Thursday, October 5, 5-7pm, CWAC 156
After the Tsunami: Japanese Contemporary Art since 2011
Adrian Favell
Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, University of Leeds
Art collective Shibuhouse led by Saito Keita
What effect have the Triple Earthquake disasters of March 2011 had on Japanese contemporary art? Japanese contemporary art since the 1990s has mainly been associated with the popular culture inspired work of artists such as Murakami Takashi, Nara Yoshitomo, Mori Mariko and Aida Makoto. The rupture of 2011 however made clear a major shift in Japanese art towards more community based, socially engaged, and politically critical work, including among this older generation. While explaining the longstanding roots of socially engaged “art projects” as a distinctive feature of the Japanese art world, the talk will focus on the changing output of a younger generation of artists: particularly the rise of the art unit Chim↑Pom, and the story of three even younger Tokyo art collectives, whose work has also shifted the line between art, politics and everyday survival—Chaos★Lounge, Shibuhouse and Parplume. The talk is based on a new chapter for a forthcoming revised and updated edition (in Japanese and English) of my book, Before and After Superflat: A Short History of Japanese Contemporary Art 1990-2011 (Blue Kingfisher/DAP 2012).
This event is sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies with support from a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the United States Department of Education.
Thursday, October 5, 5-7pm, CWAC 156
Persons with concerns regarding accessibility please contact Nancy P. Lin (nancyplin@uchicago.edu)
