Shinro Ohtake and Post-war Japanese Avant-garde Art

Abstract

Shinro Ohtake was born in 1955 in Japan when the country first entered its period of major economic growth. Post-war Japanese society was being heavily influenced by American consumerism and its cultural hegemony. Ohtake was no exception: American Pop Art, and Andy Warhol in particular, significantly affected his artistic development. The course of his successful debut in the early 1980s, his subsequent fluctuating career and the recent establishment of his artistic status both in Japan and abroad encapsulate the significant issues of Western-influenced, contemporary Japanese art. This article aims to identify the nature of his Pop Art–style creations by examining his key working methods and the underlying concepts relating to the whole body of his extraordinarily diverse work. In particular, the avant-gardism of Ohtake's art will be examined with reference to Gutai and Mono-ha, the recognised ‘traditional styles’ of the country's post-war avant-garde art. The significance of his anarchism will also be discussed in relation to Japanese art of the 1980s and 1990s. By doing so, the article intends to contextualise his creations in the complex development of post-war Japanese avant-garde art, and at the same time explore the potential for transnational engagement of a contemporary artist who lives and practices in the age of globalisation.

Keywords:

• avant-garde
• post-war Japanese art
• Pop Art
• Gutai
• Mono-ha
• collage
• materiality
• Japanese Neo Pop
• Japanese art of the 1980s

Notes on contributors

Kiyoko Mitsuyama-Wdowiak is independent art historian specialising in post-war Japanese art. The author of Umi wo Wataru Nihon-gendai-bijutsu [Contemporary Japanese Art across the Sea] (Keisô Shobô 2009), she holds BA and MA degrees in Western History from Tokyo’s Sophia University and an MPhil in Art History from the Chelsea College of Art and Design. Her curatorial roles include the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and she has lectured extensively in the UK and Japan.

Notes

1. The exhibition was organised by and held at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art in London between 12 October and 12 December 2014. I am very grateful to Parasol unit for inviting me to give a lecture about his art as part of the exhibition event programme. This paper was developed from that lecture.

2. He was invited to participate in, among others, the 8th Gwangiu Biennale in South Korea (2010) and the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 (presented at the Central Pavilion).

3. This was mentioned during his talk at the Japan Foundation on 10 October 2014, just before the opening of his first major solo exhibition held at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art.

4. In a talk given in October 2014 at the Japan Foundation in London, when questioned, he disapproved of the idea that his work was connected in any way with recycling.

5. For example, his interest in the aesthetics of wabi and sabi is described in his essay entitled ‘Wabi Sabi Tonneru Doraibu’ (Wabi Sabi Tunnel Drive). See Ohtake 2005: 257–9.

6. The Japanese title is ‘Monoha to Posutomonoha no Tenkai: 1969 nen ikō no Nihon no Bijutsu’. This was organised by the Tama Art University and the Seibu Museum of Art to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Tama Art University. It was on view at the Seibu Museum of Art, one of the most influential art galleries of the day. The core exhibition concepts were created by Yoshiaki Tono and Toshiaki Minemura, renowned art critics and professors at the University at that time.

7. Noi Sawaragi points out the crossover that took place at that time between the artists of the New Painting style and those of the genre of illustration (Sawaragi 1998: 100, 357–8).

8. Favell made an interesting reference to Ohtake and his counterpart in the graphic design genre, Katsuhiko Hibino, as follows: ‘The work they were already doing in the 1980s was not a lot different in its “pop” sensibility or its attractive “flatness” than the art that was to later become a global sensation – in fine art – in the 1990s. Takashi Murakami, for one, long denied the influence from Shinro Ohtake that is obvious enough in his work and style’ (Favell 2011: 65–6).