[Blake_Stimson,_Gregory_Sholette]_Collectivism_aft(z-lib
After the “Descent to the Everyday” 51showcased in such international events as the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 andExpo ’70 in Osaka, both Wrsts for Asia. Geopolitically, the decade was shapedby Anpo, the Japanese abbreviation for the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Thatis to say, Japan’s sixties began with the Anpo ’60 struggle and concludedwith the Anpo ’70 struggle. Signed in 1951, Anpo turned the island nationinto a key front base for America’s Asian operations by allowing the stationingof U.S. troops. Slated for renewal in 1960, the treaty incited Werce andmassive popular protests, which failed to stop its renewal but managed totopple the cabinet. From the mid-1960s onward, the strong anti–VietnamWar movement merged with the student revolts nationwide, in expressionof the moral crisis of postwar Japanese society. Toward 1970, these movementsin turn merged with a larger movement of the New Left against Anpo’sdecennial renewal. Haunted by the nightmare of 1960 and determined toquash any obstacle, the state used its iron Wst to suppress opposition. 15 In retrospect,Anpo brought about the momentous political, social, and culturalmovement that aligned leftist rhetoric with avant-garde strategies, makingthe 1960s as a whole a deWning time of postwar Japan.In art, the decade was marked by two movements: the junk-arttendency of Anti-Art arose around 1960, in part fueled by the fervor of theAnpo ’60 struggle; and the tides of Non-Art arose around 1970 and continuedinto the next decade. They prompted a major paradigm shift, completelytransforming the face of Japanese art as well as the nature of the avant-garde.This shift paralleled, or in some cases preceded, what is called the “dematerialization”of art—a move away from the self-contained object—that waswidely observed globally during the same decade. Well before postmoderndiscourse was introduced, in the local context of Japan, the shift was initiallyrecognized and theorized in 1963 as one from the modern (kindai) to thecontemporary (gendai) by the art critic Miyakawa Atsushi. He discerned asymptom of the “collapse of the modern” in the gestural abstraction of ArtInformel (the rubric encompassing both Gutai and American abstract expressionism)in the late 1950s, which he called “an adventure that staked anauthenticity of expression . . . on the act of expression.” 16 His observationwas prescient in a broader context of culture: toward the end of the 1960s,the discourse of the modernity critique emerged simultaneously with theupsurge of radical politics of the New Left. 17In the evolutionary narrative of art, Art Informel was followed byAnti-Art, which dominated the vanguard scenes into the early 1960s afterits emergence in and around the annual “Yomiuri Independent Exhibition,”further propelling the collapse of the modern paradigm. “Descent to theeveryday” (nihijo-sei eno kako) was Miyakawa’s “stylistic” thesis, with whichhe evocatively described the subversion of the conventional notion of art
52 Reiko Tomii(i.e., painting and sculpture) by Anti-Art: artists brought everyday signs,images, and objects into the work of art. 18 In other words, through the insertionof everyday things into the work of art, which constituted a locus ofArt with a capital A—that characteristically modern concept, which boastedan absolute superiority over Life—Art was taken down from its pedestal andforced to descend to the humble realm of Life. This degrading move remainedmetaphorical, since it occurred within the work of art. However, artists didnot stay with this metaphorical stage but made a “descent to everyday life,”if you will: some artists actually made everyday life itself the site of their work,most typically staging performances in the real space of Life. This developmentwas exempliWed by Cleaning Event in 1964. In this performance, themembers of Hi Red Center—who had made Anti-Art objects and presentedthem in the exhibition hall—now literally performed an everyday act ofcleaning the streets, albeit with a twist, preWguring many aspects of post-HRC collectivism.In the latter half of the 1960s, practitioners continued to pushforward, cutting a wide swath of experimental terrain into Non-Art of conceptualismand Mono-ha (literally “Thing School”), 19 wherein the mandateno longer concerned “making” in the conventional sense but explicitly “notmaking.” (To be more precise, Non-Art even rejected Anti-Art’s “rebellionagainst making.”) By the mid-1970s, this transition was complete, and theavant-garde (zen’ei), which had previously operated on the fringes of the artworld, transmuted into what is today understood in Japan as “contemporaryart” (gendai bijutsu), which has since become an institution unto itself.“Collectivism after Modernism” in JapanPost-1945 collectivism continued the venerable tradition of modern collectivism,as a driving force of changes—speciWcally, prompting the fundamentalshift from kindai to gendai. The shift toward gendai can also be understoodin terms of the exhibition. As outlined above, the collectivism of the artorganizations as exhibition societies helped Japanese society acclimate tothe modern exhibition system. In the postwar years, collectivism’s relationshipto the exhibition underwent three phases of transition.In the Wrst phase, the possibility of the exhibition as a formal andstructured means of presentation was pursued in a few signiWcant manners.Outstanding in this respect was Gutai, especially in its early period after itsfoundation in 1954. In Tokyo, Jikken Kobo (whose ofWcial English namewas Experimental Workshop) from the Wrst half of the 1950s was anotherimportant group; its intermedia experiments in stage design constituted anearly example of collaborative collectivism under the vision of modernist“total art” and preWgured technology-oriented art in the late 1960s. 20
- Page 20 and 21: Introduction: Periodizing Collectiv
- Page 22 and 23: Introduction 3to increase their pro
- Page 24 and 25: Introduction 5Modernist artists und
- Page 26 and 27: Introduction 7Those good intentions
- Page 28 and 29: Introduction 9and that helped give
- Page 30 and 31: Introduction 11collectivism brings
- Page 32 and 33: Introduction 13artists on Chicago
- Page 34 and 35: Introduction 15Phase of the Cultura
- Page 36 and 37: 1. Internationaleries: Collectivism
- Page 38 and 39: Internationaleries 19played a “us
- Page 40 and 41: Internationaleries 21Rooskens, Euge
- Page 42 and 43: FIGURE 1.2. Le “Realisme-Socialis
- Page 44 and 45: Internationaleries 25and an active
- Page 46 and 47: Internationaleries 27create a democ
- Page 48 and 49: Internationaleries 29of the fourth
- Page 50 and 51: Internationaleries 31Debord’s 196
- Page 52 and 53: Internationaleries 33in which the n
- Page 54 and 55: Internationaleries 35be demystiWed
- Page 56 and 57: Internationaleries 37printing a ser
- Page 58 and 59: Internationaleries 39NOTES1. Harold
- Page 60 and 61: Internationaleries 4136. The exhibi
- Page 62 and 63: Internationaleries 4377. Michel de
- Page 64 and 65: 2. After the “Descent to the Ever
- Page 66 and 67: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 68 and 69: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 72 and 73: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 74 and 75: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 76 and 77: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 78 and 79: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 80 and 81: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 82 and 83: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 84 and 85: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 86 and 87: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 88 and 89: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 90 and 91: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 92 and 93: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 94 and 95: After the “Descent to the Everyda
- Page 96 and 97: 3. Art & Language and the Instituti
- Page 98 and 99: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 100 and 101: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 102 and 103: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 104 and 105: FIGURE 3.4. Cover of Blurting in A&
- Page 106 and 107: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 108 and 109: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 110 and 111: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 112 and 113: Art & Language and the Institutiona
- Page 114 and 115: 4. The Collective Camcorder in Arta
- Page 116 and 117: The Collective Camcorder in Art and
- Page 118 and 119: The Collective Camcorder in Art and
52 Reiko Tomii
(i.e., painting and sculpture) by Anti-Art: artists brought everyday signs,
images, and objects into the work of art. 18 In other words, through the insertion
of everyday things into the work of art, which constituted a locus of
Art with a capital A—that characteristically modern concept, which boasted
an absolute superiority over Life—Art was taken down from its pedestal and
forced to descend to the humble realm of Life. This degrading move remained
metaphorical, since it occurred within the work of art. However, artists did
not stay with this metaphorical stage but made a “descent to everyday life,”
if you will: some artists actually made everyday life itself the site of their work,
most typically staging performances in the real space of Life. This development
was exempliWed by Cleaning Event in 1964. In this performance, the
members of Hi Red Center—who had made Anti-Art objects and presented
them in the exhibition hall—now literally performed an everyday act of
cleaning the streets, albeit with a twist, preWguring many aspects of post-
HRC collectivism.
In the latter half of the 1960s, practitioners continued to push
forward, cutting a wide swath of experimental terrain into Non-Art of conceptualism
and Mono-ha (literally “Thing School”), 19 wherein the mandate
no longer concerned “making” in the conventional sense but explicitly “not
making.” (To be more precise, Non-Art even rejected Anti-Art’s “rebellion
against making.”) By the mid-1970s, this transition was complete, and the
avant-garde (zen’ei), which had previously operated on the fringes of the art
world, transmuted into what is today understood in Japan as “contemporary
art” (gendai bijutsu), which has since become an institution unto itself.
“Collectivism after Modernism” in Japan
Post-1945 collectivism continued the venerable tradition of modern collectivism,
as a driving force of changes—speciWcally, prompting the fundamental
shift from kindai to gendai. The shift toward gendai can also be understood
in terms of the exhibition. As outlined above, the collectivism of the art
organizations as exhibition societies helped Japanese society acclimate to
the modern exhibition system. In the postwar years, collectivism’s relationship
to the exhibition underwent three phases of transition.
In the Wrst phase, the possibility of the exhibition as a formal and
structured means of presentation was pursued in a few signiWcant manners.
Outstanding in this respect was Gutai, especially in its early period after its
foundation in 1954. In Tokyo, Jikken Kobo (whose ofWcial English name
was Experimental Workshop) from the Wrst half of the 1950s was another
important group; its intermedia experiments in stage design constituted an
early example of collaborative collectivism under the vision of modernist
“total art” and preWgured technology-oriented art in the late 1960s. 20