International Artistic Director of Benesse Art Site Naoshima and Co-director (Artistic) for Yokohama Triennale 2017 Akiko Miki will talk about Japan’s contemporary art scene and the specific features of Japanese art’s evolution after World War II.
Looking at Takashi Murakami’s exhibition and its title, Under the Radiation Falls, this lecture will give an overview of some of the developments in the Japanese art scene since the atomic bombings—the end of World War II to the present. Although not comprehensive and rather fragmental, it will introduce a basic outline of developments from the rise of highly experimental artistic movements such as Gutai or Jikken Kobo, investigating various means of expressions and mediums in the 1950s, to the practices of “art localization” through the increasing number of local art festivals in the 2000s. The lecture will also discuss some of the artists’ approaches in the years following the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster of 2011 as its responses, as well as the diverse activities of Takashi Murakami - as if challenging how far one’s limits can be pushed based on the term “Superflat.”
