Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

postminimal and conceptualist tendencies. This was aptly captured by the
Second Kyoto Biennale organized by the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art
in 1973 under the theme of “art by collectives (shudan).”
This chapter will examine a crucial decade between 1964 and
1973 in the history of Japanese collectivism. The survey begins with an introduction
in three parts, providing a historical framework to “collectivism
after modernism” in Japan. It will outline the modern practice of group exhibitions
(“exhibition collectivism”) and the various reactions against the state
and other art institutions. It will also identify an end-point of modernism,
by examining the notion of the “descent to the everyday,” introduced in
1964 by the critic Miyakawa Atsushi, in relation to the evolution of collectivism.
The introduction will be followed by a brief discussion of Hi Red
Center’s Cleaning Event and an overview of post-HRC collectives, including
Akasegawa Genpei’s 1,000-Yen-Note Incident Discussion Group, Group “I,”
Zero Dimension, Bikyoto, and Psychophysiology Research Institute. Particular
notice will be given to The Play, a collaborative collective with a scenic
dimension, which was among the six collectives represented in the 1973
Kyoto Biennale. In these studies, different kinds of collectivism, such as “inadvertent
collectivism” and “participatory collectivism,” will be introduced,
while issues concerning collaborative collectivism will be addressed. They
will range from the connections between radical politics and collectivism
to the use of parody, anonymity vs. publicity, and shock and spectacle, all
of which vitally informed an increasingly public nature of collectivism.
The chapter will conclude with an overall observation on collectivism after
modernism.
INTRODUCTION IN THREE PARTS
“Collectivism” in Japan
After the “Descent to the Everyday” 47
Collectivism has been a vast topic in Japanese art since the Meiji period
(1868–1912). Over more than half a century, through the prewar years, it is
not an exaggeration to say that the evolution and maturation of modernism
was propelled by collectivism in the form of “art organizations” (bijutsu dantai).
A main engine of what I term “exhibition collectivism,” the art organizations
functioned primarily as exhibition societies. The importance of the
art organizations during the modern eras was such that Japanese art historians
have routinely chronicled the evolution of modernism as a sequence of
their foundings and disbandings. The intricate history was codiWed into a
set of genealogical trees, one each for different areas of practice—for example,
yoga (oil painting), Nihonga (the modern extension of traditional painting),
and sculpture—which often accompany art-historical literature. 6