Collectivism after Modernism - autonomous learning - Blogs

After the “Descent to the Everyday” 49
and formed their own Nika-kai (literally, “Second Section Society”). 9 The
Wrst antisalon yoga collective, Nika would in turn spawn an ample number
of splinter groups. One of them was Futurist Art Association (Mirai-ha
Bijutsu Kyokai), founded in 1920. It was soon reorganized into a short succession
of equally short-lived offshoots under the name of Sanka (Third
Section) in an effort to unite vanguard factions, including Mavo. Founded
by the Dadaist-constructivist Murayama Tomoyoshi in 1923, Mavo was the
precursor of postwar avant-garde collectives in both its spirit and action. 10
In the early Showa period (1926–89), the so-called Fifteen Year
War began in 1931, eventually leading to Japan’s involvement in World War
II. As the nation’s war effort intensiWed, the art world was practically ruled
by the newly founded promilitary art organizations, and other organizations
were eventually forced to disband. Through this wartime consolidation, the
state effectively controlled artistic production, exploiting the indispensable
place the art organizations held in artists’ lives. In the post-1945 period,
most of the major prewar art organizations, including Nika, 11 were quickly
revived and many have survived to this date. However, alternate forms of
collectivism—and exhibition formats—were pursued in rejection of the earlier
organizations’ institutionalized nature: the rigid membership hierarchy,
the less than transparent jury system, and the increasingly outdated artistic
achievement. One variety was the across-the-board, interorganizational
“federations” (rengo or renmei in Japanese), customarily boasting a democratic
equal-opportunity policy. Another was the “independent exhibitions,” which
had neither jury nor prize, promising a truly free format. (In Japan, the regularly
held nonorganizational exhibitions, such as the governmental salon
and the “Yomiuri Independent Exhibition,” were habitually regarded as
“groupings” of artists.) Yet another was the small collectives, like Gutai and
Hi Red Center, whose exhibitions were largely for members only. From the
immediate postwar years onward, the sheer number of collectives in this last
type—in a gamut of artistic manifestations ranging from abstraction to the
avant-garde, from social realism to surrealism—characterized collectivism
in Japan, both in the capital, Tokyo, and beyond. A proliferation of regional
vanguard collectives was particularly notable throughout the postwar decades.
In addition to Gutai, the Kansai region (encompassing the Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto
areas) was the birthplace of Group “I” and The Play in the 1960s. Those
from other regions included Kyushu-ha (Kyushu School) of Fukuoka, Tosaha
(Tosa School) of Kochi, Zero Dimension (Zero Jigen) of Nagoya, GUN
(acronym of “Group Ultra Niigata”) of Niigata, Rozo Group (Rozo-gun) of
Mito, and Genshoku (Tactile Hallucination) of Shizuoka, among others. 12
To some extent, the Japanese collectivist vocabulary reveals the
evolution of collectivism. The art organizations are dantai, connoting their