnipresent.
According to Isozaki, the Japanese visualization of space
evolved from the Shinto practice of preparing spaces for
the manifestation of kami (divinities) that frequently took
51 See MA: Space-Time in Japan/ exh. cat. (Tokyo: Japan Today,

1979) .
364
the form of empty places simply marked by four pillars and
a rope. Isozaki wrote:
Space was believed to be fundamentally void. Even solid

objects were thought to contain voids capable of
receiving the kami that descend at certain moments to
fill such spaces with the spiritual force (ki) of the
soul (kami) . The representation of this moment of
occupation became the subject of many artistic
endeavors. Thus, space was conceived as identical with
the events or phenomena occurring in it; that is space
was recognized only in its relation to time-flow.52
The post-Mono-ha also includes artists who rejected
the Mono-ha premise and constructed an art that deliberately
resisted it, such as Hikosaka Naoyoshi (b. 1946), who
criticized Lee for his "superficial refutation" of modernism
and his "nullification" of human creativity and the
representational function of consciousness.53 Hikosaka's
choice to construct paintings on wood that involved craft,
design, and color challenged what some critics saw as
Mono-ha's excessive anti-formalism and mystical whimsy. It
was also a sincere attempt to forge a regenerative, not
52 Ibid., p. 13.
53 Hikosaka Naoyoshi, "Lee U Fan no hihan: 'Hyogen' no

nai-teki kiki ni okeru fushizumu" (Critique of Lee U Fan:
The Fascism in the Internal Crisis of "Expression"), 1970;
reprinted in Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha, pp. 174-75.
365
destructive, post-avant-garde art. That his efforts were
consciously based in East Asian aesthetic practices, however,
indebts him to the Mono-ha revolution.
According to critic Tatehata Akira, Mono-ha''s critical
heirs saw its mystified materialism not as a rejection of
creation, but rather as an essential issue for a new
sculptural paradigm. 54 Forgoing Mono-ha's theoretical
metaphysics and spare, ephemeral structures, the new
generation admitted obsession with the allegoric and
iconic— what curator Howard N. Fox termed "a primal
spirit."55 Toya Shigeo (b. 1947), who emerged from Tama Art
University as a central figure of post-Mono-ha, embarked
on a series called Woods in the mid-1980s in which he sculpted
large tree trunks with a chainsaw, transforming solid form
into writhing, ghostly totems. Toya describes these
"animistic forms" arranged to mark a place of spiritual power
as a "burial ceremony for the forest." Decrying Japanese
modernity as failed and deficient, Toya states: "Burial
ceremonies are not for the dead, but a way for the living
54 Tatehata, "Fringe Modernism," p. 27.
55 See Howard N. Fox, A Primal Sprit: Ten Contemporary

Japanese Sculptors, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles
366
to possess death, to define and humanize it, to accept it."56
Endo Toshikatsu (b. 1950) also approaches the material
presence of sculptural form as a realm impregnated with being
that simultaneously conjures primordial rites of death. His
massive wooden forms, whose primary shapes owe something
to Minimalism, are set into the earth, rubbed with tar,
encased in a scaffolding, and, when set aflame their surface
is utterly carbonized and charred (Plate 137) . But Endo's
ritual incineration--which, like much Conceptual Art and
Earthworks, is documented by photographs--does not produce
death in the Western sense of absolute annihilation. Rather,
Endo believes that "it is within [the] cosmological
relation--where human life becomes linked with fire, earth,
water, air, sun, and other physical elements of the
universe--that the material imagination can become manifest
and bring meaning."57 Fire does not destroy; it transforms.
County Museum of Art, 1990) .
56 Toya Shigeo, statement in ibid., p. 103. See also Toya

Shigeo: 1984-1990-nen no shigoto/Toya Shigeo: Selected Works
1984-1990 (Tokyo: Satani Gallery, 1990).
57 Endo Toshikatsu, trans. by Stanley N. Anderson et al.,

"Hi ni tsuite/On Fire" in Endo Toshikatsu/Toshikatsu Endo,
exh. cat. (Tokyo: Touko Museum of Contemporary Art, 1991),
p . 42.
367
Endo's anti-modernist use of nature's elements aspiring to
a cosmic unity that diminishes the fractured fictions of
the phenomenal world is related to Mono-ha, yet his
preference for allegorical and symbolic form, such as the
boat or circle, refutes the group's didactic
anti-illusionism. The hollow center of Lotus, a large ring
whose inner surface conceals an iron moat of water, marks
a site wherein all oppositions--order and chaos, Eros and
Thanatos, water and fire--are rendered null and mute. Longing
for "the extreme intoxication aroused by the perfect unity
between self and object" which the modern condition has
obstructed, Endo offers a hollow that functions as both a
crucible of transformation and the vacuum of space-time
continuum.
Other artists who emerged in the eighties expanded
Mono-ha's practice of "open structures" into large-scale
installations. Kawamata Tadashi (b. 1953) erects
proliferating constructions of scaffolding made of salvaged
lumber that prey parasitically upon existing buildings and
ruins, reorganizing their spatial character until the host
structures are virtually deconstructed. "My intention is
not really to wrap something up," Kawamata has stated. "It
is rather to extend the inside to the outside, to expand,
368
to intervene."58 Kawamata's revelation of the spatial and
temporal interdependence of things, and his rejection of
permanent creation in favor of ephemeral occurrences and
eventual disassembly, are reminiscent of Mono-ha. Yet by
extending his parameter of investigation to include the local
public and authorities with their world of laws, codes, and
restrictions, Kawamata brings a social dimension to the
hermetic practice of Mono-ha.
By the late 1980s, the trend of outdoor, site-specific
constructions of wood and other natural materials had become
dominant in Japan and was attracting serious critical
attention abroad. Mono-ha artists such as Enokura Koji and
Takayama Noboru and post-Mono-ha artists such as Kenmochi
Kazuo and Kuniyasu Takamasa continued to challenge and expand
the concepts of "art as site" and "material as being" within
a larger discourse of "modernity critique." Large-scale
installations using one or only a few materials, generally
lead, iron, steel, or wood, became common among such
important sculptors as Wakabayashi Isamu (b. 1936), Miyawaki
Aiko (b. 1929), and Ebizuka Koichi (b. 1951). Mono-ha, which
originated as a vision of alternative modernism centered
58 Kawamata Tadashi, statement in A Primal Spirit, p. 65.
369
upon East Asian aesthetics, Buddhist metaphysics, and Taoist
philosophy, succeeded in redefining the form and expression
of contemporary Japanese art without resorting to exoticism.

* * *
The emergence of Mono-ha in Japan is more or less
simultaneous with Arte Povera in Italy, the Joseph Beuys
circle in West Germany, and Process Art and Earthworks in
the United States. These disparate movements arose from the
transparent ruins of the postwar era, signs of the collapse
of ideology and fictions of modern destiny. The implications
of advanced technology in the post-industrialized, nuclear,
Cold War age were ghoulishly inhuman, defiantly horrific,
and oppressive. It was against this monolithic system that
students and minorities rioted en masse in the late 1960s,
giving birth to political radicalism, street theater, body
art, and a utopian vision of universal spiritualism. Just
as magic, alchemy, and primitive ritual informed the work
of Beuys in his nostalgic search for meaning among the
fragments of recent European history, Mono-ha too sought
to reconstruct Japanese identity from a mythical repository
of cultural wisdoms. The vitality of Mono-ha shares what
Germano Celant, writing on Arte Povera, calls a "regeneration
of a dismembered culture"; it is thus no coincidence that
370
they share the goal "to create a work that offers no definite
solution and that does not arrogantly presume to represent
something definite; all it has is the extreme difficulty
and the extreme pleasure of existing."59 The difference
between these various art movements is their cultural
conception of what existing is.
59 Celant, "Euroamerica: From Minimal Art to Arte Povera"

in Breakthroughs: Avant-Garde Artists in Europe and America,
1950-1990, exh. cat. (Columbus: Wexner Center for the Arts,
The Ohio State University, 1991), p. 121.
371
CHAPTER EIGHT
CONCLUSION
On September 19, 1988, Hirohito (now known by his reign
name, Emperor Showa)1 fell seriously ill. In the months that
followed, Japanese newspapers published daily reports on
the state of the monarch's deteriorating health, referring
to His Majesty's unseemly condition of bodily bleeding in
ambiguous terms befitting a sick man who was once worshiped
as divine. In deference, the government canceled official
functions and restrained from serving alcohol at political
fundraisers; television networks eliminated "raucous" or
I am grateful to the following individuals for shedding light

upon the complex issues of Post-Hirohito Japanese art: Abe
Kazunao and Shikata Yukiko of Canon ArtLab, Asada Akira,
Dana Friis-Hanson, Hasegawa Yuko, Komoto Shinji, Lynn
Gumpert, Isshiki Yoshiko, Fukuda Miran, Furuhashi Teiji,
Nakahara Kodai, Nanjo Fumio, Morimura Yasumasa, Okazaki
Kenjiro, Tsuda Yoshinori, and Yanagi Yukinori.

1 Since Meiji, the name of an emperor's reign is the name

by which he is known posthumously. The birth and death of
every Japanese citizen, as well as events, national and
international, recorded in newspapers and all formal
documents, are expressed by the current reign name and year.
See Karatani Kojin, "The Discursive Space of Modern Japan,"
boundary 2 (Fall 1991). I intentionally refer to Emperor
Showa as Hirohito in this text in conformity with standard
372
"celebratory" programs and expunged phrases such as "nice
day" from commercials; and neighborhood festivals, fall
matrimonials, and gala functions of all kinds were postponed
indefinitely until after "X Day"--when the "unthinkable"
would occur. The mood of "self-restraint" (jiskuku), was
pervasive. Week after week, lines of well-wishers all around
Japan waited rain or shine to sign their names in registers
administered by the Imperial Household Agency and
prefectural government offices. By the end of the year, 1.5
million visitors had given their signatures in hopes of the
emperor's recovery.2 Hirohito finally passed away on January
7, 1989. The Showa era, which was inaugurated in 1926, was
over. Tokyo's neon signs went dark, clerks everywhere wore
black armbands, and Bach fugues played on the loudspeakers
of urban train stations. Under the omnipotent force of the
"chrysanthemum taboo" (so-called after the imperial crest)
which censors writers and publishers regarding imperial
Western usage as opposed to Japanese convention.
2 For further descriptions of Emperor Showa's dying, death,

and funeral, see Norma Filed, In the Realm of the Dying
Emperor: A Portrait of Japan at Century's End (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1991) and Takashi Fujitani, "Electronic
Pageantry and Japan's 'Symbolic Emperor,'" The Journal of
Asian Studies 51, n o .4 (November 1992), pp. 824-50.
373
honor, Hirohito's passing was reported by every newspaper
(except the Okinawa dailies and the organ of the Japan
Communist Party which are staunchly anti-emperor) as a
hogyo--an exalted term for death reserved for a Japanese
emperor.3 Even leftists were amazed by the compelling power
of tenno-sei (the modern emperor system) that Hirohito's
ceremonialized death somehow reinforced.
Hirohito's death marked the end of an era that spanned
sixty-three years of modern Japanese history--from the rise
of imperialism to catastrophic defeat, from the American
Occupation to Japan's "economic miracle." Showa's close,
which preceded the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor,
stimulated new public discourses ranging from cultural
nostalgia to bitter socio-political criticism. At the heart
of these debates was the question that had long been shrouded
in myth and taboo: What was Hirohito's accountability for
the "Fifteen-Year War" whose pall overhung the entire Showa
3 As Field writes: "According to standard dictionaries, only

four Japanese can have this special word for death applied
to their passing: the emperor, the empress, the dowager
empress, and the grand dowager empress. All other Japanese,
all other human beings for that matter, die ordinary deaths,
linguistically speaking." See Field, Dying Emperor, p. 23.
374
period?4 Intellectuals and politicians alike protested the
entrenched national campaign to promote Hirohito as a
constitutionalist and a pacifist, 5 and risked their security
against rightist attacks by forcing discussion of the
emperor's culpability in the perpetration of atrocities and
aggression committed under his imperial command between 1931
and 1945.6 This domestic debate, which ushered in a new
4 This has become the accepted scholarly term for the series
of wars starting with the Manchurian Incident of September
13, 1931, the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, and the Pacific
War triggered by Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941.
5 At the time of Hirohito's death, commercial television

stations broadcast for fifty-four hours without advertising
breaks; their programming centered exclusively on the
emperor and the history of his times in a fervent campaign
to glorify Hirohito's memory and put to rest any questions
surrounding his accountability for the "Fifteen-Year War."
Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru in his official announcement
expressing grief spoke of the late monarch's devotion to
"world peace and the happiness of the Japanese people" as
part of a national attempt to cast Hirohito as the exemplary
constitutionalist and pacifist.
6 On January 18, 1990, a rightist shot and wounded the mayor

of Nagasaki, Motojima Hitoshi, for his statement in the city
assembly that some responsibility for the war rested with
Hirohito. After the death of the emperor, the diaries and
memoirs of certain persons who had been close to him were
published, attracting much attention. These documents
confirmed that Hirohito, from his enthronement in 1927 until
the defeat of the war, was not necessarily a constitutional
monarch or pacifist, much less a puppet or mere robot of
the military. As commander-in-chief of the army and navy,
Hirohito held the position of highest-ranking leader in the
375
imperial reign and set the stage for the 1990s, was further
aggravated by demands from East and Southeast Asian countries
that Japan make formal apologies for its brutal colonial
rule. Further, the emergence of long-suppressed evidence
proving the Imperial Army'’s practices of forcing Korean
nationals into slave labor and prostitution sparked
widely-publicized calls for Japanese government reparation.
The debates surrounding the "emperor phenomenon" and
the crumbling of what one intellectual called "the greatest
political myth of postwar history" dominated public
discourse in the early 1990s.7 The struggle to grasp the
reality of recent history and the will to challenge social
taboos surrounding tennd-sei were increasingly evident in
contemporary media, journalism, and academia. Stimulated
by these changes, Japanese art of the "post-Hirohito era"
demonstrated a new level of engagement with social and
political issues. Unlike earlier criticisms of the
right-wing imperialism based on leftist ideological
principles, the new subversion addressed the broader
execution of the war, and was thus implicated. See Awaya

Kentaro, "Emperor Showa's Accountability for War," Japan
Quarterly 37, n o .4 (October-December 1991).
7 Ibid.
376
questions of the emperor system itself as a mechanism of
social control. Yanagi Yukinori's (b. 1959) Hinomaru series
(1990-present), for instance, has used Japan's prewar
"Rising Sun" flag to criticize the forces of nationalism.
Although the flag has been banned since 1945 because of its
associations with militarism, fascism, and emperor-worship,
it continues to represent Japanese nationalism as much as
the swastika triggers images of the Third Reich. Yanagi's
Hinomaru Illumination presents a billboard-size neon "Rising
Sun" flag, whose flashing sequences expose the mesmerizing
economic agenda underlying the myth of imperial power.
Replicas of haniwa, the terracotta tomb figures used as
symbolic human offerings to emperors during the Kofun Period
(300-710) , are lined in rows that simulate Japanese employees
poised to perform their daily group ritual of singing the
company song. As a politically-charged satire, Hinomaru
Illumination is an overt critique of how "Japan, Inc." has
coopted tenno-sei to further a nationalist cause of global
economic power.
The critique of political, economic, and social systems
found in contemporary Japanese art fulfills what historian
Fujitani Takashi observed in the nineties aftermath of
Emperor Showa's death: "[T]here is no denying that the
377
general flattening out of culture— the collapse of history,
meaning, and eternal truths--may, in fact, be stimulating
a new search for authenticity...."8 Incorporating images
and texts that are embedded in Japanese socio-political
contexts, recent Japanese art culminates the postwar
avant-garde strategy to make the subject of art the complex
nature of modern Japanese being.
Recent Japanese history was deeply affected by world
events. The collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolution
of Eastern bloc Communism, symbolized by the fall of the
Berlin Wall, freed Japan from yet another structure of
national self-identity: its long-contended role as the U.S.
Pacific "partner" in the Cold War. The realignment of
geopolitical power marking the dissolution of Communist
ideology, and the consequent burgeoning of capitalist
commodity cultures in the former U.S.S.R. and satellite
countries as well as China, paralleled the rise of the
"postmodern phenomenon" in Japan. Partly in response to its
identification by leading postmodern theorists abroad as
8 Fujitani, "Electronic Pageantry," p. 849.
378
a paradigm site of the postmodern condition,9 postmodernism
as critical discourse and literary and artistic style usurped
the role once reserved for Marxism, radicalism, and
avant-gardism in pre-high-economic-growth Japan. The
phenomenal popularity of a book about poststructuralism by
a young scholar named Asada Akira, Structure and Power (Kozo
to chikara), announced the advent of postmodernism as the
"new academism" in 1983. According to Asada, the postmodern
is the "ideal limit" of history and knowledge, the
"rhizomatic, the disseminated, the dispersed, and the
multiple— that which is affirmative of difference as
9 In the 1989 symposium, "Japan and Postmodernism," Stephen

Melville summarized that: "Japan just is the postmodern....
[T]he Western discourse on postmodernism is haunted by a
certain 'Japan' that is the simultaneous site of capitalism
and Godzilla, of the microchip as an achievement of
capitalism and of that same chip as the promise of something
'beyond capitalism.' 'Japan:' land not only of the cassette
player, the VCR, and the DAT, but the land where these things
multiply internally into high-speed dubbing decks, and start
opening the imagination of Bladerunner or William Gibson's
technopunk science fiction.... [A] t a presumably more
sophisticated level, 'Japan' promised a kind of heaven of
theory where there are no choices to be made among Jameson,
Lyotard, Baudrillard, Debord...." See Melville, "Picturing
Japan: Reflections of the Workshop" in Japan and
Postmodernism, p. 280. See also Chapter One in this book
for references to this point.
379
difference."10 Central to Asada'’s thesis was the notion of
knowledge as play (asobi); texts are to be treated as
instrumental manuals and reading practiced as a form of
snacking and escape. Knowledge, in Asada's postmodern world,
is reduced to a matter of communication.
The image of Japan as the quintessential postmodern
derived from Japan's period of high economic growth.
Requiring enormous social consensus, the so-called "economic
miracle" of the 1960s and seventies transformed not only
the Japanese economy but the entire society as well. On the
surface, Japan has become a vast amalgam of disparate signs,
styles, and structures culled indiscriminately from world
cultures, past and present. Mass media, television, and
advertising have created a "hyperreal" space— a space of
"simulation" in Jean Baudrillard's terms— that produces an
apparently meaningless juxtaposition of fragmentary
languages and images. Music critic Hosokawa Shuhei, for
instance, refers to the culture of Tokyo punk-rockers as
"pidgin Japanese" because they appropriate foreign words
and signs in contexts that would be unthinkable in the
10 Marilyn Ivy's summary of Asada Akira in "Critical Texts,

Mass Artifacts: The Consumption of Knowledge in Postmodern
380
original, "floating with no definite meaning at all."11
Indeed, Japan's ultra-high information society may well
demonstrate the postmodern "crisis of representation"
whereby the virulence of capital has turned everything into
commodified signs, and whereby national borders have
dissolved in the speed, replication, and multiplicity of
the Internet and information technologies.12
The vision of Japan as the paradigmatic commodity
culture proliferating with simulacra and pastiche is
exemplified with brilliant insouciance in the work of
Morimura Yasumasa (b. 1951). Born in Osaka--the traditional
center of "low" rather than "high" culture and
entertainment--Morimura emerged in the mid-1980s with a
series of photographic revisualizations of Renaissance,
Impressionist, and modernist masterpieces in which his image
supplants those of world-renowned Western subjects.
Impersonating in costume Manet's Olympia or Duchamp's altar
Japan" in Postmodernism and Japan, p. 29.
11 Hosokawa Shuhei, "On Tokyo-go: Pidgin Japanese" in Against

Nature: Japanese Art of the Eighties (New York and Tokyo:
Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University et
al, 1989), p. 38.
12 Ivy, p. 24.
381
ego, Rrose Selavy, Morimura engages in a theatrical act of
gender transformation reminiscent of Kabuki onnagata (the
celebrated male actors who take female roles on the stage).
Yet his work also performs cultural, racial, and temporal
intervention. By splicing himself into the narrative of
Western cultural legacy, Morimura demonstrates that
"modernization" is a process of reproduction whose result
is inevitably a hybrid imitation. His work plays upon the
various inversions wrought by the contemporary dissemination
of Western art historical icons via mass media, whereby
unique cultural treasures are reduced to cheap, global image
information. "This is Morimura's individual, ironic approach
to art history," critic Murata Makoto has written, "and at
the same time it is surely a ferocious critique of the rather
cockeyed way in which the Japanese look at Western art."13
What appears as ostentatious Occidentalism to a Western
viewer is actually Morimura's stylized critique of Japan's
culture of appropriation and commodification.14 The history
13 Murata Makoto, quoted in Christos M. Joachimedes and

Norman Rosenthal, eds. Metropolis, exh. cat. (New York,
Rizzoli, 1991), p. 301.
14 See Norman Bryson, "Yasumasa Morimura," Art forum 32, n o .5

(January 1994), p. 71.
382
of art, from Valasquez to Van Gogh, is seen refracted through
Morimura's cute but perverse androgyny. Ultimately,
Morimura's games within the Western classical and Pop
imaginary are far more than illustrations of a postmodern
style: They confront the freakish consequences of Japan's
obsessive drive to modernize, and hybridize, identity.
Yet however much the socio-economic reality of
"meta-mass age" Japan conforms to, or generates, the
postmodern moment, the real project of Japanese
postmodernism has been the analytic sundering of "Japanese
modernism" from Western modernism. As art critic Amano Taro
has stated, "an investigation of modernism in the Japanese
context must be made before one can proceed to discuss today's
postmodernism. Regardless of how it may be understood in
the world of philosophy... in the popular understanding,
Japanese postmoderism is perceived as nothing more than a
counterculture."15 Literary critic Karatani Kojin's The
Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (Kindai Nihon hungaku
no kigen), published in 1980, was among the first popular
15 Amano Taro, trans . by Robert Reed, "Hinomaru Illumination:

Japanese Art of the 1990s" in Sengo Nihon no zen'ei
bijutsu/Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky,
exh. cat. (Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art, 1994), p. 202.
383
attempts to interpret Japanese literature since the Meiji
era--resisting the usual hegemonic narratives that reinforce
the notion of the West as center, origin, and arbiter of
modernity while marginalizing, suppressing, and even
dismissing the cultural productions of the non-West.16 His
critique of the "modern" as desirable, or even the use of
"modern" as a neutral descriptive or chronological term,
articulated the emergent Japanese postmodern project and
influenced contemporary Japanese cultural studies abroad.17
8.1 On Ruins and the Critique of Nationhood
In 1979, architect Isozaki Arata undertook the design
for a large-scale project in Tsukuba Science City, the first
"new town" commissioned and planned by the national
government in postwar Japan. Located forty miles from Tokyo
in a rural setting, the planners' intention was to centralize
in Tsukuba various university and government research
facilities that had been scattered throughout Tokyo.
16Brett de Bary, "Introduction" in Karatani Kojin, trans.

by Brett de Bary, Origins of Modern Japanese Literature
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 2-3.
17 For anthologies of new Japanese cultural studies based

on Japanese postmodern discourse, see Postmodernism and
384
Isozaki's program for the Tsukuba Center Building was a
complex of commercial and cultural facilities including a
hotel, concert hall, shopping mall, and community
center— projected upon a place that had virtually no organic
urban history of its own. Isozaki's proposal, which was a
reaction against modernist city planning, aimed to recover
and incorporate elements of "magic, labyrinth, theatricality,
complexity, ambiguity, symbol, and neighborhood."18
But the real issue underlying Isozaki's quest for
Tsukuba's scheme was how to represent the Japanese nation
state, whose elaborate but somehow empty power had produced
the project in the first place. He explained that the image
he assembled to represent the Japanese state conveyed an
ambiguous identity: Isozaki conceived a"shifting, revolving,
flickering style...in which continuity is lacking and
confusion is allowed to persist, toward the negative for
the sake of motivation."19 The second critical element in
Isozaki's plan was a sunken oval plaza (the inverse of
Japan and Boundary 2.
18 Isozaki Arata, "Of City, Nation, and Style" in

Postmodernism and Japan, pp. 50-51.
19 Ibid., p. 57.
385
Michelangelo's Capitoline Hill in Rome) which functioned
as a metaphoric expression of the "hollowness" at the center
of the Japanese nation state.20 Isozaki's conception of Japan
anticipated and stimulated the 1980s discourse on the
"negative" nature of Japanese national (thereby cultural)
identity. Positing Japan as an amalgam culture governed by
invisible consensus, Isozaki explained his image of Tsukuba:
If my trick of inverting the Capitoline piazza is

criticized as no more than a conventional simile, I
would vindicate myself by invoking the metaphor of
[Velasquez's] LasMeninas. The architect has been hired
not by a king, but by a state, and requested to do a
portrait of the state. And yet the countenance of the
state is not as clear as that of an existing ruler,
and even if it were, I feel that I would not want it
to emerge clearly. In order to deal with this
ambivalence, I made the center simply a space--a void. ..
If one were to give a metaphor for the void center,
it might be that everything— line of vision, water,
meaning, representation--is devoured by the earth
itself as a result of its own form.21
Isozaki's series of silkscreen prints that show his
construction of Tsukuba City Center as future ruins suggest
a related critique to his controversial notion of "the nation
20 Ibid., p. 58.
21 Ibid., p. 62.
386
as void."22 Modern Japanese history has proven the humanist
notion of the city as an eternal and inviolable concrete
structure tragically irrelevant: In this century, Tokyo has
witnessed destruction and transformation three times with
the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, the extensive Allied
fire-bombings in 1945, and again in the 1980s and 1990s when
many of the early postwar structures were torn down and
replaced as part of the real estate and construction boom.
Subjected to massive pollution, overcrowding, and haphazard
proliferation, Tokyo has become the image of a "huge,
anti-human ruin."23 A significant exhibition at the Setagaya
Art Museum, My Home Sweet Home in Ruins: The Urban Environment
and Art in Japan (1992), addressed many of Tokyo's
socio-economic issues that generated what curator Shioda
22 Isozaki's concept of the "empty center" relates to Nishida

Kitaro's discourse on "place of nothingness" {mu no basho) .
It also reflects a broader contemporary debate in Japan on
the nature of the imperial institution. Isozaki among others
have adopted Roland Barths's "empty center" reading of
Japanese symbolic space and mentality as the final and a
priori interpretative principle for understanding the
"emperor system." See Fujitani, "Electronic Pageantry" for
a discussion of the "empty center" discourse.
23 Shioda Jun'ichi, trans. by Stan Anderson, "The City and

Contemporary Art" in Haikyo toshite no waga ie: Toshi to
gendai bijutsu/My Home Sweet Home in Ruins: The Urban
Enviroment and Art in Japan, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Setagaya Art
387
Jun'ichi called "a city unsuited to ordinary living."24
Writing on photographer Miyamoto Ryuji (b. 1947), whose work
documents urban demolition sites, Shioda explores how
Miyamoto's ruins are not the result of "wartime violence,
accident, or natural disaster" but rather the result of
"prosaic economic activities":
The ruins photographed by Miyamato Ryuji do not allow

[any] sort of sentimental meditation on antiquity. All
buildings are material objects. As such, they are fated
to deteriorate over time and become ruins. But the ruins
found in modern cities are not often created by the
natural effects of time. The Pavilion of Tsukuba
Expo '85, for example, was intended to be temporary.
After a short period of use it was torn down without
hesitation. As soon as the ruins appear, they are
cleared away and new building begins. The process of
destruction is accelerated and repeated. Ruins are mass
produced.25
The nostalgic dissection of what has been lost--or what
shall in the future become lost--in the onslaught of Japan's
rapid economic growth is one expression of the contemporary
critique of the Japanese nation. For other artists working
in the 1990s, the mechanism of nationhood itself was the
Museum, 1992), p. 119.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
388
object of their analysis. The work of Yanagi Yukinori is
representative of a trend among younger Japanese artists
who emerged after Hirohito's death to deconstruct the social,
political, and economic systems that have long sustained
Japanese national identity. Yanagi, Murakami Takashi (b.
1962), Nakahashi Katsushige (b. 1955), and Nakamura Masato
(b. 1963) are significant in the recent history of Japanese
art for exposing Japan's modern national myths and
challenging the cultural taboos which perpetuate them. Their
work addresses issues relevant to the broader contemporary
discourse of nations as "imagined communities"--cultural
critic Benedict Anderson's term defining nationalism as "a
system of cultural signification" and the "representation
of social life rather than the discipline of social polity. "2S
One of Yanagi's earliest investigations into the
problems of nationhood in a post-Cold War world was World
Flag Ant Farm. This large-scale installation was composed
of some 200 plexiglass boxes containing sand paintings of
flags representing the member countries of the United Nations
Inhabiting these flag-boxes and slowly eroding their
26 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections

on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York:
389
pristine patterns were thousands of live red ants which moved
throughout the system via plastic tubing. Over the course
of several weeks, the flags and their boundaries gradually
disintegrated as the ants burrowed into and transported
millions of grains of colored sand, illustrating the fiction
of boundaries in an era of mass networking and consumption.
World Flag Ant Farm is an allegory of the effects of
international trade, immigration, and mass relocation which
are rendering the concept of "nationhood, " what a flag stands
for, obsolete. Further, by situating Japan within this system
of inevitable erosion, Yanagi challenges Japan's
quasi-religious national myth of being a homogenous "family"
united under the emperor. Increasingly, the suppressed
existence of Japanese minorities such as Koreans, Ainu, and
the "outcaste" burakumin, and the recent influx of illegal
workers from the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the Middle
East, are discrediting Japan's narrative of legitimacy in
which the productive consensus is justified in racial terms.
Where earlier generations of political subversives may have
argued for the emperor system's abolition on ideological
grounds, Yanagi's doubts represent a broader level of
Verso, 1987).
390
contemporary critique aimed at deconstructing the
socio-cultural system of Japanese nationality itself:
The framework of common ideologies has collapsed and

ethnic issues are rising. Do the ghettos of nations,
ethnic groups, and religions truly determine personal
identities? The red cover of my Japanese passport is
imprinted with the crest of the Imperial family. When
I first received this passport five years ago, I
remember wondering why my passport had the Imperial
family's crest on its cover. Every Japanese, including
the members of the Japanese Red Army and those who fought
against the construction of Narita Airport, must
possess a passport imprinted with the crest of the
Imperial family when flying from Narita Airport. With
my passport in front of me, I gradually began to wonder
if I too might be, after all, a clay figurine, a haniwa .2'
In these and other works, Japanese artists of the 1990s
went beyond conventional Marxist political/economic
critiques to address the process of national/cultural
authority itself. By revealing the elements that compose
Japan's powerful national image, they are identifying what
cultural critic Homi K. Bhabha calls the "ambivalence" of
cultural narration. "For the nation," he writes, "as a form
of cultural elaboration (in the Gramscian sense), is an
agency of ambivalent narration that holds culture at its
27 Yanagi Yukinori, "A Japanese Clay Figurine's Thoughts"

in Wandering Position: Yukinori Yanagi, exh. cat. (Naoshima:
Benesse House Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, 1992), p.
391
most productive position, as a force for 'subordination,
fracturing, diffusing, reproducing,' as much as 'producing,
creating, forcing, g u i d i n g " 28 In a strategy that diverges
significantly from the postwar avant-garde, whose relevance
has become increasingly historicized, the project of
Japanese art today is to parody the potent signs of political
power in order to expose their inherent relation to, and
cooption by, the "cultural construction of nationness."29
8.2 Postwar Avant-Garde as History
In his essay, "Japan's Long Postwar: The Trick of Memory
and the Ruse of History", Harry Harootunian writes : "It would
be hard...to find a national experience that has dwelled
so long and longingly on the postwar."30 Harootunian, writing
5. Translation adapted by author.
28 Homi K. Bhabha, "Introduction: Narrating the Nation" in

Nation and Narration, ed. by Homi K. Bhabha (London and New
York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 3-4.
29 Bhabha, "DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins

of the Modern Nation" in Nation and Narration, p. 292.
30 Harry Harootunian, "Japan's Long Postwar: The Trick of

Memory and the Ruse of History" in Tomiko Yoda and Harry
Harootunian, eds., Millenial Japan: Rethinking the Nation
in the Age of Recession. (Durham, N C : Duke University Press,
The South Atlantic Quarterly, Fall 2000), p. 716.
392
on the discourse on the meaning of postwar stimulated by,
but extending well-beyond, the fiftieth anniversary of World
War II in Japan, in 1995, notes that the discourse:
...has continued uninterrupted as if the nation were

still approaching its moment of remembrance, with
writers, thinkers and scholars persistently engaging
in the "experience" (taiken) Japanese lived through
during the U.S. Occupation. Yet the continuation of
this discourse in the repetition of its structure has
been enabled by transmuting a physical-military
occupation into a mental occupation and subsequently
into a cultural unconscious as constraining the real
thing.31
To many interpreters, the new Heisei era, inaugurated
in 1989 with Akihito's succession to the imperial throne,
marked the collapse of certain ideological myths that had
regulated Japan since the Meiji era: For the first time in
modern Japanese history, the emperor was no longer presented
as a divine being. The change in reign era was more or less
contemporaneous with the Hanshin earthquake, the Aum
Shinrikyo's sarin attack on the Tokyo subways, and the demise
of Japan's party factions and steep decrease in voter
participation--all of which signaled the collapse of the
postwar state's legitimacy. But Harootunian argues that "the
31 Ibid. , p . 717 .
393
old order has still not vanished and a new one has not yet
disclosed itself...sengo [postwar] has not ended because
the past that gave it birth has not ended."32 Harootunian
cites the photographer Tomatsu Shomei who wrote in 1981 that
the U.S. Occupation had indeed created a "postwar without
end."
While the larger obsessions of Japanese national
identity and modernity may indeed be suspended in a zone
that resists historicizing, the "postwar avant-garde" has
emerged in Japanese art historical discourse as a period
defined by a definite chronology within the larger
constructed continuum of gendai bijutsu.33 Unlike national
memory that it occasionally marks, avant-garde cultural
production can be chronologized between the period of its
emergence outside institutional structures (often as
Anti-Art critiquing commodification) and its acceptance
inside as Art (and consequently, as commodity) . This concept
informs the fifty-year chronology of gendai bijutsu compiled
by artists Tone Yasunao and Hikosaka Naoyoshi for the monthly
32 Ibid. , p . 720 .
33 See Reiko Tomii, "Historicizing 'Contemporary Art': Some

Discursive Practices in Gendai Bijutsu in Japan,"
394
art magazine, Bijustu techo, in 1972 .34 They clearly posit
a definition of gendai bijutsu from 1916-1968 as a "dynamic,
not fixed, concept"35 that exists outside, and in opposition
to, the social, political, and cultural establishment of
its time. Both artists were considered to be zen'ei
(avant-garde): Tone as a member of the experimental Group
Ongaku and the younger Hikosaka as a member of the radical
Bikyoto group. They write:
...we can discover bijutsu either as segments outside

the art establishment or as "expressions" [hyogen] not
yet institutionalized, and visualize the process of
their transformation into "expressions" socially
integrated and fully institutionalized.36
Recognized as the first extensive survey of avant-garde
art in Japan, Tone and Hikosaka's chronology is divided into
two parts: Part I from 1916 to 1960 and Part II from 1955
to 1968. The overlap of five years is significant as they
forthcoming.
34 Tone Yasunao, Naoyoshi Hikosaka, and Akatsuka

Yukio, "Nenpyo: Gendai bijutsu no 50-nen, 1916-1968"
(Chronology: Fifty years of contemporary art, 1916-1968),
2 issues, Bijutsu techo (April 1972, pp. 1-251 and May 1972,
p p . 25-186).
35 Ibid., p. 13.
36 Ibid.
395
define 1955 to 1960 in Part I as a period when the prewar
and immediate postwar avant-gardes entered into official
culture; in Part II, 1955 (when the first issue of the Gutai
journal was published) marks the beginning of the postwar
avant-garde as defined by anti-art and conceptualist
tendencies that emerged fully in the 1960s and were showing
signs of entering official culture by 1968.
By 1972 when the chronology was published, sengo
(postwar) as a descriptive of cultural/temporal identity
grounded in the Japanese experience had been subsumed by
gendai (contemporary) and its conception of a new spatial
and temporal cultural identity of "international
contemporaneity" (kokusaiteki na dojisei). This notion
shaped the historic 10th Tokyo Biennial exhibition curated
by art critic Nakahara Yusuke and held at the Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1970. Entitled Between Man
and Matter, this show presented the work of forty artists
from Japan, Europe, and the United States who shared a
conceptualist approach to installation art in their diverse
but connected movements of Mono-ha, Arte Povera, and
396
Minimalism.37 This show, which the organizers scheduled to
coincide with Expo '10 that was itself designed as a
spectacular demonstration of Japanese "international
contemporaneity," served to support the image of Japan as
an economic superpower that had emerged from its postwar
reconstruction to achieve full economic and cultural parity
with its wartime victor and postwar occupier, America.
Despite the complex hold of "postwar" over the Japanese
imagination for decades to come, the convergence of these
trends around 1970 definitely mark the passing of the
"postwar avant-garde" as a cultural practice.
As this study shows, artists in both prewar and postwar
Japan defined themselves in opposition to the entrenched
systems of social, cultural, and political autocracy and
bureaucracy. In prewar Japan, the object of opposition was
cast as the ultranationalist, militarist state and its
tennosei polity. In postwar Japan, it was recast as the
corporatist, single-party state and its Americanized brand
of postindustrial capitalism. In both periods, the
avant-garde which had its roots in revolutionary aesthetic
37 Dai-10 kai Nihon kokusai bijutsu-ten: Ningen to

busshitsu/Tokyo Biennale '70i Between Man and Matter (Tokyo:
397
styles of abstraction, expressionism, and conceptualism and
had arisen in opposition to academic, salon-based schools
promoting various styles of reactionary realism, became
associated with leftist movements. The left— socialism,
anarchism, Marxism and communism--defined itself in
opposition to the oppressive systems that governed the
Japanese state and defined the conditions of modern factory
and city life. Avant-garde artists were natural allies of
Japan's leftist movements, whose rhetoric can be found in
the writings of the Futurist Art Association and Mavo of
the prewar period, and of the Reportage photographers, Hi
Red Center, Fluxus, and Mono-ha of the postwar period. The
left's causes were the avant-garde's causes, as in protest
against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty; and the left's
critiques became the content of radical art, as in
Americanization.
However, the left's ideological mandate that art be
an agent for political and social revolution ultimately
failed in Japan, as elsewhere, in part because the official
style of art proscribed by leftist movements known as social
realism was stylistically retrograde, that is, it did not
Mainichi Shinbun, 1970) .
398
condone abstraction, expressionism, or conceptualism known
as the language of "individualism." Thus Proletariat Art
of the early 1930s was dismissed by abstract and surrealist
painters because it was too "academic"; and Reportage
painting and photojournalism of the early fifties, which
were the official art movements of the J.C.P. , were dismissed
by Anti-Art and VIVO artists because they lacked
"subjectivity." Unlike Marxist critical and philosophical
discourse during these same decades, which was recognized
as the dominant mode of inquiry in the Japanese academy by
the mid-1930s, the practice of official Marxist art posed
a fundamental contradiction on the matter of style. Thus,
while the visual artists of modern Japan used leftist
rhetoric to shape their critique of modernity, colonialism,
and capitalism, for example, they ultimately failed to engage
art as an agent for fundamental leftist revolution. They
were vigorous Marxists, but not rigorous ones.
By 1970, the role of the avant-garde artist as social,
cultural, and political agitator diminished, in Japan as
elsewhere. The rise of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art
in the US propelled the underground, peripheral movements
of abstraction, expressionism, and conceptionalism to the
mainstream, where they have dominated the museum, academy,
399
and market for modern art ever since. Perhaps critic Miyakawa
Atsushi's discourse on gendai bijustu signaled the same in
Japan: By reclaiming art, even Anti-Art, to the territory
of pure aesthetics, he silenced the possibilities for art
to serve as critical social discourse. Writing in his
influential 1966 essay, "The Aesthetics of Impossibility,"
Miyakawa states:
So then, does Art no longer exist? That would be simple.

But the condition of today's art after Anti-Art is that
fundamentally, Art can never cease to be....Art
presents itself not as a possibility that it exists, oo
but as an impossibility that is does not exist.
-k ~k
The case of Hi Red Center artist Akasegawa Genpei's
¥1,000 note series and his court battle to defend his art
against counterfeit laws suggests the problems of how the
avant-garde functions, or malfunctions, within modernity
itself. On a formal level, Akasegawa's reproductions of
Japanese money, conceived as Anti-Art, as an engagement with
the concrete, ultimately entered the canon of that
38 Miyakawa Atsushi, "Fukand-sei no bigaku" (Aesthetics of

Impossibility), Miyakawa Atsushi chsakushu (Anthology of
essays by Miyakawa Atsushi), vol.1 (Tokyo: Bijustu
Shuppan-sha, 1982), p. 174-75.
400
now-historicized gesture. By becoming classicized they have
moved from their original and radical embodiment of the
concrete to abstract rationalizations within modern art
history. Ironically, they have also become highly valuable
works of "Art." The forces of social and political
abstraction that the avant-garde has always willed to negate
manage, in the end, not only to survive but to prevail. What
the avant-garde, by practice and ideology, attempts to
overcome— the complacency and terror of bourgeois
modernity--proves ultimately indifferent to its assaults.
Its hegemony, like the Tokyo Metropolitan District Court's
authority, is monolithic and victorious. But if the
avant-garde's antics are destined to become enshrined within
the archive or museum, the consciousness and experience of
the everyday they have repeatedly attempted to "pierce
through" are, for the time being, still with us.
401
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compiled by Alexandra Munroe with Kashiwagi Tomoo, Reiko

Tomii and with the coorperation of Nakajima Masatoshi.
This bibliography is organized as follows:
1. General References in Western Languages

A. Books
B. Exhibition Catalogues
C. Magazine Articles and Special Issues/Features
2. General References in Japanese
A. Books
1) Dictionaries and Directories
2) Series (Zenshu)
3) Books
B. Exhibition Catalogues
1) Annuals and Biennales
2) Thematic Exhibitions
C. Magazines
3. Artists and Groups
Entries are arranged chronologically, unless otherwise

noted.
1. GENERAL REFERENCES IN WESTERN LANGUAGES

A. BOOKS
(Listed alphabetically)
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402
Arima, Tatsuo. The Failure of Freedom: A Portrait of Modern
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1984 .
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Ko Won. The Buddhist Elements in Dada: A Comparison of
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Art in Flux-III. Fukuoka: Fukuoka Art Museum, 1993.
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405
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1974 .
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Rimer: 80-94. Stanford and Washington D.C.: Stanford
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the Interwar Years. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
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and Hudson, 1998.
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Thomas Guerin. New York: John Weatherhill and Tokyo:
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Michel Tapie. Barcelona: Center international de
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Avent-Garde, 1905-1931. Berekely: Univesity of California
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Words in Motion: Modern Japanese Calligraphy. Washington,

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Yanagita Kunio . The Legends of Tono. Trans, by Ronald Morse .

Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1975.
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2000 .
Zizek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. New York:
408
Verso, 1989.
B. EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
The New Japanese Painting and Sculpture. New York: The Museum
of Modern Art, 1966.
Contemporary Japanese Art: Fifth Japan Art Festival

Exhibition. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
1970.
Szarkowski, John, and Yamagishi Shoji, eds. New Japanese

Photography. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1974.
MA: Espace-temps du Japon. Paris: Musee des arts decoratifs,

1978 .
London, Barbara J. Video from Tokyo to Fukui and Kyoto. New

York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1979.
Yamagishi Shoji, ed. Japan: A Self-Portrait. New York:

International Center of Photography, 197 9.
Richie, Donald. Japanese Experimental Film: 1960-1980. New

York, The American Federation of Arts, 1981.
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Un regard sur 1'art japonais d'aujoud’hui. Geneva: Musee

Rath and Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, 1983.
New Video: Japan. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1985.
Smith, Lawrence. Contemporary Japanese Prints: Symbols of

a Society in Transition. London: British Museum, 1985.
Japon des avant-gardes 1910-1970. Paris: Centre Georges

Pompidou, 1986.
Reconstructions: Avant-Garde Art in Japan 1945-1965. Oxford:

Museum of Modern Art, 1986.
409
Japon des avant-gardes 1910-1970: Reperes chronologiques
et documentaires. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1987.
Takashina Shuji, and Rimer, J. Thomas, with Bolas, Gerald

D. Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European
Painting. St. Louis: Washington University and Tokyo: The
Japan Foundation, 1987.
De Vree, Freddy, and Minemura Toshiaki. Europalia '89: Japan

in Belgium. Middelheim, Belgium: Openluchtmuseum voor
Beeldhouwkunst, 1989.
Zones of Love: Contemporary Art from Japan. Sydney: Museum

of Contemporary Art, 1991.
Cooke, Lynne, and Francis, Mark, eds. Carnegie International

1991. Pittsburgh: The Carnegie Museum of Art, 1992.
Baekeland, Frederick, and Moes, Robert. Modern Japanese

Ceramics in American Collections. New York: Japan Society,
1993.
Conant, Ellen P. et al. Nohonga: Transcending the Past:

Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-1968. St Louis: St Louis
Art Museum, 1995.
C. MAGAZINE ARTICLES AND SPECIAL ISSUES/FEATURES
Restany, Pierre. "Le Japon a rejoint l'art moderne en

prolongeant ses traditions" and "Les peintures japonaises
manquent de murs." La Galerie des Arts (November 1953),
pp. 16-25.
Love, Joseph. "The Poetic Image in Contemporary Japanese

Art" and "Tokyo." Art International 18, no. 7 (September
1974), pp. 33-34 and 55-56.
Chiba Shigeo. "Modern Art from a Japanese Viewpoint."

Artforum 23, no. 2 (October 1984), pp. 56-61.
Tono Yoshiaki. "Imagineering." Artforum 24, no. 5 (January

1986), pp. 72-75.
"Black Sun: The Eyes of Four." Aperture, special issue, no.
410
102 (Spring 1986)
Ball, Edward. "Image Forum and the Tokyo Underground."

Afterimage 15, no. 7 (February 1988), p. 3.
2. GENERAL REFERENCES IN JAPANESE

A. BOOKS
1) DICTIONARIES AND DIRECTORIES
Takiguchi Shuzo, et al., eds. Gendai bijutsu jiten

(Dictionary of Contemporary Art). Tokyo: Hakuyo-sha,
1952 .
Gendai bijutsu no yogo (Terms of Contemporary Art) . Tokyo:

Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1968.
Bijutsu shu-jiten: Gendai bijutsuka jiten (Concise

Dictionary: Who's Who in Contemporary Art) . Tokyo: Bijutsu
Shuppan-sha, 1970.
Gendai bijutsu shu-jiten: Jinko shizen no muko-gawa e

(Dictionary of Contemporary Art: Beyond the Artificial
and the Natural) . Mini Encyclopedia, no. 4. Tokyo: PARCO
Co., 1974.
Gendai jinbutsu jiten (Today's Who's Who) . Tokyo: The Asahi

Shimbun, 1984.
Gendai bijutsu jiten/A Handbook of Contemporary Art:

Anforumeru kara nyu peintingu made (From Informel to New
Painting). Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1984.
Kawakita Michiaki, ed. Kindai Nihon bijutsu jiten

(Encyclopedia of Modern Japanese Art). Tokyo: Kodansha,
1989.
Gendai geijutsu jiten/A New Handbook for Contemporary Art:

Aru deko kara nyu peintingu made (From Art Deco to New
Painting). Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1993.
2) SERIES (ZENSHU)
Nihon V: Gendai (Japan V: Contemporary Era). Sekai bijutsu
411
zenshu (World Art), vol. 28. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1955.
Kawakita Michiaki, ed. Sengo Nihon bijutsu (Postwar Japanese

Art). Sekai bijutsu zenshu (World Art), supplementary
volume. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1964.
Gendai no bijutsu (Contemporary Art). Vols. 1-12 and

supplementary volume. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1971-72.
Haryu Ichiro. Konnichi no Nihon no kaiga (Japanese Painting

Today). Gendai no kaiga (Contemporary Painting), vol. 23.
Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977.
Asu no bijutsu (Art of Tomorrow). Genshoku gendai Nihon no

bijutsu (Contemporary Japanese Art in Full Color) , vol. 18.
Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1980.
Gendai no kaiga (Contemporary Painting). Genshoku gendai

Nihon no bijutsu, vol.10. Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1980.
Showa no bijutsu (Art of the Showa Era) . Vols. 3-6. Tokyo:

The Mainichi Shimbun, 1990-91.
3) BOOKS
1960-nen dai-hyakka: Tokyo tawa kara Bitoruzu made

(Encyclopedia of the 1960s: From the Tokyo Tower to the
Beatles). Tokyo: JICC Shuppan-kyoku, 1991.
Akasegawa Genpei. Imaya akushon aru nomi!: "Yomiuri

andepandan" to iu gensho (Action Only, Now!: The
Phenomenon Called the "Yomiuri Independant"). Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobo, 1985.
Akiyama Yutokutaishi. Tsuzdku-teki geijutsu-ron: Poppu ato

no tatakai (Ordinary People on Art: Battles of Pop Art).
Tokyo: Doyo Bijutsu-sha, 1985.
B-Semi Schooling System, ed. Gendai bijutsu enshu

I/Contemporary Art Exercises I . Tokyo: Gendaikikakushitsu
Publishers, 1988.
, ed. Gendai bijutsu enshu I/Contemporary Art Exercises
412
XT. Tokyo: Gendaikikakushitsu Publishers, 1989.
, ed. Gendai bijutsu enshu III/Contemporary Art Exercises

III. Tokyo: Gendaikikakushitsu Publishers, 1991.
Chiba Shigeo. Gendai Bijutsu itsudatsu-shi 1945-1985 (A

History of Deviations in Contemporary Art 1945-1985).
Tokyo: Shobun-sha, 1986.
. Bijutsu no genzai chiten (The Present Place of

Contemporary Art). Tokyo: Goryu Shobo, 1990.
Document 40: Tokyo Garo no 40-nen (Document 40: Four Decades

of Tokyo Gallery). Tokyo: Tokyo Gallery, 1991.
Eto Jun. Watshi no dada: Sengo geijutsu no zen'yd (My Dada:

A Survey of Postwar Art). Tokyo: Kobundo, 1959.
Fujieda Teruo. Gendai bijutsu no tenkai/A Reading of

Contemporary Art. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1986.
Hanada Kiyoteru. Avangyarudo geijutsu (Avant-Garde Art).

Tokyo: Mirai-sha, 1954.
Hara Eizaburo, Fujieda Teruo, and Shinohara, Ushio. Kukan

no ronri: Nihon no gendai bijutsu (The Logic of Space:
Contemporary Japanese Art). Tokyo: Buronzu-sha, 1969.
Haryu Ichiro, ed. Geijutsu no zen’ei (The Avant-Garde of

Art). Tokyo: Kobundo, 1961.
. Sengo bijutsu seisui-shi (The Rise and Fall of Postwar

Japanese Art). Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki, 1979.
Hijikata Teiichi. Kindai chokoku to gendai chokoku (Modern

and Contemporary Sculpture) . Hijikata Teiichi chosaku-shu
(Collected Works of Hijikata Teiichi), vol. 12. Tokyo:
Heibonsha, 1977.
Iijima Kotard. Nihon shashin-shi o aruku (Walking Through

the History of Japanese Photography). Tokyo: Shincho-sha,
1992 .
Kikuhata Mokuma. Sengo bijutsu no genshitsu (The Essential

Nature of Postwar Art). Tokyo: Ashi Shobo, 1982.
413
. Sengo bijutsu to han-geijutsu (Postwar Art and Anti-Art)
Kikuhata Mokuma chosaku-shu (Writings of Kikuhata Mokuma)
vol. 2. Fukuoka: Kaicho-sha, 1993.
Kishi Tetsuo. Sengo shashin-shi (History of Postwar

Photography). Tokyo: Daviddo-sha, 1974.
Matsumoto Toshio. Hydgen no sekai: Geijutsu zen'ei-tachi

to sono shiso (The World of Expression: Artistic
Avant-Gardes and Their Thought). Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo,
1967.
Minemura Toshiaki. Heiko geijutsu-ten no 80-nendai

("Parallelism in Art" in the Eighties). Tokyo: Bijutsu
Shuppan-sha, 1992.
Miyakawa Atsushi. Kagami, kukan, imaju (Mirror, Space,

Image). Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1967.
Nakahara Yusuke. Ningen to busshitsu no aida: Gendai Bijutsu

no jokyo (Between the Human and the Matter: The State of
Contemporary Art). Tokyo: Tabata Shoten, 1972.
. Miru koto no shinwa (The Myth of Seeing). Tokyo:

Firumuato-sha, 1972.
Nakamura Hideki. Hydgen no ato kara jiko wa tsukurareru (The

Self Is Constructed After Expression). Tokyo: Bijutsu
Shuppan-sha, 1987.
Nantenshi Garo 30-nen 1960-1990 (Three Decades of Nantenshi

Gallery 1960-1990). Tokyo: Nantenshi Gallery, 1991.
Ooka Makoto. Nikugan no shiso: Gendai geijutsu no imi

(Thoughts of the Naked Eyes: the Meaning of Contemporary
Art). Tokyo: Chuo Koron-sha, 1969.
Sakai Tadayasu. Chokoku no niwa: Gendai chokoku no sekai

(Sculpture Garden: The World of Contemporary Sculpture).
Tokyo: Ozawa Shoten, 1982.
Sawaragi Noi. Shimyureshonizumu (Simulationism). Tokyo:

Yosen-sha, 1991.
414
Segi Shin'ichi, ed. Nihon andepandan-ten zen-kiroku
1949-1963 (Complete Documentation of the "Yomiuri
Independant Exhibitions" 1949-1963). Tokyo: Sobei-sha,
1993.
. Gendai bijutsu no san-ju-nen: Kokusai-ka jidai no shogen

(Three Decades of Contemporary Art: A Testimony to
Internationalization). Tokyo: Bijutsu Koron-sha, 1978.
. Sengo kuhakuki no bijutsu (Art of the blank period of

the postwar). Tokyo: Shichosha, 1996.
Shimizu Kusuo to Minami garo (Shimizu Kusuo and Minami

Gallery). Tokyo: Shimizu Kusuo to Minami Garo Kanko-kai,
1985.
Shirakawa Masao. Nihon no dada 1920-1970 (Japanese Dada

1920-1970). Tokyo: Hakuba Shobo, 1977.
Takashina, Shuji. "Shirakaba to kindai bijutsu" (Shirakaba

and modern art). In Nihon kindai no biishiki (Aesthetics
of modern Japan), 322-71. Tokyo: Seidosha, 1993.
Takiguchi Shozo. Konnichi no bijutsu to asu no bijutsu

(Today's Art, Tomorrow's Art) . Tokyo: The Yomiuri Shimbun,
1953.
. Ten (Point). Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1963.
Tani Arata. Kaiten-suru hyosho: Gendai bijutsu--datsu

posutomodan no shikaku (Representation Revolved:
Contemporary Art--An Viewpoint of Post-Postmodern).
Tokyo: Gendai Kikaku, 1992.
Tone, Yasunao. Gendai geijutsu no iso: Geijutsu wa shiso

tariuru-ka (Phases of Contemporary Art: Can Art Be
Philosophy?). Tokyo: Tabata Shoten, 1970.
Usami Keiji. Kaiga-ron: Egaku koto no fukken (On Painting:

Revival of Picture-Making) . Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1980.
Yamaguchi Katsuhiro, and Shimizu, Toru. Tsumetai pafomansu

(Cool Performances). Tokyo: Asahi Shuppan-sha, 1983.
. Robboto avangyarudo: 20-seiki geijutsu to kikai (Robot
415
Avant-Garde: Twentieth-Century Art and the Machine).
Tokyo: PARCO Co., 1985.
Yoshida Yoshie. Kaitai-geki no maku orite: 60-nendai zen'ei

bijutsu-shi (The Curtain Was Drawn on the Act of
Dismantlement: The History of Avant-Garde Art in the
Sixties). Tokyo: Zokei-sha, 1982.
B. EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
1) ANNUALS AND BIENNALES
Catalogues and/or related publications accompanied the

following exhibitions.
Ato nau/Art Now

Annual (1975-1990), biennale (1992-present); The Hyogo
Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe; 197 5-present.
Art Today
Irregular; The Seibu Museum of Art (1977-1980), The Museum
of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa (1986-1989), Sezon Museum
of Modern Art, Karuizawa (1991-1993); 1977-present.
Fukui kokusai bideo biennare/

Fukui International Video Biennale
Fukui Fine Arts Museum and others; 1985-present.
Gendai Nihon bijutsu-ten/

Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan
Biennale (1954-1989), annual (1991-present); organized by
The Mainichi Newspapers and The Japan International Art
Promotion Association and held at Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum; 1954-present.
Hara anyuaru/Hara Annual

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; 1980-1990.
Heiko geijutsu-ten/Parallelism in Art

Annual; curated by Minemura Toshiaki and held at the Ohara
Kaikan Hall, Tokyo; 1981-present.
Image Forum Festival

Annual; Image Forum, Tokyo; 198 7-present.
416
Nagoya kokusai biennare, ARTEC/
International Biennale in Nagoya-ARTEC. Organized by The
Council for the International Biennale in Nagoya, and held
at Nagoya City Art Museum and other sites; 198 9-present.
Japanese sections of the Venice and Sao Paolo Biennales and

the India Triennale. Organized by The Society for
International Cultural Relations (through 1972) and The
Japan Foundation, Tokyo (1972-present).
Kitakyushu biennare/Kitakyushu Biennale

Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art; 1991-present.
Konnichi no sakka-ten/Artists Today

Annual; Yokohama Citizen's Gallery; 1964-present.
Kyoto andepandan-ten/Kyoto Independant Exhibition

Annual; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; 1957-1990.
Kyoto biennare/Kyoto Biennale

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; 1972-1976.
Mito anyuaru/Mito Annual

Art Tower Mito Contemporary Art Gallery; 1991-present.
Nihon kokusai bij utsu-ten/International Art Exhibition,

Japan (1952-1959) and Tokyo biennare/Tokyo Biennale
(1961-1990)
Biennale; organized by The Mainichi Newspapers and The Japan
International Art Promotion Association, and held at Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum; 1952-1990.
Shiga anyuaru/Shiga Annual

The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga; 198 6-present.
Yomiuri andepandan-ten/Yomiuri Independant Exhibition

Annual; organized by The Yomiuri Newspapers and held at Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum; 1949-1963.
2) THEMATIC EXHIBITIONS
Sengo Nihon bijutsu no tenkai: Chusho hydgen no tayoka (The
Development of Postwar Japanese Art: The Diversification
of Abstraction) . Tokyo: The National Museum of Modern Art,
417
1973.
Gendai bijutsu no choan: Asu o saguru sakka-tachi (A Survey

of Contemporary Art: Artists Exploring the Future) . Kyoto:
The National Museum of Modern Art, 1977.
1960-nendai: Gendai bijutsu no tenkan-ki/The 1960s: A Decade

of Change in Contemporary Japanese Art. Tokyo: The
National Museum of Modern Art, 1981.
Ato nau 1970-1980 (Art Now 1970-1980). Kobe: The Hyoo

Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 1981.
Gendai bijutsu no doko, 1950-nendai: Sono ankoku to

kobo{Trends of Contemporary Japanese Art 1, the 1950s:
Gloom and Shafts of Light). Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum, 1981.
Dai 1-kai gendai geijutsu-sai: Takiguchi Shuzo to sengo

bijutsu (1st Festival of Contemporary Ar t : Shuzo Takiguchi
and Postwar Art) . Toyama: The Museum of Modern Art, 1982.
Dai 2-kai gendai geijutsu-sai: Geijutsu to kogaku (2nd

Festival of Contemporary Art: Art and Engineering).
Toyama: The Museum of Modern Art, 1983.
Gendai bijutsu ni okeru shashin: 1970-nendai no bijutsu o

chushin to shite/Photography in Contemporary Art
(Focusing on the Seventies). Tokyo: The National Museum
Gendai bijutsu no doko 2, 1960-nendai: Tayo-ka e no

shuppatsu/Trends of Japanese Art in the 1960s: Departure
Toward Multiplicity. Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum,
1983.
Gendai bijutsu no 40-nen/40 Years of Japanese Contemporary

Art. Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1985.
1960-nendai no kogei: Koyo-suru atarashii zokei/Forms in

Aggression: Formative Uprising of the 1960s. Tokyo: The
Sogetsu 60th Anniversary: Saigen--Sogetsu Ato Senta

(Reconstruction--S5getsu Art Center). Tokyo: The
418
Sogetsu-kai Foundation, 1987.
11-nin no 1965-75: Nihon no shashin wa kaerareta-ka (Eleven

Photographers in Japan: 1965-75). Yamaguchi: The
Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 1989.
Yamamura korekushon zen-sakuhin zuroku (The Yamamura

Collection: Complete Works). Kobe: Hyogo Prefectural
Minimaru ato/Minimal Art. Osaka: The National Museum of Art,

1990.
Nihon no kontenporari: Shashin o meguru 12 no shihyo/Japanese

Contemporary Photography: Twelve Viewpoints. Tokyo: Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1990.
Nihon no me to kukan: Mo hitotsu no modan dezain/Japanese

Aesthetics and Sense of Space: Another Aspect of Modern
Japanese Design. Tokyo: Sezon Museum of Art, 1990.
Saho no yugi: 90-nen haru, Bijutsu no genzai/The Game of

Manners; Japanese Art in 1990. Vols. 1-2. Mito: Art Tower
Mito, 1990.
Sengo shashin: Saisei to tenkai/Twelve Photographers in

Japan 1945-55. Yamaguchi: The Yamaguchi Prefectural
Museum of Art, 1990.
Nihon no Shureriarizumu 1925-1945/Surrealism in Japan.

Nagoya: Nagoya City Musuem of Art, 1990.
Shashin no kako to genzai (The Past and Present of

Photography). Tokyo: The National Museum of Modern Art,
1990.
Geijutsu to nichijo: Han-geijutsu, "han"-geijutsu/Japanese

Anti-Art: Now and Then. Osaka: National Museum of Art,
1991.
Kokusai gendai togei-ten: Henbo-suru togei/The

International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramics:
Metamorphosis of Contemporary Ceramics. Shigaraki: The
Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki Ceramic
Cultural Park, 1991.
419
Nihon no shashin, 1970-nendai: Toketsu sareta "toki" no
kioku/Japanese Photography in the 1970: Memories Frozen
in Time. Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography,
1991.
Shashin no 1955-1965: Jiritsu-shita eizo-gun/Photographs

in Japan 1955-65. Yamaguchi: The Yamaguchi Prefectural
Showa no kaiga dai 3-bu: Sengo bijutsu, sono saisei to tenkai/

Paintings from the Showa Era (1926-1989) , Part 3: 1945
and After. Sendai: The Miyagi Museum of Art, 1991.
Haikyo to shiteno waga-ya: Toshi to gendai bijutsu/My Home

Sweet Home in Ruins: The Urban Environment and Art in Japan.
Tokyo: Setagaya Art Museum, 1992.
Boronya-ten kikoku kinen: 70-nendai Nihon no zen'ei--koso

kara uchi naru katto e/Avanguardie Giapponesi degli Anni
70. Tokyo: Setagaya Art Museum, 1993.
20 seiki Nihon bijutsu saiken II: 1920 nendai (A

Reconsideration of 20th-century Japanese Art 2: The
1920's). Tsu: Mie Prefectural Museum of Art, 1996.
Mobo Moga/Modern boy, Modern Girl: Modernity in Japanese

Art, 1910-1935. Kamakura: Kamakura Museum of Modern Art
and Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998.
C. MAGAZINES
Unless otherwise noted, entries are all "special features."
"Nihon bijutsu no 10-nen" (A Decade of Japanese Art) . Sansai,

no. 104 (September 1958).
"Gendai bijutsu no boken" (Adventure of Contemporary Art).

Special supplementary issue. Bijutsu techo, no. 172 (April
1960).
"Gendai kaiga to machieru" (Contemporary Painting and

Matiere). Bijutsu techo, no. 193 (September 1961).
"Gendai Nihon no bijutsu no teiryu" (Undercurrents of
420
Contemporary Japanese Art). 29-part series of special
features. Bijutsu janaru, nos. 31-59 (July 1962-November
1966).
"Anforumeru igo no Nihon no bijutsu" (Japanese Art After

Informel). Special supplementary issue. Bijutsu techo,
no. 227 (October 1963) .
'"Andepandan-ten no 15-nen to sono yukue" (Fifteen Years of

the "Yomiuri Independant Exhibition" and Its Future).
Bijutsu techo, no. 234 (April 1964).
"Densetsu sengo bijutsu no 12" (Twelve Legends of Postwar

Art). Bijutsu techo, no. 240 (August 1964).
"Zen'ei eiga" (Avant-Garde Film). Hon no techo (December

1964) .
"Bijutsu: Sengo 20-nen" (Two Decades of Postwar Art) . Sansai,

no. 181 (January 1965).
"Geijutsu no chika enerugi: Nihon no andaguraundo"

(Underground Energy of Art: Japan's Underground) . Bijutsu
techo, no. 289 (November 1967).
"Chiho no zen'ei" (Regional Avant-Gardes). Bijutsu techo,

no. 296 (April 1968).
"Sekai e no michi: Nihon no gendai bijutsu" (The Way to the

World: Japanese Contemporary Art). Bijutsu techo, no.
300 (September 1968).
"Happening." Bijutsu techo, no. 301 (August 1968).
"Gadan no hokai" (The Collapse of the Art Establishment).

Bijutsu techo, no. 304 (November 1968).
"Gendai bijutsu to ningen no imeji" (Images of Human Beings

in Contemporary Art). Bijutsu techo, no. 305 (December
1968) .
"Geijutsu no henbo" (Transformations of Art) . Bijutsu techo,

no. 307 (January 1969).
"Mo hitotsu nanika: Sabu-karucha no jokyo" (Something More:
421
The State of Subculture). Bijutsu techo, no. 325 (March
1970) .
"Nikutai to jonen: Henbo suru butoka-tachi" (Body and

Emotion: Dancers in Transformation). Bijutsu techo, no.
328 (June 1970).
"Kore ga naze geijutsu ka: 'Dai 10-kai Tokyo biennare' o

ki ni" (Why Is This Art?: On the Occasion of the ''10th
Tokyo Biennale"). Bijutsu techo, no. 329 (July 1970).
"Gendai bijutsu aruga-mama: 'Dai 10-kai gendai Nihon

bijutsu-ten' o kangaeru" (Contemporary Art As It Is: On
the "10th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan"). Bijutsu
techo, no. 344 (July 1971).
"Shudan no nami, undo no nami: 60-nendai bijutsu wa do

ugoita-ka" (Waves of Groups, Waves of Movements: The
Development of Sixties Art) . Bijutsu techo, no. 347
(October 1971).
"Hyogen, jokyo: 60-nendai bijutsu wa do ugoita-ka"

(Expression, Situations: The Development of Sixties Art) .
Bijutsu techo, no. 349 (December 1971).
"Atarashii hihyo no tame ni: 60-nendai no chihei kara" (For

New Criticism: From the Sixties' Viewpoint) . Bijutsu techo,
no. 350 (January 1972) .
"Nenpyo: Gendai bijutsu no 50-nen, 1916-1968" (Chronology:

Five Decades of Contemporary Art, 1916-1968). 2-part
chronology comp, by Yasunao Tone, Hikosaka Naoyoshi, and
Akatsuka Yukio. Bijutsu techo, nos. 354-55 (April-May
1972) .
"Shashin to kiroku: Imeji sosa no kbzb" (Photography and

Record: Structures of Image Manipulation). Bijutsu techo,
no. 357 (July 1972) .
"Firumu to video" (Film and Video). Bijutsu techo, no. 361

(December 1972) .
"Gendai Nihon bijutsu no kitei o saguru" (Examining the

Foundations of Contemporary Japanese Art) . Bijutsu techo,
no. 370 (August 1973).
422
"Gendai chokoku to kukan" (Contemporary Sculpture and Space) .
Mizue, no. 823 (November 1973).
"Gendai bijutsu '73" (Contemporary Art '73) . Bijutsu techo,

no. 375 (December 1973).
"Gendai bijutsu to chokoku no gainen: 'Yomiuri

andepandan-ten' igo" (Concepts of Sculpture in
Contemporary Art: After the "Yomiuri Independant"
Exhibitions). Bijutsu techo, no. 376 (January 1974).
"Gendai chokoku to kankyo" (Contemporary Art and

Environments). Bijutsu techo, no. 388 (December 1974).
"'Kokusai hanga biennare' no genjo" (The Present State of

the "International Biennial Exhibition of Prints in
Tokyo"). Bijutsu techo, no. 389 (January 1975).
"Dokyumento: 'Gendai Nihon bijutsu-ten' no 20-nen"

(Document: Two Decades of the "Contemporary Art Exhibition
of Japan"). Bijutsu techo, no. 396 (July 1975).
"Nihon no gendai bijutsu 30-nen" (Three Decades of

Contemporary Japanese Art) . Special supplementary issue.
Bijutsu techo, no. 436 (July 1978).
"Sengo no Nihonga" (Postwar Nihonga) . Shukan Asahi hyakka:

Sekai no bijutsu (Weekly Asahi Encyclopedia of World Art) ,
no. 136 (2 November 1980).
"Sengo no yoga, chokoku, hanga" (Postwar Yoga, Sculpture,

Prints). Shukan Asahi hyakka: Sekai no bijutsu, no. 137
(9 November 1980) .
"1950-nendai bijutsu" (Fifties Art) . Mizue, no. 920

(November 1981) .
"1960-nendai bijutsu" (Sixties Art). Mizue, no. 921

(December 1981).
"Takiguchi Shuzo to sengo bijutsu" (Takiguchi Shuzo and

Postwar Art). Bijutsu techo, no. 501 (September 1982).
"Dai hakken! Sengo bijutsu-shi" (Great Discoveries in the
423
History of Postwar Art). Geijutsu Shincho, no. 501
(September 1991).
"Saishin Nihon-jin atisuto meikan/A Directory of Japanese

Artists Now." Bijutsu techo, no. 664 (January 1993).
3. ARTISTS AND GROUPS
AKASEGAWA Genpei
Born in Yokohama, 1937
Lives in Machida
"Mokei sen-en satsu jiken kohan kiroku" (The Record of the

One-Thousand-Yen-Note Trial). Bijutsu techo, no. 274
(November 1966), pp. 137-68.
Akasegawa Genpei. Obuje o motta musan-sha (A Propertyless

Man with Objects). Tokyo: Gendai Shiso-sha, 1970.
Akasegawa Genpei. Sakura gaho taizen (The Complete Sakura

gaho) . Tokyo: Seido-sha, 1977.
. Tokyo rojo tanken-ki (Exploration of the Streets in

Tokyo). Tokyo: Shincho-sha, 1986.
. Cho-geijutsu Tomason (Ultra-Art Tomason). Tokyo:

Chikuma Bunko, 1987.
. Geijutsu genron (The Principles of Art) . Tokyo: Iwanami

Shoten, 1988.
Akasegawa Genpei: Tomason Mokushiroku--dai 8-kai omaju

Takiguchi Shuzo-ten/Tomason Apocalypse — The 8th
Exhibition Homage to Shuzo Takiguchi. Exh. cat. Tokyo:
Satani Gallery, 1988.
Akasegawa Genpei. Shotai fumei (Identity Unknown). Tokyo:

Tokyo Shoseki, 1993.
ARAKAWA, Shusaku
Born in Nagoya, 1936
Lives in New York
424
Arakawa, Shusaku, and Gins, Madeline H. The Mechanism of
Meaning: Work in Progress (1963-1971, 1978). Based on the
Method of Arakawa. 2nd ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1979.
Arakawa: Matrix 72. Exh. cat. Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth

Atheneum, 1982.
Lyotard, Jean-Frangois. Arakawa. Exh. cat. Milan: Padiglione

d'Arte Contemporanea, 1984.
Arakawa Shusaku: Miyakawa Atsushi e-ten/The Exhibition of

Shusaku Arakawa: To Miyakawa Atsushi. Exh. cat. Tokyo:
Touko Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990.
Arakawa Shusaku no jikken-ten: Miru mono ga tsukurareru ba/

Constructing the Perceiver--ARAKAWA: Experimental Works.
Tokyo: The National Museum of Modern Art, 1991.
ASAOKA Keiko (Kay-ko)

Born in Nobeoka, 1945
Lives in Ibaraki Prefecture
Asaoka Kay-ko. "Kaigai nyusu: 'Kabe' no uchi to soto"

(Overseas News: Inside and Outside the "Wall"). Bijutsu
techo, no. 528 (July 1984), pp. 176-79.
The Ear No. 1001: Asaoka Keiko + Miki Tomio/Kay-ko Asaoka

and Tomio Miki. Exh. cat. Osaka: The National Museum of
Art, 1992.
Asaoka Keiko-ten: "Tama" to "ALAYA" to/Kay-ko Asaoka

("Jewel" and "Alaya"). Exh. cat. Tokyo: Bunbodo Gallery,
1994 .
AY-0
Born in Ibaraki Prefecture, 1931
Lives in Kiyose and New York
Akiyama Kuniharu [interviewer]. "Diarogu21: Ai-O" (Dialogue,

No. 21: Ay-O). Mizue, no. 801 (October 1971), pp. 42-55.
Ai-O-ten (Ay-0 Exhibition) . Exh. cat. Tokyo: Minami Gallery,

1974 .
425
Ay-0. "Niji no kanata ni" (Over the Rainbow). Parts 1-21.
Bijutsu techo, nos. 567, 569-70, 575-77, 579, 581, 584-89,
591-95 (September 1986-June 1987, August 1987-June 1988) .
See also Fluxus.
BOKUJIN-KAI
Founded in Kyoto, 1952
Bokujin 40-nen (Four Decades of Bokujin-kai). Gifu:

Bokujin-kai, 1991.
Morita Shiryu to "Bokubi" (Morita Shiryu and Bokubi) . Kobe:

The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 1992.
Sho to kaiga no atsuki jidai, 1945-1969/Calligraphy and

Painting, the Passionate Age: 1945-1969. Exh. cat. Tokyo:
0 Art Museum, 1992.
DEGUCHI Onisaburo
Born in Kameoka, 1971
Died in Kameoka, 1948
Deguchi Onisaburo Raku chawan meihin: Yowan (Yowan: Raku

Bowls by Deguchi Onisaburo). Tokyo: Kodansha, 1971.
Franck, Frederick. An Encounter with Oomoto: The Great Origin.

West Nyack, N.Y.: Cross Currents Paperbacks, 1975.
Deguchi Onisaburo-ten: Hatenko no shbgai--yowan to shoga

(Deguchi Onisaburo Exhibition: His Unprecedented
Life— Ceramics, Calligraphy and Painting). Exh. cat.
Osaka: The Yomiuri Shimbun, 1985.
DOMOTO Hisao
Born in Kyoto, 1928
Lives in Tokyo
Inui Yoshiaki [interviewer]. "Diarogu 39: Domoto Hisao"

(Dialogue, No. 39: Domoto Hisao) . Mizize, no. 821 (August
1973), pp. 45-61.
Hisao Domoto. Exh. cat. Paris: Musee d'Art Moderne de la

Ville de Paris, 1979.
426
Domoto Hisao 30-nen (Three Decades of Domoto Hisao). Exh.
cat. Tokyo: The Seibu Museum of Art, 1987.
ENDO Toshikatsu
Born in Takayama, 1950
Lives in Sayama
"Sakka homon: Endo Toshikatsu-~tachi noboru hi-keitai"

(Visiting an Artist: Endo Toshikatsu--Emerging Non-Form) .
Bijutsu t e c h O f no. 569 (October 1986), pp. 126-33.
Earth, Air, Fire, Water: The Sculpture of Toshikatsu Endo.

Llandudno, Wales: Orel Mostyn et a l ., 1991.
Endo Toshikatsu: Enkan--Kasoku suru kudo

(Circle--Accelerated Void) . Exh. cat. Tokyo: Touko Museum
of Contemporary Art, 1991.
Tani Arata. "Gendai o ninau sakka-tachi V: Endo

Toshikatsu— kano-sei to shite no 'enkan'" (Leading
Contemporary Artists, No. 5: End5 Toshikatsu— "Circle" as
a Possibility). Bijutsu techo, no. 636 (April 1991), pp.
118-31.
Endo Toshikatsu-ten/Toshikatsu Endo 1992. Exh. cat. Nagoya:

Gallery Takagi, 1992.
FLUXUS
Founded 1961; active in West Germany and New York
Hendricks, Jon, ed. Fluxus etc./Addenda I: The Gilbert and

Lila Silverman Collection. New York: Ink &, 1983.
, ed. Fluxus etc./Addenda II: The Gilbert and Lila

Silverman Collection. Exh. cat. Pasadena, Cal.: Baxter
Art Gallery, California Institute of Technology, 1983.
, ed. Fluxus Codex. Detroit: The Gilbert and Lila

Silverman Fluxus Collection, in association with Harry
N. Abrams, New York, 1988.
Phillpot, Clive, and Hendricks, Jon. Fluxus: Selections from

the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection. Exh.
cat. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1988.
427
Milman, Estera, ed. Fluxus: A Conceptual Country. Exh. cat.
New York: Franklin Furnace et a l ., 1992. [Special issue
of Visible Language 26, no. 1/2 (Winter/Sprint 1992)].
In the Spirit of Fluxus. Exh. cat. Minneapolis: Walker Art

Center, 1993.
GUTAI ART ASSOCIATION

Active in Osaka, 1954-1972
Gutai bijutsu no 18-nen (18 Years of Gutai Art). Exh. cat.

Osaka: Osaka Fumin Center, 1976.
Yoshihara Jiro to Gutai no sono go/Jiro Yoshihara and Today’s

Aspects of the Gutai. Exh. cat. Kobe: The Hyogo Prefectural
Kaiga no Arashi, 1950-nendai/Action et Emotion, Peintures

des anees 50: Informel, Gutai, COBRA. Exh. cat. Osaka:
The National Museum of Art, 1985.
Yoshihara Jiro to "Gutai" 1954-1972/Jiro Yoshihara and Gutai

1954-1972. Exh. cat. Ashiya: Civic Gallery, 1985.
Gutai: Koi to kaiga/Action and Painting. Exh. cat. Kobe:

The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 1986.
"Gutai": Mikan no zen'ei shudan--Hyogo Kindai Bijutsukan

shozd sakuhin o chushin ni/The Unfinished Avant-Garde
Group (Focusing on the Collection of the Hyogo Prefectural
Museum of Modern Art, Kobe). Tokyo: The Shots Museum of
Art, 1990.
Bertozzi, Barbara, and Wolbert, Klaus. Gutai: Japanische

Avantgarde/Japanese Avant-Garde 1954-1965. Exh. cat.
Darmstadt: Mathildenhohe Darmstadt, 1991.
Gutai-ten (Gutai). Exh. cat. in 3 parts. 1: 1954-1958; 2:

1959-1965; 3: 1965-1972. Ashiya: Ashiya City Museum of
Art and History, 1992-93.
Ashiya City Museum of Art and History, ed. Gutai shiryo-shu/

Document Gutai, 1954-1972. Ashiya: Ashiya City Culture
Foundation, 1993.
428
Gutai 1955/56: Nihon gendai bijutsu no risutato chiten/A
Restarting Point of Japanese Contemporary Art. Tokyo:
Penrose Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1993.
HI RED CENTER
Active in Tokyo, 1963-64
Kubota, Shigeko, ed. Hi Red Center. Poster. Tokyo/New York:

Fluxus, c. 1965.
Ishiko Junzo. "Hai reddo senta ni miru bijutsu no 'genzai'"

(The "Present" in the Case of Hi Red Center) . Bijutsu techo,
no. 345 (February 1971), pp. 184-99.
Akasegawa Genpei. Tokyo mikisa keikaku: Hai reddo senta

chokusetsu kodd no kiroku (Tokyo Mixer Plans: Documents
of Hi Red Center's Direct Actions) . Tokyo: PARCO C o ., 1984.
HIJIKATA Tatsumi
Born in Akita Prefecture, 1928
Died in Tokyo, 1986
"Bijutsu no Hijikata Tatsumi: Jikan ni egaku nikutai"

(Hijikata Tatsumi as Art: Depicting with the Body in Time) .
Special feature. Bijutsu techo, no. 561 (May 1986).
Hijikata Tatsumi. Bibo no aozora (Blue Sky of Beauty) . Tokyo:

Hijikata Tatsumi buto shashin-shu: Kiki ni tatsu nikutai/

Body on the Edge of Crisis. Tokyo: PARCO Co., 1987.
Klein, Susan Blakeley. Ankoku Buto: The Premodern and

Postmodern Influences on the Dance of Utter Darkness.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Papers, 1988.
Hijikata Tatsumi to sono shuhen-ten: Yami to hikari no

ikonorojI/Exhibition: Works of Tatsumi Hijikata and
People Influenced by Him--In Search of the Expression of
Butoh and Art. Exh. cat. Yokohama: Yokohama Citizens'
Gallery, 1989.
Hijikata Tatsumi-ten: Kaze no metamorufoze (hen’yd)

(Hijikata Tatsumi Exhibition: Metamorphosis of the Wind) .
429
Exh. cat. Akita: Akita Senshu Museum of Art, 1991.
Hijikata Tatsumi buto taikan: Kasabuta to kyarameru/Hijikata

Tatsumi: Three Decades of Butoh Experiment. Tokyo:
Yushi-sha, 1993.
ICHIYANAGI Toshi
Born in Hyogo Prefecture, 1933
Lives in Tokyo
Akiyama Kuniharu. "Ichiyanagi Toshi no sakuhin happyo-kai:

Kibishii koi no ongaku" (Ichiyanagi Toshi's Recital: Music
of Austere Actions). Bijutsu techo, no. 200 (February
1962), pp. 71-72.
Tomioka Taeko. "Ichiyanagi Toshi: Zen'ei no

apokaripusu--opera 'Yokoo Tadanori' o utau Ichiyanagi
Toshi" (An Avant-Garde Apocalypse: Ichiyanagi Toshi
Singing the Opera "Yokoo Tadanori"). Bijutsu techo, no.
303 (October 1968), pp. 132-38.
Matsumoto Toshio [with Ichiyanagi's comment]. "Ichiyanagi

Toshi: Zukei gakufu-ko" (On Diagramed Score). Mizue, no.
845 (August 1975), pp. 102-7.
Ichiyanagi Toshi/Toshi Ichiyanagi: An Index of His Works

Appearing in the Catalogues of Schott Japan Company Ltd. ,
Tokyo. Tokyo: Schott Japan Company, 1991.
See also Fluxus.
IDA Shoichi
Born in Kyoto, 1941
Lives in Kyoto
Castile, Rand. Ikeda & Ida: Two New Japanese Printmakers.

Exh. cat. New York: Japan Society, 1974.
Ida Shoichi kaiko-ten 1970-1985 (Ida Shdichi Retrospective) .

Exh. cat. Tokyo: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, 1985.
Konnichi no sakka 6: Ida Shoichi (Today's Artists, No. 6:

Ida Shdichi). Exh. cat. Kyoto: Kyoto Municipal Museum of
Art Museum, 1987.
430
Ida Shdichi Paper Works: Surface in the Between Descended
Level--Between Vertical and Horizon--Garden Project,
Lotus Sutra 1983-1988, Vol. II. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Ueda
Culture Projects, 1988.
IDEMITSU Mako
Born in Tokyo, 1940
Lives in Tokyo
Yoneraoto, Bruce, with Yonemoto, Norman. "Criticisms of

Japanese Reality." Artweek (18 December 1983), p. 12.
McGee, Micki. "Domestic Disharmony." The Independents 9,

no. 3 (April 1986), pp. 16-19.
From Geisha to Samurai. Exh. cat. Honolulu: Honolulu Academy

of Arts, 1988.
"Intabyu: Idemitsu Mako— bideo de kokoro no naka no joho

o tsutaeru" (Interview with Idemitsu Mako: Communicating
Ideas in the Mind by Video) . Gekkan Imejiforamu, no. 152
(September 1992), pp. 54-61.
IIMURA, Takahiko
Born in Tokyo, 1937
Lives in New York
Iimura, Takahiko. Geijutsu to hi-geijutsu no aida (Between

Art and Non-Art). Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1970.
. Iimura Takahiko pepa firumu (Takahiko Iimura's Paper

Films). Tokyo: Haga Shoten, 1970.
Takahiko Iimura: Film and Video. Exh. cat. New York:

Anthology Film Archives, 1990.
Iimura Takahiko no media warudo: Eizo seisaku 30-shunen kinen

koten/Media World of Iimura Takahiko (Solo Exhibition:
Thirty Years of Film- and Video-making) . Exh. cat. Tokyo:
Sezon Museum of Art, 1991.
IMAI Norio
Born in Osaka, 1945
Lives in Osaka
431
Imai Norio: Bideo tepu, pafomansu/Norio Imai: Video Tape,
Performance. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Video Gallery SCAN, 1981.
Imai Norio. Ato-suru machikado (Doing Art on the Streets).

Osaka: Buren Senta, 1987.
. Toshi no ato-sukepu (Urban Art-Scapes). Osaka: Buren

Senta, 1990.
See also Gutai Art Association.
INOUE Yuichi (YU-ICHI)

Born in Tokyo, 1916
Died in Tokyo, 1985
Inoue Yuichi. Hibi no zeppitsu: Inoue Yuichi zen-bunshu (Last

Calligraphy Every Day: Complete Writings by Inoue Yuichi) .
Ed. by Unagami Masaomi. Tokyo: Geijutsu Shinbun-sha, 1989.
Okina Inoue Yuichi-ten/Yu-ichi Works 1955-85. Kyoto: The

ISHIUCHI Miyako
Born in Gunma Prefecture, 1947
Lives in Tokyo
Ishiuchi Miyako. Apartment. Tokyo: Shashin Tushin-sha, 1978.
. Miyako. Zessho Yokosuka stori/Yokosuka Story. Tokyo:

Shashin Tushin-sha, 1989.
. Ren'ya no machi/Endless Night. Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama,

1981.
. 1.9.4.7. Tokyo: Inter Press Corporation, 1990.
JONOUCHI Motoharu
Born in Ibaraki Prefecture, 1935
Died in 1986
Nakajima Takashi. "Sozo no kyoten, vol. 2: Gakusei eiga no

hajimari— 'Nichidai Eiken,' Jonouchi Motoharu" (Creative
Bases, Vol. 2: The Beginning of Student Film— "Nichidai
Eiken" and Jonouchi Motoharu). Gekkan Imejiforamu, no.
73 (October 1986), pp. 144-49.
432
KANAYAMA Akira
Born in Osaka, 1924
Lives in Asuka-mura, Nara
Kanayama Akira dai 1-kai koten/Akira Kanayama. Exh. broch.

Osaka: Kuranuki Gallery, 1992.
Yamamoto Atsuo. "Kanayama Akira ni okeru otomatizumu"

(Kanayama Akira's Automatism). Art Critique (Kyoto), no.
21 (December 1992), p. 5.
Kanayama Akira dai 1-kai-ten, 1950/1992/Akira Kanayama: The

1st Individual Exhibition 1950/1992. Nagoya: Gallery
Takagi, 1993.
KAWAGUCHI Tatsuo
Born in Kobe, 1940
Lives in Tsukuba
Konnichi no sakka-tachi/Today's Artists III-'90: Kawaguchi

Tatsuo. Exh. cat. Kamakura: The Museum of Modern Art, 1990.
Kawaguchi Tatsuo sakuhin-shu (Works by Kawaguchi Tatsuo).

Tokyo: Gendaikikakushitsu Publishers, 1992.
KAWAMATA Tadashi
Born in Hokkaido, 1953
Lives in Tokyo
Kawamata: Project. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Kaneko Art Gallery et

al., 1986.
Kawamata: Koji-chu (Under Construction). Tokyo:

Gendaikikakushitsu Publishers, 1987.
Kawamata: Begijnhof kortrijk. Tokyo: Gendaikikakushitsu

Publishers and Kortrijk, Belgium: Kunststichting Kanaal
Art Foundation, 1991.
KAWANAKA Nobuhiro
Born in Tokyo, 1941
Lives in Tokyo
433
Goldberg, Michael, and Kawanaka Nobuhiro. [Discussion],
Gekkan Imejifdramu, no. 11 (September 1981), pp. 102-11.
See also General References in Japanese (Book) and Terayama

Shuji.
KIKUHATA Mokuma
Born in Nagasaki, 1935
Lives in Fukuoka
Kikuhata Mokuma-ten/Kikuhata Mokuma Exhibition. Exh. cat.

Kitakyushu: Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, 1988.
Bee also Kyushu-ha.
KOSHIMIZU Susumu
Born in Uwajima, 1944
Lives in Ikeda
Inui Yoshiaki. "Koshimizu Susumu: Busshitu to katachi no

hazama no okan" (Between the Matter and the Form) . Bijutsu
techo, no. 394 (May 1975), pp. 102-19, 125-27.
Koshimizu Susumu. "'Nihon-jin no dojin'" ("Japanese

Barbarians"). Bijutsu techo, no. 394 (May 1975), pp.
128-33.
Konnichi no zbkei 8: Koshimizu Susumu-ten— chokoku, gendai,

fudo/The 7th Art Now: Susumu Koshimizu--Sculptor of Today,
of a Sculpture. Gifu: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1992.
See also Mono-ha.
KOSUGI Takehisa
Born in Tokyo, 1938
Lives in Nara
"Kosugi Takehisa to 'Taji Maharu ryoko-dan'" (Kosugi

Takehisa and "Taj Mahal Travellers"). Special feature.
Bijutsu techo, no. 368 (June 1973).
Fukuda Takayuki. "Kosugi Takehisa: Midara no gakuri" (Music

Theory of Obscenity). Bijutsu techo, no. 395 (June 1975),
pp. 187-211.
434
See also Fluxus.
KUBOTA, Shigeko
Born in Niigata Prefecture, 1937
Lives in New York
Kubota, Shigeko. "Maruseru Dushan: Bannen no Dushan to chesu

gemu" (Marcel Duchamp: His Last Years and Chess Game),
Bijutsu techo, no. 319 (November 1969), pp. 80-89.
Felix, Zdenik, ed. Shigeko Kubota: Video Sculptures. Exh.

cat. Berlin: daadgalerie, Essen: Museum Folkwang, and
Zurich: Kunsthaus Zurich, 1982.
Mellinger, Jeanine, and Bean, D.L. [interviewers]. "Shigeko

Kubota." Profile (Video Data Bank) 3, no. 6 (November
1983).
Shigeko Kubota: Video Sculpture. Exh. cat. Astoria, N.Y.:

American Museum of the Moving Image, 1991.
See also Fluxus.
KUDO Tetsumi
Born in Aomori Prefecture, 1935
Died in Tokyo, 1990
Haryu Ichiro [interviewer]. "Diarogu 30: Kudo Tetsumi"

(Dialogue, No. 30: Kudo Tetsumi) . Mizue, no. 814 (December
1972), p p . 54-70.
Jouffroy, Alain. "Rejisutansu: Kudo Tetsumi no, Kudo Tetsumi

e no" (Resistance: On Kudo Tetsumi, to Kudo Tetsumi).
Bijutsu techo, no. 381 (May 1974), pp. 250-58.
Nakahara Yusuke. "Kudo Tetsumi no sakuhin chushaku"

(Explanatory Notes on Works by Kud5 Tetsumi). Bijutsu
techo, no. 381 (May 1974), pp. 221-49.
Kudo Tetsumi-ten 1981 (Kudo Tetsumi Exhibition 1981) . Exh.

cat. Tokyo: The Sogetsu Art Museum, 1981.
Nakamura, Keiji. "Kudou Tetsumi." In Tetsumi Kudou—

Contestation/Creation. Osaka" The National Museum of Art,
435
1994.
Kudo Tetsumi kaiko-ten (Kudo Tetsumi Retrospective). Exh.

cat. Osaka: The National Museum of Art, 2004.
KUSAMA Yayoi
Born in Matsumoto, 1929
Lives in Tokyo
Munroe, Alexandra. Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective. Exh. cat.

New York: Center for International Contemporary Arts,
1989.
"Kusama Yayoi: Obusesshonaru ato no shutsuji to tenkai"

(Origins and Development of Obsessional Art). Special
feature. Bijutsu techo, no. 671 (June 1993).
Yayoi Kusama: Giappone--XlV Biennale di Venezia, 1993. Exh.

cat. Tokyo: The Japan Foundation, 1993.
KYUSHU-HA
Active in Fukuoka and Tokyo, 1957-1962
Kikuhata Mokuma. Han-geijutsu kidan (A Strange Tale of

Anti-Art). Fukuoka: Kaicho-sha, 1986.
Kyushu-ha-ten: Hen-geijutsu purojekuto/Group Kyushu-ha

(Anti-Art Project) . Exh. cat. Fukuoka: Fukuoka Art Museum,
1988 .
LEE U Fan
Born in Kyongnam District, Korea, 1936
Lives in Kamakura
Fujieda Teruo and Lee U Fan [discussion]. "Sakka no shisei

to sonritsu no kiban" (The Basis of an Artist's Attitude
and Existence) . Bijutsu techo, no. 358 (August/September,
1972), pp. 54-73.
Nakahara Yusuke. "Lee U Fan to go: Zettai-teki na keiken

no ba to shite no kaiga seisaku" (Lee U Fan and Words:
Painting as the Site of Absolute Experience) . Mizue, no.
875 (February 1978), pp. 98-107.
"Lee U Fan." Special feacture. Mizue, no. 909 (December
436
19 80)
Lee U Fan. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1986.
Lee UFan: Kanjo to ronri no kiseki/Traces ofSensibility

and Logic. Exh. cat. Gifu: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1988.
Mita Haruo. "Gendai o ninau sakka-tachi VII: Lee U

Fan--hyogen no shi, hyogen no reido" (Leading Contemporary
Artists VII: Lee U Fan--Death of Expression, Zero-Degree
of Expression). Bijutsu techo, no. 638 (June 1991), pp.
136-49.
Lee U Fan. Tokyo: Toshi Shuppan, 1993.
Lee UFan-ten/Lee U Fan. Exh. cat. Kamakura: The Museum of

Modern Art, Kamakura, 1993.
See also Mono-ha and Takamatsu Jiro.
MIKI Tomio
Born in Tokyo, 1938
Died in Kyoto, 1978
Fujieda Teruo [interviewer]. "Atorie homon: Miki Tomio"

(Visiting a Studio: Miki Tomio). Bijutsu techo, no. 285
(July 1967), pp. 92-97,
Okada Takahiko [interviewer]. "Miki Tomio to kataru: Naze

mimi nanoka" (A Conversation with Miki Tomio: Why Ear?).
Mizue, no. 851 (February 1976), pp. 78-87.
Tanaka Shintaro. "Tsuito, mimi no shuen: Miki Tomio

(1937-1978)" (In Memory of Miki Tomio [1937-1978]: The
End of Ear) . Bijutsu techo, no. 433 (May 1978) , pp. 20-21.
Akita Yoshitoshi. "Miki Tomio no metamorufoze: Kozo to

'seido' to jiga o megutte" (Miki Tomio's Metamorphosis:
Concerning Structure, "System," and Self). Bijutsu techo,
no. 539 (February 1985), pp. 171-81.
Miki Tomio. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Galerie Tokoro, 1988.
The Ear No. 1001: Asaoka Keiko + Miki Tomio/Kay-ko Asaoka

and Tomio Miki. Exh. cat. Osaka: The National Museum of
437
Art, 1992.
Tokubetsu-ten: Miki Tomio/Tomio Miki. Exh. cat. Tokyo: The

Shoto Museum of Art, 1992.
MONO-HA
Active in Tokyo, 1968-c. mid-1970s
"Hatsugen suru shinjin-tachi: Hi-geijutsu no chihei kara"

(New Faces Speaking Up: From the Horizon of Non-Art).
Special feature. Bijutsu techo, no. 324 (February 1970).
Including: Lee U Fan, "Deai o motomete" (Searching for
Encounter), pp. 14-23; Suga Kishio, "Jotai o koete aru"
(Being Beyond the Situation), pp. 24-33; and Koshimizu
Susumu, Sekine Nobuo, Suga Kishio, Narita Katsuhiko,
Yoshida Katsuro, and Lee U Fan [roundtable discussion].
"'’Mono' ga hiraku atarashii sekai" (A World Revealed by
"Mono"), pp. 34-55.
Lee U Fan and Love, Joseph. Ba, so, ji— Open (Site, Phase,
Time--Open). [Tokyo]: [Privately published], 1970.
Minemura Toshiaki, ed. Mono-ha. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Kamakura

Gallery, 1986.
Mono-ha to posuto mono-ha: 1969-nen iko no Nihon no

bij utsu/Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha: Art in Japan Since 1969.
Exh. cat. Tokyo: The Seibu Museum of Art, 1987.
Monoha: La Scuola delle cose. Exh. cat. Rome: Museo

Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, 1988.
Minemura Toshiaki and Washimi Akihiko [discussion].

"'Mono-ha' no keisei o megutte" (On the Formation of
Mono-ha). Parts 1-2. Bijutsu techo, nos. 672-73
(July-August 1993).
MORITA Shiryu
Born in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, 1912
Lives in Kyoto
Morita Shiryu. Sho: Ikikata no katachi (Calligraphy: The

Form of Ways of Life). Tokyo: Nihon Hoso Kyokai, 1968.
. Sho to bokusho (Calligraphy and Ink Imagery). Kindai
438
no bijutsu (Modern Art), no. 28. Tokyo: Shibundo, 1975.
Konnichi no sakka 3: Morita Shiryu (Today's Artists, No.

3: Morita Shiryu). Kyoto: Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art,
1986.
See also Bokujin-kai.
MOTONAGA Sadamasa
Born in Ueno, Mie Prefecture, 1922
Lives in Ueno, Mie Prefecture
Haga Toru. "Motonaga Sadamasa: Kono karei-na chi to niku

no senretsu-sa!" (How Fresh These Bright Blood and Flesh
Is!). Bijutsu techo, no. 196 (November 1961), pp. 28-35.
Sasaki Yutaka. "Giho hakken 4: Motonaga Sadamasa-shi

to--toryo no majutsu" (A Discovery of Technique, No. 4:
Motonaga Sadamasa's Magic of Paint). Bijutsu techo, no.
265 (April 1966), pp. 70-79.
Motonaga Sadamasa sakuhin-shu/Sadamasa Motonaga Works/

Oeuvres de Motonaga 1955-1969. Kyoto: Aravel Co., 1983.
Motonaga Sadamasa/Sadamasa Motonaga 1946-1990. Niigata:

Hakushindo, 1991.
Motonaga Sadamasa-ten/Sadamasa Motonaga. Exh. cat. Tsu: Mie

Prefectural Art Museum, 1991.
MURAKAMI Saburo
Born in Kobe, 1925
Died in Nishinomiya, 1996
Murakami. Exh. cat. Osaka: Gutai Pinacotheca, 1963.
MURAOKA Saburo
Born in Osaka, 1928
Lives in Kyoto
Inui Yoshiaki [interviewer]. "Dialogu 35: Muraoka Saburo"
439
(Dialogue, No. 35: Muraoka Saburo) . Mizue, no. 817 (April
1973), pp. 60-71.
Tatehata Akira, ed. Muraoka Saburo sakuhin-shu/Saburo

Muraoka. Osaka: Kasahara Gallery, 1991.
NAKANISHI Natsuyuki
Born in Tokyo, 1935
Lives in Tokyo
Hirai Ryoichi. "Setten to shiteno kaiga: Nakanishi Natsuyuki

no shinsaku" (Painting as a Point of Contact: New Works
of Nakanishi Natsuyuki). Bijutsu techo, no. 458 (December
1979), pp. 198-211.
Hijikata Tatsumi and Nakanishi Natsuyuki [discussion].

"Shiroi teburu kurosu ga hurete" (Touching the White
Tablecloth). Bijutsu techo, no. 511 (June 1983), pp.
182-95.
Nakanishi Natsuyuki noto/The Notes of Nakanishi, Natsuyuki.

Tokyo: The Seibu Museum of Art, 1989.
Nakanishi Natsuyuki. Dai-kakko: Yuruyaka ni mitsumeru tame

ni itsumademo tatazumu, sochi (Braces: Devices That
Forever Stand Still in Order to Gaze Lingeringly). Tokyo:
See also Hi Red Center.
NARITA Katsuhiko
Born in Pusan, 1944
Died in Tokyo, 1992
See Mono-ha.
NEO-DADA ORGANIZERS
Active in Tokyo, 1960(-1964)
Neo-dada Japan 1958-1998: Isozaki Arata to Howaito Hausu

no memmen/ Neo-Dada Japan 1958-1998: Arata Isozaki and
the artists of the "White House." Oita: Oita-shi Kyoiku
Iinkai, 1998.
Shinohara Ushio. Zen'ei no michi (The Avant-Garde Road).
440
Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1968.
Ryudo-suru bijutsu III: Neo-Dada no shashin/Art in Flux III:

Neo-Dada Witnessed, Photo Documents. Exh. cat. Fukuoka:
Fukuoka Art Museum, 1993.
NOGUCHI, Isamu
Born in Los Angeles, 1904
Died in New York, 1988
Noguchi, Isamu. A Sculptor's World. New York: Harper & Row,

1968 .
Ashton, Dore. Noguchi: East and West. New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1992.
Isamu Noguchi-ten/Isamu Noguchi Retrospective 1992. Exh.

cat. Tokyo: The National Museum of Modern Art, 1992.
Winther, Bert. "Isamu Noguchi: Conflicts of Japanese Culture

in the Early Postwar Years." Ph.D. diss., New York
University, 1992.
ONO, Yoko
Born in Tokyo, 1933
Lives in New York
Ono, Yoko. Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions + Drawings

by Yoko Ono. Intro, by John Lennon. Expanded edition of
the 1964 original limited edition (500) published by the
Wunternaum Press, Tokyo. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1970.
Yoko Ono: This Is Not Here. Exh. cat. Syracuse: Everson Museum
of Art, 1971.
"Fumie" Ono Yoko-ten/Yoko Ono: "Fumie." Exh. cat. Tokyo:

The Sogetsu-kai Foundation, 1990.
Haskell, Barbara, and Hanhardt, John G. Yoko Ono: Arias and

Objects. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 1991.
Les films de Yoko Ono 1966-1982. Exh. cat. Geneva: Centre

d'Art Contemporain, 1991.
441
See also Fluxus.
SAITO Takako
Born in Iwate Prefecture, 1929
Lives in Dusseldorf
Takako Salto: Objekte. Exh. cat. Dusseldorf: Stadtmuseum

Dusseldorf, 1988.
Saito Takako-ten: Asobi, pafomansu/Takako Salto (Play and

Performance). Exh. cat. Fukui: Dimanche Hall, 1991.
Takako Saito. Exh. cat. Milan: La Fondazione Mudima, 1993.
See also Fluxus.
SAITO Yoshishige
Born in Tokyo, 1904
Died in 2001
Saito Yoshishige. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1964.
Saito Yoshishige 1936-1973. Tokyo: Tokyo Gallery, 1973.
Saito Yoshishige-ten/Saito Yoshishige Exhibition 1984. Exh.

cat. Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum et al., 1984.
Saito Yoshishige ni yoru Saito Yoshishige-ten: Jiku no ki/

Yoshishige Saito: Time, Space, Wood. Exh. cat. Yokohama:
Yokohama Museum of Art and Tokushima: The Tokushima Modern
Art Museum, 1993.
SEKINE Nobuo
Born in Saitama, 1942
Lives in Tokyo
Sekine Nobuo. Han-jiden: Bijutsu to toshi to esoragoto/

Half-Autobiography: Art and Urban and Pictural Fiction.
Tokyo: PARCO Co., 1985.
Sekine Nobuo: Iso kaiga/Nobuo Sekine: Phase Conception.

Tokyo: Environment Art Studio, 1987.
Sekine Nobuo: Iso kaiga II/Nobuo Sekine: Phase Conception

II. Tokyo: Environment Art Studio, 1989.
442
See also Mono-ha.
SHIMAMOTO Shozo
Born in Osaka, 1928
Lives in Nishinomiya
AU, nos. 1-125 (1976-ongoing).
SHINOHARA, Ushio
Born in Tokyo, 1932
Lives in New York
Shinohara, Ushio. "Jikken-shitsu: Fukusei kaiga no kokoromi"

(Laboratory: An Experiment of Imitation Paintings).
Bijutsu techo, no. 232 (February 1964), pp. 62-67.
Rand, Castile, and Tono, Yoshiaki. Shinohara. Exh. cat. New

York: Japan Society, 1982.
Shinohara Ushio-ten/Ushio Shinohara. Exh. cat. Hiroshima:

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art et al., 1992.
See also Neo-Dada Organizers.
SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko)

Born in Okayama, 1938
Lives in Minoo
"Mieko Shiomi." Art and Artists (October 1973), pp. 42-45.
Hirabayashi Kyoko. "Konpyuta to koraboreshon no myomi:

Shiomi Mieko 'Furukusasu no nagai gogo'" (Appreciating
Collaboration with the Computer: Shiomi Mieko's "Long
Afternoon with Fluxus") . Bijutsu techo, no. 658 (September
1992), pp. 18-19.
See also Fluxus.
SHIRAGA Fujiko
Born in Osaka, 1928
Lives in Amagasaki
443
See Gutai Art Association.
SHIRAGA Kazuo
Born in Amagasaki, 1924
Lives in Amagasaki
Shiraga Kazuo. "Kodd no yaju" (A Beast of Action). Bijutsu

techo, no. 219 (April 1963), pp. 65-68.
. "Boken no kiroku: Episodo de tsuzuru Gutai gurupu no

12-nen" (The Document of Adventure: Twelve Years of the
Gutai Group), Parts 1-6. Bijutsu techo, no. 285-89, 291
(July 1967-December 1967).
Shiraga Kazuo-ten/Kazuo Shiraga. Exh. cat. Amagasaki:

Amagasaki Cultural Center, 1989.
SUGA Kishio
Born in Iwate Prefecture, 1944
Lives in Ito
Minemura Toshiaki. "Suga Kishio: 'Gei' no fukken, zoku-sei

no fuin to kaifu" (Reinstatement of "Artistry"--Sealing
and Breaking the Profane) . Bijutsu techo, no. 386 (October
1974), pp. 134-61.
Hirano Shigemitsu (interviewer]. "Suga Kishio: Mono to

kotoba ni yoseru kyojitsu himaku no omoi" (Contemplating
the Language and the Objects Between the Real and the Void) .
Bijutsu techo, no. 386 (October 1974), pp. 162-75.
Suga Kishio: Manazashi no shuhen/Kishio Suga: Peripheral

Field. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Touko Museum of Contemporary Art,
1990 .
Motoe Kunio. "Gendai o ninau sakka-tachi III: Suga Kishio--

kakuretaru basho o sugi.. ." (Leading Contemporary Artists,
No. 3: Suga Kishio--Passing Through the Hidden Place).
Bijutsu techo, no. 634 (Feb. 1991), pp. 115-29.
See also Mono-ha.
SUGIMOTO, Hiroshi
444
Born in Tokyo, 1948
Lives in New York
Hiroshi Sugimoto. Exh. cat. Los Angeles: The Museum of

Contemporary Art, 1994.
TAKAMATSU Jiro
Born in Tokyo, 1936
Died in Tokyo, 1998
Lee U Fan. "Takamatsu Jiro: Hyosho-sagyo kara deai no sekai

e" (From Representation to Encounter) . Bijutsu techo, no.
320 (December 1969), pp. 140-65.
Ooka Makoto [interview]. "Diarogu 14: Takamatsu Jiro"

(Dialogue, No. 14: Takamatsu Jiro). Mizue, no. 793
(February 1971), pp. 44-55.
Lee U Fan and Takamatsu Jiro. 6-part discussion. "1. Risei,

rinen, jonen, ishiki" (1. Reason, idea, emotion,
consciousness); "2. Gengo, hyogen, nichijo-sei" (2.
Language, Expression, the Mundane); "3. Koten, rekishi,
jikan" (3. Classicism, History, Time); "4. Koten, Sesshu,
Rinpa" (4. Classicism, Sesshu, Rinpa School) ; "5. Jijitsu,
shinjitsu, genso" (5. Fact, Truth, Fantasy); "6.
Burankushi, Porokku, Minimaru ato" (6. Brancusi, Pollock,
Minimal Art). Bijutsu techo, nos. 364-65, 367-69, 371
(February-March, May-July, September 1972).
Tani Arata. "Seido-ron, sono go 1: Takamatsu Jiro no

shogen— aruiwa hydgen no kozo ni tsuite" (After
"Concerning the 'Institution,'" Part 1: Origins of
Takamatsu Jiro— Or on the Structure of Expression).
Bijutsu techo, no. 375 (December 1973), pp. 105-23.
Gendai no sakka 2: Takamatsu Jiro/Artists Today 2: Jiro

Takamatsu. Exh. cat. Osaka: The National Museum of Art,
1980.
See also Hi Red Center.
TAKIGUCHI Shuzo
Born in Toyama Prefecture, 1903
Died in Tokyo, 1979
445
"Takiguchi Shuzo." Special supplementary issue. Gendai shi
techo 17, no. 10 (October 1974).
"Takiguchi Shuzo tsuito" (In Memory of Takiguchi Shuzo).

Misuzu, no. 233 (September/October 1979), pp. 63-135.
"Takiguchi Shuzo." Special feacture. Bijutsu techo, no. 485

(August 1981).
Dai 1-kai gendai geijutsu-sai: Takiguchi Shuzo to sengo

bijutsu (The 1st Contemporary Art Festival: Takiguchi
Shuzo and Postwar Art). Exh. cat. Toyama: The Museum of
Modern Art, 1982.
Takiguchi Shuzo. Korekushon Takiguchi Shuzo (Collection

Takiguchi Shuzo). Vols. 1-13 and a supplementary volume.
Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1991-ongoing.
"Takiguchi Shuzo no mikurokosumosu" (Microcosmos of

Takiguchi Shuzo). Special feature. Taiyo, no. 382 (April
1993).
See also General References in Japanese.
TANAKA Atsuko
Born in Osaka, 1932
Lives in Asuka-mura, Nara
Tanaka Atsuko koten (Solo Exhibition of Tanaka Atsuko) . Exh.

cat. Osaka: Gutai Pinacotheca, 1963.
Tanaka Atsuko 1960: Ten to sen no uzumaki (Tanaka Atsuko

1960: The Vortex of Points and Lines), Exh. cat. Tokyo:
The Contemporary Art Gallery, 1985.
Tanaka Atsuko-ten (Tanaka Atsuko Exhibition). Exh. cat.

Osaka: Gallery Kuranuki, 1991.
TERAYAMA Shuji
Born in Aomori Prefecture, 1935
Died in Tokyo, 1983
Terayama Shuji. Eisha gishi o ute (Shoot a Projectionist).
446
Tokyo: Shinshokan, 1973.
Sorgenfrei, Carol. "Shuji Terayama: Avant-Garde Dramatist

of Japan." Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa
Barbara, 1978.
Asai Takashi, ed. Terayama Shuji jikken eiga katarogu

(Catalogue of Terayama Shuji's Experimental Films).
Tokyo: Jinriki Hikoki-sha, 1981.
Terayama Shuji no sekai (The World of Terayama Shuji) . Tokyo:

Shinpyo-sha, 1983.
"Terayama Shuji no shikaku" (Visual Angles of Terayama Shuji) .

Special feature. Bijutsu techo, no. 514 (August 1983).
Kawanaka Nobuhiro. "Terayama Shuji to Nihon jikken eiga"

(Terayama Shuji and Experimental Film in Japan). Parts
1-4. Gekkan Imejiforamu, nos. 35-38 (August-November
1983) .
Miura Masashi. Terayama Shuji: Kagami no naka no kotoba

(Words in the Mirror). Tokyo: Shinshokan, 1987.
TESHIGAHARA Sofu
Born in Osaka, 1900
Died in Tokyo, 1979
Teshigahara Sofu no chokoku/Sculpture by Sofu Teshigahara.

Exh. cat. Tokyo: The Central Museum, 1968.
Teshigahara Sofu no sekai (The World of Teshigahara Sofu).

Tokyo: Sogetsu Shuppan, 1978.
Teshigahara Sofu. Kadensho (Secret Art of Ikebana) . Tokyo:

Sogetsu Shuppan, 197 9.
Teshigahara Sofu-ten: Sho to chokoku/Sofu Teshigahara:

Calligraphies and Sculptures. Exh. cat. Tokyo: The Seibu
Teshigahara Sofu no me-ten: Sono sakuhin to bijutsu

korekushon (Teshigahara Sofu's Eye: His Works and
Collections). Tokyo: The Asahi Shimbun, 1981.
447
TOMATSU Shomei
Born in Nagoya, 1930
Lives in Chiba Prefecture
Tomatsu Shomei. Nippon. Tokyo: Shaken, 1967.
Okada Takahiko. "Tomatsu Shomei: Kiroku no kano-sei ni kake"

(Having a Stake in Documentary's Possibilities) . Bijutsu
techo, no. 301 (August 1968), pp. 148-57.
Tomatsu Shomei. 11-ji 2-fun, Nagasaki (11:02, Nagasaki).

Tokyo: Shaken, 1968.
. Okinawa. Tokyo: Shaken, 1969.
. Sengo-ha (The Postwar School). Eizo no gendai

(Contemporary Photography) , vol. 5. Tokyo: Chuo Koron-sha,
1971.
Tomatsu Shomei no sekai-ten: Ima!!/What Now?!: Japan Through

the Eyes of Shomei Tomatsu. Exh. cat. Tokyo: [Exhibition
Committee], 1981.
Shomei Tomatsu: Japan 1952-1981. Exh. cat. Graz, Austria:

Forum Stadpark et a l ., 1984
TONE, Yasunao
Born in Tokyo, 1935
Lives in New York
Kawani Hiroshi. "Murui no ansof isutikeshon: Hohoemi tayasanu

Tone Yasunao" (Unparalleled Unsophistication: Yasunao
Tone Is Always Smiling). Bijutsu techo, no. 348 (November
1971), p. 19.
Palmer, Robert. "Yasunao Tone Presents Evening of Musical

Image." New York Times, 14 April 1976.
Johnson, Tom. "Paper Airplane and Shattered Violin ."Village

Voice, 5 April 1979.
Anderson, Jack. "'Roadrunners' by Merce Cunningham." New

York Times, 23 July 197 9.
Airoldi, Elsa. "Geografie cinesi a due voce in 'Roadrunners'
448
di Yasunao Tone." il Giornale (Milan), 30 October 1980.
Tone, Yasunao. Musica Iconologos. CD. New York: Lovely Music,

1993.
See also General References in Japanese (Books) , (Magazines)

and Fluxus.
YAGI Kazuo
Born in Kyoto, 1918
Died in Kyoto, 1979
Yagi Kazuo. Kaichu no fukei (Landscape in My Pocket). Tokyo:

Kodansha, 197 6.
Yagi Kazuo Sakuhin-shu (Works by Yagi Kazuo) . Tokyo: Kodansha

1980.
Yagi Kazuo-ten/Kazuo Yagi. Exh. cat. Kyoto: The National

Inui Yoshiaki, ed. Yakimono no b i : Yagi Kazuo/Kazuo Yagi.

Gendai Nihon togei zenshu/A Pageant of Modern Japanese
Ceramics, vol. 14. Tokyo: Shuei-sha, 1981.
Yagi Kazuo ga deatta kodomo-tachi: Tsuchi, zokei no genten/

The Works of Kazuo Yagi and Mentally Handicapped Persons:
Clay Formative. Exh. cat. Shigaraki-cho: The Museum of
Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park
1993.
YOKOO Tadanori
Born in Hyogo Prefecture, 1936
Lives in Tokyo
Tadanori Yokoo. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron's Educational

Services, 1977.
100 Posters of Tadanori Yokoo. Pref. and text by Tanikawa

Koichi. New York: Images Graphiques, 1978.
"Yokoo Tadanori." Special feacture. Bijutsu techo, no. 516

(October 1983), pp. 57-77.
449
Yokoo Tadanori: Gurafikku taizen/All About Tadanori Yokoo
and His Graphic Works. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1989.
Tanaka Ikko and Shinoyama Kishin [photography]. Yokoo

Tadanori: Kioku no enkin-jutsu no koto (Perspective of
Memory). Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992.
Yokoo Tadanori. Art no pawa supotto/Power Spot of Art. Tokyo:

Kadokawa Shoten, 1993.
YOSHIDA Katsuro
Born in Fukaya, 1943
Lives in Kamakura
Sakai Tadayasu. "Yoshida Katsuro: Hakuchu no shikaku" (A

Blind Spot in the Daylight). Bijutsu techo, no. 411
(September 1976), pp. 182-99, 205-7.
Yoshida Katsuro. "Miru koto, mieru koto: Nikki-fu ni" (To

Look, To Be Looked At: In a Diary Style) . Bijutsu techo,
no. 411 (September 1976), pp. 208-11.
Nakamura Hideki. "Gendai o ninau sakka-tachi VIII: Yoshida

Katsuro--tesaki ni miru michi" (Leading Contemporary
Artists, No. 8: Yoshida Katsuro— An Unknown Road Seen
Through the Fingertips). Bijutsu techo, no. 640 (July
1991), pp. 200-213.
Konnichi no sakka-tachi/Today's Artists IV '92: Yamamoto

Masamichi, Yoshida Katsuro. Exh. cat. Kamakura: The Museum
See also Mono-ha.
YOSHIDA Toshio
Born in Kobe, 1928
Lives in Kobe
Yoshida Toshio. "Awa tono taiketsu" (Confrontation with

Bubbles). Bijutsu techo, no. 305 (December 1968), p. 51.
. "Nokosareta seishin-teki isan" (The Spiritual Legacy) .

Bijutsu techo, no. 446 (March 1979). pp. 122-35.
Yoshida Toshio no Rope-Loop (Yoshida Toshio's Rope-Loop).
450
Exh. cat. Nishinomiya: Atelier Nishinomiya, 1983.
YOSHIHARA Jiro
Born in Osaka, 1905
Died in Ashiya, 1972
"Zen'ei seishin no kiseki 1: Yoshihara Jiro" (The Trace of

Avant-Garde Spirits, Part. 1: Yoshihara Jiro). Special
feacture. Mizue, no. 819 (June 1973).
"Yoshihara Jiro: Kaiga no yukue" (The State of Painting).

Special feature. Bijutsu techo, no. 446 (March 1979).
Botsugo 20-nen Yoshihara Jiro-ten/Jiro Yoshihara (Two

Decades After His Death). Exh. cat. Ashiya: Ashiya City
Museum of Art and History, 1992.
"Yoshihara Jiro: Henkaku-suru jiko" (A Reforming Self).

Special feature. Bijutsu techo, no. 659 (October 1992).
YOSHIHARA Michio
Born in Ashia, 1933
Lives in Ashiya
Yoshihara Michio koten (Yoshihara Michio Solo Exhibition).

Exh. broch. Osaka: Gallery Haku, 1991.
Yoshihara Michio koten (Yoshihara Michio Solo Exhibition).

Exh. broch. Osaka: Gallery Haku, 1994.
YQSHIMORA Masanobu
Born in Oita, 1932
Lives in Hatano
Yoshimura Masunobu. "Hapuningu— 'kukan kara kankyo e':

Benri-na hapuningu" (Happening— "From Space to
Environment": Happening Is Versatile). Bijutsu techo, no.
278 (January 1967), pp. 89-91.
451
Yoshimura Masunobu: Transparent Ceremony. Exh. cat. Tokyo:
Tokyo Gallery, 1967.
"Sakka homon: Yoshimura Masunobu— setsujitsu ni miru tsuki"

(Visiting an Artist: Yoshimura Masunobu--The Moon I
Solemnly Look At) . Bijutsu techo, no. 548 (August 1985),
p p . 8 6-93.
Yoshimura Masunobu-ten: Eitai (Yoshimura Masanobu

Exhibition: Shadow Body). Exh. cat. Tokyo: Ina Gallery,
1985.
See also Neo-Dada Organizers.
452
Plate 1. SHIMAMGTO Shozo. Work: Holes (Sakuhin: Ana).
1950-52. Paint and pencil on newspaper, attached to
wooden stretcher. 7Gh x 51H. Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum.
Plate 2. YOSHIDA Toshio. Red (Aka). 1954. Paint, rope,
and nails on board. 45^ x 33^. Ashiya City Museum of
Art and History.
Plate 3. Left: Gutai, no. 5 (1 October 1956), cover.
Right: Gutai, no. 3 (20 October 1955), cover.
Plate 4. The "Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition," Ashiya, July

1956.
Plate 5. Georges Mathieu, dressed in kimono,
demonstrating "action painting" at the Daimaru
Department Store, Osaka, September 1957.
Plate 6. TANAKA Atsuko. Work (Sakuhin). 1955. Crayon
cloth. 32H x 24?^. Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 7. TANAKA Atsuko. Untitled—Study for Bell Piece.
1955. Four drawings, ink and pencil on paper. 15%
diameter (top left) ; 15% x 10% (bottom left) ; 115® x
16 (both right). Collection the artist.
Plate 8. TANAKA Atsuko. Electric Dress (Denki-fuku).
1956/1985. Painted light bulbs, electric cords, and
timer. 65 x 31*2 x 31^. Takamatsu City Museum of
Art.
Plate 9. TANAKA Atsuko. Work (Sakuhin). 1958. Enamel on
canvas. 88^ x 12H. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of
Modern Art, Kobe.
Plate 10. KANAYAMA Akira. Work (Sakuhin) . 1957. Mixed
media, drawn by an automatic device on vinyl. 71 x
109k. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art,
Kobe.
Plate 11. SHIRAGA Kazuo. Work II (Sakuhin II). 1958. Oil
on paper mounted on canvas. 72 x 955s. The Hyogo
Plate 12. SHIRAGA Kazuo. Wild Boar Hunting (Shishigari) .

1963. Oil and boar hide on canvas. 73 x 803s. The
Plate 13. MOTONAGA Sadamasa. Without Words. 1959.
Acrylic on canvas. 63 x 55. The Hyogo Prefectural
vi
1 ...
; | v._ui j. 4-|** 4
Plate 14. MOTONAGA Sadamasa. Water (Mizu). 1957. Metal

frames, plastic, and water. 196^§ x 35^ x 35^. The
Plate 15. SHIMAMOTO Shozo. Work (Sakuhin) . 1961. Oil and
glass on canvas. 101 x 16H. The Hyogo Prefectural
Plate 16. YOSHIHARA Jiro. Red Circle on Black (Kuroji ni
akai en) . 1965. Acrylic on canvas. 11% x 89%. The
Plate 17. YOSHIHARA Jiro. White Circle on Black (Kuroji

ni shiroi en) . 1968. Acrylic on canvas. 76% x 102.
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
Plate 18. YOSHIHARA Michio. Hill of Sand (Suna no yama) .
1962/1994. Sand, rope, and three electric light
bulbs. 21H (high); 59 (diameter). Collection the
artist.
Plate 19. MURAKAMI Sabuo performing At One Moment
Opening Six Holes (Isshun ni shite rokko no ana o
akeru) at the "1st Gutai Art Exhibition" held at
the Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, October 1955.
Plate 20. SHIRAGA Kazuo performing Challenging Mud (Doro
ni idomu) at the "1st Gutai Art Exhibition" held at
the Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, October 1955.
Plate 21. YOSHIHARA Jiro floating in a boat with objects

emerging from the shallow waters of the ruins of
Mukogawa River, whose embankments had been bombed
during the war; performed for Life magazine
photographers at the "One Day Only Outdoor
Exhibition (The Ruins)" in Amagasaki, 9 April 1956.
Plate 22. SHIRAGA Kazuo painting with his feet at the
"2nd Gutai Art Exhibition" held at the Ohara Kaikan
hall, Tokyo, October 1956.
Plate 23. SHIMAMOTO Shozo making a painting by throwing

bottles of paint, at the "2nd Gutai Art Exhibition"
held at the Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, October 1956.
Plate 24. TANAKA Atsuko wearing Electric Dress (Denki-
fuku) at the "2nd Gutai Art Exhibition" held at the
Ohara Kaikan hall, Tokyo, October 1956.
Plate 25. SHIRAGA Kazuo performing The Modern
Transcendent Sambaso (Chogendai Sambaso) in "Gutai
Art on the Stage" performed at the Sankei Kaikan
hall, Osaka in May and the Sankei Hall, Tokyo in
July 1957.
Plate 26. YOSHIDA Toshio performing Ceremony by Cloth:

Wedding of Yoshida Toshio and Morita Kyoko (Nuno ni
yoru gishiki) in "Gutai Art on the Stage" performed
at the Sankei Kaikan hall, Osaka in May and the
Sankei Hall, Tokyo in July 1957.
Plate 27. KANAYAMA Akira performing The Giant Balloon
(Kyodai barun) in "Gutai Art on the Stage"
presented at the Sankei Kaikan hall, Osaka in May
and the Sankei Hall, Tokyo in July 1957.
Plate 28. INOUE Yuichi. Blank (Muga). 1956. Ink on paper
mounted on panel. 12% x 56H. The National Museum of
Modern Art, Kyoto.
Plate 29. INOUE Yuichi. Ah! Yokokawa National School
(Ah! Yokokawa kokumin gakko). 1978. Ink on paper.
57 x 96. Unac Tokyo, Inc.
Plate 30. MORITA Shiryu. Offing (Okitsu). 1965. Four-

panel screen, pigment and lacquer on gold-leafed
paper. 65% x 122>s. Kiyoshikojin Seicho-ji Temple.
Plate 31. TESHIGAHARA Sofu. White Clouds Come and Go
(Hakuun kyorai). 1958. Six-panel screen, ink on
gold-leafed silk. 68^ x 126. The Sogetsu Art
Museum, Tokyo.
Plate 32. NANTENBO Toju. Nanten Staff. Ink on paper, 58^4
x 185s. Private Collection, Barrington, Illinois.
Plate 33. HIDAI Nankoku. Variation on "L i g h t n i n g 1945.
Ink on paper, 16h x 24h. Chiba City Art Museum.
Plate 34. DOMON Ken. Detail of the Sitting Image of

Buddha Shakamuni in the Hall of Miroku, The Muroji.
1940. Gelatin silver print, 23^ x 16. The Museum
of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the photographer.
Plate 35. DEGUCHI Onisaburo. Kiyoko. 1947-48. Ceramic
tea bowl. 3H x 3% x 3H. Private Collection.
Plate 36. DEGUCHI Onisaburo. Mizugaki. 1947-48. Ceramic

tea bowl. AH x 3H x 3H. Private Collection.
Plate 37. YAGI Kazuo. Untitled (Black Ware). 1958.
Ceramic on wooden pedestal. 5H x AH x 9 Kyoto
Municipal Museum of Art.
Plate 38. YAGI Kazuo. Work No. 52 (The Eye at Rest) .

1959. Unglazed ceramic on wooden pedestal, 8^8 x 5H
x <oh. Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.
Plate 39. YAGI Kazuo. Circle (Wa) . 1967. Ceramic. 12
12 x 3~h. The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Plate 40. YAGI Kazuo. Wall (Kabe). 1963. Ceramic. 20^ x
15H x 3H. Private Collection.
Plate 41. Isamu NOGUCHI. Even the Centipede. 1952.
Kasama ware in eleven pieces, each approximately
18" wide, mounted on wooden pole 14' high. The
Museum of Modern Art, New York. A. Conger Goodyear
Fund.
Plate 42. Isamu NOGUCHI. Mortality. 1959-62. Bronze. 15H
x 153* x 12H. Yokohama Museum of Art.
Plate 43. Isamu NOGUCHI. Memorial to the Dead at
Hiroshima. 1952. Composite photograph of plaster
model for an unrealized project; proposed height
above ground 20.' Lost.
Plate 44. YAMASHITA Kikuji. The Tale of Akebono Village.
1953. Oil on jute. 53h x 84^. Collection Gallery
Nippon, Tokyo.
WMmSSmm
Plate 45. Demonstrators protesting against the U.S.-

Japan Security Treaty (Anpo) and surrounding the
Diet building, 18 June 1960.
Plate 46. Confrontation of the riot police and anti-Anpo
demonstrators, 15 June 1960.
Plate 47. DOMON Ken. From the series Hiroshima. 1957.

Gelatin silver print. Ken Domon Museum of
Photography.
Plate 48. NARAHARA Ikko. From the series Human Land,
Island without Green, Gunkanjima. 1954-57. Gelatin
silver print. Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of
Photography.
Plate 49. KAWADA Kikuji. The Japanese National Flag.

1960. Gelatin silver print. 9H x 7. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York. Gift of Armand P. Bartos.
Plate 50. TOMATSU Shomei. Hull of Japanese Ship. 1963.
From the series 11:02—Nagasaki (1966). Gelatin
silver print. 16 x 10ki. Collection the artist.
Plate 51. TOMATSU Shomei. Man with Keloidal Scars. 1962.
From the series 11:02—Nagasaki (1966). Gelatin
silver print. 16*6 x 10^. Collection the artist.
Plate 52-1. TOMATSU Shomei. Protest, Tokyo. 1969. From
the series Oh! Shinjuku (1969). Gelatin silver
print. 11^6 x 16. Collection the artist.
Plate 52-2. TOMATSU Shomei. American Sailors, Yokosuka.

1966. From the series Chewing Gum and Chocolate
(1966) . Gelatin silver print. 11H x 16. Collection
the artist.
Plate 53. TOMATSU Shomei. Aftermath of a Typhoon,
Nagoya. 1959. From the series Nippon (1967).
Gelatin silver print. 6 x 10^. Collection the
artist.
Plate 54. MORIYAMA Daidd. Shinjuku Station. 1965.
Gelatin silver print. 6H x 8H. Tokyo Institute of
Polytechnics.
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Plate 56. MORIYAMA Daido. Setagaya, Tokyo. 1969. Gelatin
silver print. 8 x i m . Collection of the Tokyo
Institute of Polytechnics.
Plate 57. MORIYAMA Daido. From the series The Tales of
Tono. 1974. Gelatin silver print. 1356 x 165®.
Courtesy of Zeit-Foto.
Plate 58. NAKANISHI Natsuyuki. Clothespins Assert
Churning Action, shown at the "15th Yomiuri
Independant Exhibition," Tokyo Metropolitan Art
Museum, 1963.
Plate 59. Nakanishi covered with clothespins for Hi Red

Center's 6th Mixer Plan, Tokyo, 28 May 1963.
Plate 60. Installation view of the "Room as Alibi"
exhibition at Naiqua Gallery, Tokyo. 1963.
Plate 61. Hi Red Center Poster. 1965. Fluxus printing,
edited by Shigeko Kubota and designed by George
Maciunas. One sheet printed on both sides. 22 H x
17. Collection Jon and Joanne Hendricks, New York.
Plate 62. TAKAMATSU Jiro. String: Black (Himo: Kuro).
1962. Objects wrapped in fabric and rope. 118"
long. Collection the artist.

Imponded Objects (Seized Works) (Sen-en satsu
saiban oshuhin). 1963. Collection the artist.
OKTHNMHMpflp
m ' j i d u » m ium xi '' '*<***

Catalogue of Seized Works (Sen-en satsu saiban
oshuhin mokuroku). 1967. Poster. 30 x 24.
r<65658 R
mr~ .
7i*tc.mX.3.
Plate 65. AKASEGAWA Genpei. Morphology of Revenge

(Fukushu no keitaigaku). 1968. Gouache on paper,
mounted on panel. 35^ x llh. Collection the artist.
Plate 66. HI RED CENTER. / 1964. Fluxus Edition; cloth
with grommets. 19% x 19%. The Gilvert and Lila
Plate 67-1. HI RED CENTER. Measurement documentation of,

from left to right, Akasegawa, Nakanishi, and
Izumi. Three blueprints. 1QH x 31^ each. 1964.
Private Collection.
Plate 67-2. HI RED CENTER. Relies of the Shelter Plan
event including development plan for Nam June
Paik's shelter box, invitation card, Hi Red
Center's name card, registration card and
measurement record for each visitor, instruction
card, notes for visitors, hotel receipt, and
"cosmic can." 1964. Private Collection.
Plate 68. JONOUCHI Motoharu. Shelter Plan. 1964. Video
(original 16mm film), B/W, silent, 21 minutes.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 69. HI RED CENTER. The Ochanomizu Drop (Dropping

Event) was performed in and around the Ochanomizu
section of downtown Tokyo on 10 October 1964.
Plate 70. HI RED CENTER. Movement to Promote the Cleanup
of the Metropolitan Area (Be Clean!) was performed
in Tokyo on 16 October 1964.
,r
■* r
lilur!
Plate 71. HI RED CENTER. One-Thousand-Yen -Note Trial
(Sen-en satsu saiban) began on 8 October 1966 in
the Tokyo District Court.
Plate 72. "Kyushu-ha 2nd Street Exhibition-Informel
Outdoor Exhibition," November 1957.
Plate 73. KIKUHATA Mokuma. Slave Genealogy (Dorei
keizu). 1961/1983. Wood, bricks, fabric, metal,
five-yen coins, and candles. 111H x 78^ x 53h.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 74. Shusaku ARAKAWA. Untitled Endurance I. 1958.
Cement, cloth, cotton, and wooden box. 84 x 36 x
5h. Takamatsu City Museum of Art.
Plate 75. Ushio SHINOHARA. Drink More. 1964. Fluorescent
paint, lacquer, plaster, and Coca-Cola bottle on
canvas. 25H x 1QH x 9H. Yokohama Museum of Art.
Plate 76. Ushio SHINOHARA. Coca-Cola Plan. 1964. Mixed
media. x 25H x 2H. The Museum of Modern Art,
Toyama.
Place 77. Yoshimura advertising the third exhibition of
Neo-Dada Organizers in the streets of Tokyo, 1960.
Plate 78. YOSHIMURA Masunobu. Pig Lib (Buta: Piggu
ribu) . 1971. Stuffed pig, plastic, and wax. 2856 x
53^ x 32H. The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern
Art, Kobe.
Plate 79. MURAOKA Saburb. Thanatos D. 1975. Gun,

official bulletin of war dead, and glass vitrine on
plaster table. 35^ x lO'h x 35^s. The National Museum
of Art, Osaka.
Plate 80. YOKOO Tadanori. Postwar (The Direct Aftermath
of World War II). 1986. Silkscreen on ceramic tile.
18% x 18%. Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Plate 81. KUDO Tetsumi. Homage to the Young Generation—
The Cocoon Opens (Wakai sedai e no sanka-mayu wa
hiraku). 1968. Mixed media. Overall: 78^ x 59 x
47k. Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Plate 82. KUDO Tetsumi. Your Portrait. 1974. Cage and

mixed media, llh x 13Ps x 9. Yokohama Museum of Art.
Plate 83. KUDO Tetsumi. Waiting for the Revelation in
the Rain of Hereditary Chromosomes . 1979. Cage and
mixed media. 16k x 13k x 7 k. The National Museum
of Art, Osaka.
Plate 84. KUDO Tetsumi. Waiting for the Revelation in

the Rain of Hereditary Chromosomes. 1979. Cage and
mixed media. 19k x 15k x Ilk. The Tokushima Modern
Art Museum.
Plate 85. KUSAMA Yayoi. Accumulation #1. 1962. Mixed
media. 37 x 39 x 43. Collection Beatrice Perry.
Plate 86. KUSAMA Yayoi. My Flower Bed. 1962. Stuffed
cotton gloves and bed springs, painted red. 98% x
98% x 98%. Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre
Georges Pompidou.
Plate 87. KUSAMA Yayoi. Traveling Life. 1964. Stuffed

cloth protuberances and high-heeled shoes attached
to ladder. 97% x 32% x 59%. The National Museum of
Modern Art, Kyoto.
Plate 88. Kusama's Orgy Happening and Burning of the
Flag, dubbed on "anti-war demonstration" on the
Brooklyn Bridge, New York, 1968.
Plates 89 to 91. ASAOKA Keiko and MIKI Tomio. The Ear
No, 1001. 1976. Three drawings from a series of
thirty, lead stick on paper. 49H x 31H or 31H x A9H
each. Collection Asaoka Keiko.
Plate 92. MIKI Tomio. Ear. c. 1972. Aluminum. 31 x 18*2 x
6H. The Tokushima Modern Art Museum.
Plates 93 and 94. HIJIKATA Tatsumi performing Hijikata
Tatsumi and the Japanese—Revolt of the Flesh
(Hijikata Tatsumi to nihonjin—Nikutai no hanran) at
the Seinen Kaikan hall, Tokyo, 1968. Photos by
Nakatani Tadao (93) and Doi Nori (94) . Photo
courtesy Tatsumi Hij ikata Memorial Archives.
Plate 95. HOSOE Eiko. Kamaitachi (performance
Hijikata Tatsumi).
Plate 96. HOSOE Eiko. Ordeal by Roses, #32 (Portrait
Mishima Yukio). 1961.
Plates 97 to 99. Yoko 0N0. Instructions for Paintings:
Smoke Painting (97); Painting to Hammer a Nail
(98); Portrait of Mary: Painting to Let the Evening
Light Go Through (99) . First exhibited at Sogetsu
Art Center, May 1962. 1962. Three from the series
of twenty-two works, ink on paper. Approximately 9?s
x 14H each. Collection Gilvert and Lila Silverman,
Detroit.
Plate 100. Yoko ONO. Pointedness. 1964/1966. Crystal
sphere set on engraved plexiglass pedestal with
plexiglass vitrine. Pedestal: 58 3/8 x 10 1/2 x 10.
Forget It. 1966. Stainless steel needle set on
engraved plexiglass pedestal with plexiglass
vitrine. Pedestal: 52 H x 11 7/8 x 12. Collection
the artist.
Plate 101. Ono performing Cut Piece at Yamaichi Concert
Hall, Kyoto, 1964. Photo courtesy Lenono Photo
archive.
Plate 102. Kubota performing Vagina Painting at

Cinematheque, New York as part of Perpetual Fluxus
Festival, 4 July 1965. Photo by George Maciunas;
courtesy The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus
Plate 103. FLUXUS. Fluxus 1. 1965. Fluxus Edition; mixed
media book in wooden box. Dimensions variable. The
Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection,
Detroit.
Plate 104. Performance relic of KOSUGI Takehisa's
Theater Music , a component of Fluxus 1. 1965.
Footprint on Japanese paper and score offset on
card stock. Dimensions variable. The Gilvert and
Plate 105. AY-O. Finger Box. c.1964-65. Fluxus Edition;
mixed media in suitcase. Closed: llh x 11H x 5H.
The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection,
Detroit.
Plate 106. AY-O. Ay-O's Rainbow Tactile Staircase

Environment. 1965. Pencil, ballpoint pen, and ink
on graph paper. 17^ x 11. The Gilvert and Lila
Plate 107. Takako SAITO. Sound Chess. 1965-C.1977.
Artist's Edition; wooden object filled with unknown
contents, wooden board, and box. 1 2 ks x 1 2 *s x 2 ^.
The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection,
Detroit.
Plate 108. KOSUGI Takehisa. Events. 1965. Fluxus

Edition; offset on card stock, plastic box, and
offset label. Dimensions variable. The Gilvert and
Plate 109. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Endless Bo x , a
component of Fluxkit. 1963-1965. Approximately 30
folded paper boxes, wooden box and lid, and offset
label. Dimensions variable. The Gilvert and Lila
Plate 110. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Events and Games.

1964-c.1965. Fluxus Edition: translucent plastic
box with label containing various scores.
Plate 111. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Water Music , a
component of Fluxkit. 1964. Assorted glass bottles
with labels and contents. Largest bottle: 3h x lh x
1. The Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus
Plate 112. SHIOMI Mieko (Chieko). Spatial Poem , No.l.

1965. Fluxus Edition; stenciled map on board,
sixty-nine printed cards with pins, and cardboard
box. 11H x 18 x The Gilvert and Lila Silverman
9 9 ~9 S 3
srra;
2 3=G «a
a 3
2
S.JS s.fttffvm
« TOatwr or ns^fAXsn »i
Plates 113-1 to 113-3. ICHIYANAGI Toshi. IBM for Merce

Cunningham and Music for Electronic Metronome.
1960/1963. Fluxus Edition; blueprint positive, two
score sheets, and instruction page. The Gilvert and
Plates 114-1 to 114-3. ICHIYANAGI Toshi. Stanza for
Kenji Kobayashi. 1961/1963. Original master for the
Fluxus Edition; ink on paper, six score sheets with
rubber stamp, and typed instruction page. The
Gilvert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection,
Detroit.
Plate 115. Yasunao TONE. Score for "Geodesy for Piano."
1961/1972. Red ink on acetate over official
geological survey map dated 1954, mounted on
cardboard. 19% x 24. Collection the artist.
Plate 116. Shigeko KUBOTA. Duchampiana: Nude Descending
a Staircase. 1976. Plywood staircase with four 13"
monitors. Edition of 5 Original constructed by A1
Robbins. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo
by Peter Moore.
Plate 117. Shigeko KUBOTA. Meta Marcel Window. 1976-
1983. Window on pedestal, one 24" monitor with
single-channel tape. Edition of 5 with tapes of
either Snow, Flowers, or Stars. Box: 31 x 23 x 26.
The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama.
Plate 118. Shigeko KUBOTA. Duchampiana Bicycle Wheel
One , Two, and Three . 1983-90. Three freestanding,
motorized 36" diameter bicycle wheels, each mounted
on a wooden stool and with 5" monitor showing a
single-channel, color videotape, color-synthesized.
Edition of 5. 36 x 12 x 4H. Hara Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
12.88 P.M. 1
I JOHN PERRSAUU
5s <Czwer* ? ?85 «* ??TH ST
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Plate 119-1. On KAWARA. I Got UP. 197 6 . Three of twenty

postcards rubber-stamped and addressed to John
Perreault. 3^ x UH each. Private Collection, Tokyo.
DEC.12.1979
Plate 119-2. On KAWARA. Wednesday, Dec. 12, 1979. 1979.

Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 18H x 24%. The
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Plates 120-1 to 120-5. TAKIGUCHI Shuzo. To and From

Rrose Selavy: Selected Words of Marcel Duchamp.
1968. Book with a set of five original prints by
Marcel Duchamp, Jean Tinguely, Jasper Johns,
Shusaku Arakawa, and Takiguchi Shuzo. Edition of
60. 13H x 10^6 x Iks. Courtesy Satani Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 120-2
Plate 120
120-4
120-5
Plate 121. TAKIGUCHI Shuzo and OKAZAKI Kazuo. Occulist
Witness after Marcel Duchamp. 1977. Case fitted
with parts for reconstruction of Duchamp's work.
Edition of 100. Closed: 15^ x 11H x 11H. Courtesy
Satani Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 122-1. Shusaku ARAKAWA. S, C, U, I, P, T , I, N, G .
1962. Pencil on canvas. 48 x 72. Collection the
artist.
Plate 122-2. Shusaku ARAKAWA. Portrait No. 4. 1962.

Pencil on canvas. 72 x 48. Collection the artist.
Plate 123. KAWAGUCHI Tatsuo. Time of the Lotus:
Relation— Table for Meditation (Hasu no toki:
Kankei-meisd no taku). 1991. Lead and lotus. 40H x
29^ x 28H. Collection the artist.
Plate 124-1. Hiroshi SUGIMOTO. Arctic Ocean, Nord Kapp,
1991. Gelatin silver print. 21H x 17. Private
Collection.
Plate 124-2. Hiroshi SUGIMOTO. Red Sea, Safaga. 1992

Gelatin silver print. 21H x 17. Private Collection.
Plate 125. MIYAJIMA Tatsuo. Region N o .105955-No.106003.
1991. LED, IC, electric wire, and aluminum plate.
515$ x 113 x 15$. Collection the artist.
Plate 126. TAKAMATSU Jiro. Pressed Shadow (Kage no

assaku) . 1965. Oil on canvas. 515$ x 635$. Takamatsu
City Museum of A r t .
Plate 127. MIYAWAKI Aiko. MEGU-72. 1972. Glass.
47H x m . Private Collection.
Plates 128-1 to 128-5. AKASEGAWA Genpei. 1972. Five from
a set of ten offset prints from the series Tomason
Apocalypse (Tomason Mokushiroku). Collection the
artist.
Plate 129. SEKINE Nobuo. Phase—Earth (Iso—daichi), a
site-specific work created for the "Biennale of
Kobe at Suma Detached Palace Garden: Contemporary
Sculpture Exhibition," 1968.
Plate 130. LEE U Fan. Relatum (Kankei-ko). 1969. Stones
and cotton. 31^5 x 21h x 66%. Kamakura Gallery,
Tokyo.
Plate 131. LEE U Fan. Relatum (Kankei-ko). 1978. Two

stones and two iron sheets. 86% x 110% x 133%. The
National Museum of Art, Osaka.
Plate 132. KOSHIMIZU Susumu. Paper (Kami). 1969.
Approximately 3-ton stone and Japanese paper. 18M x
TdM x 19H. Courtesy the artist.
Plate 133. YOSHIDA Katsuro. Cut Off (Hang). 1969. Wood,

rope, and stone. Wood beam approximately, 157 x 23
x 23. Courtesy the artist.
Bill
Plate 134. SUGA Kishio. Parallel Strata (Heiretsu-so).

1969. Paraffin. 118 x 94^ x 62H. Courtesy the
artist
Plate 135. NARITA Katsuhiko. Sum ! . 1969. Charcoal logs,

31ks x 215s x 11%. Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo.
Plate 136, SAITO Yoshishige. Complex 501. 198 9. Lacquer
on wood, and bolts. 11 x 26 x 14'. Collection
Matsumoto Co, Ltd., Tokyo.
Plate 137. ENDO Toshikatsu. Epitaph— Cylindrical (Event
Nos.1, 2, 3), 1990. Wood, tar, fire, air, earth,
and sun. 118^ x 161^ x 1613s. Shiraishi Contemporary
Art Inc., Tokyo.
Plate 138. SUGA Kishio. Unnamed Situation I,
installation at the National Museum of Modern Art,
Kyoto, 1970. Wood, window, air, landscape, and
light. Collection the artist.
Plate 139. KAWAMATA Tadashi. Photo documents and working

notes for Destroyed Church. 1987. Reproduction of
documentary photos and working notes mounted on
four panels. 253$ x 331-5 each. Kodama Gallery, Osaka.

Avant - Garde - Art - in - Postwar - Ja (Tiene Muy Buena Nformación Histórica, Leer Con Cuidado)

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Avant - Garde - Art - in - Postwar - Ja (Tiene Muy Buena Nformación Histórica, Leer Con Cuidado)

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AVANT-GARDE ART IN POSTWAR JAPAN:

THE CULTURE AND POLITICS OF RADICAL CRITIQUE 1951-1970

A dissertation submitted in partialfulfillment

o f the requirements for the degree of

Doctor o f Philo sophy

New York University

Professor Harry Harootunian

All rights reserved.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company

All Rights Reserved, 2004

This dissertation expands upon my research of postwar

Japanese avant-garde art that I have conducted as a museum

curator for much of my professional career, and which has

been published in various exhibition catalogues,

specifically Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the

Sky.1 I am enormously grateful to my chief academic advisors

1 Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against

Varnedoe, for their encouragement, support, and intellectual

guidance that has ensured the completion of my graduate work

while maintaining full-time administrative and curatorial

positions here and in Japan.

My scholarly and curatorial research has benefited from

relationships with numerous teachers, colleagues, gallery

directors, artists, and critics both in Japan and the West.

I feel extremely fortunate to have known so many brilliant

individuals whose stories, thoughts, and insights have

contributed in myriad ways to my work. As it is impossible

to acknowledge everyone who has influenced my research over

the course of some twenty years, I name only those whose

contributions were most significant.

My most devoted intellectual partner on this project

Japanese and Euro-American modern art history and postmodern

critiques is outstanding. Dr. Tomii assisted me in the

translation of several texts, and our discussions that

followed stimulated ideas that helped shape this project's

thesis. In Japan, I owe profound thanks to Asano Taro and

my research and encouraged the somewhat controversial

narrative of postwar Japanese art which I presented under

their institution's auspices. This work has also benefited

from the intellectual stimulation of the following scholars,

critics and curators: Asada Akira of Kyoto University

Research Center; Chiba Shigeo, formerly of the National

Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; architect and critic Isozaki

Arata; Karatani Kojin of Hosei University, Tokyo; Kasahara

Michiko of the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo;

Kawasaki Koichi of the Ashiya City Museum of Art & History;

critic Kobata Kazue; Komoto Shinji of the National Museum

of Modern Art, Kyoto; Kuroda Raiji of the Fukuoka Art Museum;

Minami Yusuke of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT) ;

Minemura Toshiaki of Tama Fine Arts University, Tokyo; Ono

Masaharu; Osaki Shin'ichiro, formerly of the Hyogo

Prefectural Museum of Modern Art and currently at the Museum

of Modern Art, Kyoto; Sakai Tadayasu of the Kamakura Museum

of Modern Art; Satani Kazuhiko, gallerist; critic Shinoda

Tatsumi; Takashina Shuji of Tokyo University; Tatehata Akira

of Tama Fine Arts University, Tokyo; critic Tono Yoshiaki;

Uchiyama Takeo of the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and Yaguchi

Kunio, formerly of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

allowing access to his formidable archive and bibliographies

of modern Japanese art which form the basis of the

bibliography presented here. I was also fortunate to have

access to the archives and personal papers of several

artists, many of whom granted extensive and repeated