We can make another future : Japanese art after 1989

15 14 WE CAN MAKE ANOTHER FUTURE: JAPANESE ART AFTER 1989 Yukinori Yanagi / Japan b.1959 / Hinomaru ( Rising sun) (portfolio) (detail) 1991 / Lithography, embossing and collage on BFK Rives paper, ed. 9/35 / Six sheets: 83.7 x 61cm (each) / Purchased 1996. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant ‘We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989’ explores the work of Japanese contemporary artists during the first 25 years of the Heisei period. This was a time which saw Japan attain, in the eyes of the world, a kind of mythic association with the future, though internally the country endured a difficult economic period and then later suffered the catastrophic events of March 2011. From this mix of cultural ascendancy, economic malaise and unimaginable tragedy comes a fertile quarter-century of art, which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) is in a unique position to assess. The beginning of the Heisei era coincided with ‘Japanese Ways, Western Means: Art of the 1980s in Japan’, an exhibition organised for the Queensland Art Gallery by the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, Queensland’s sister prefecture (state). This first-ever survey of contemporary Japanese art for Australian audiences inspired our serious commitment to the art of Japan, and our increasing engagement with the region was soon cemented with the ‘First Asia–Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT) exhibition in 1993. The APT enabled the Gallery to recalibrate its collecting lens which, when angled through Brisbane’s position on the periphery of Asia, helped us build an unrivalled collection of contemporary Japanese art in Australia. The collecting focus of the APT has afforded us broad yet incisive takes on the contemporary art of China — ‘The China Project’, presented in 2009 — and New Zealand — ‘Unnerved: The New Zealand Project’, presented in 2010. ‘We can make another future’ investigates the Japanese collection in comparable detail, and traces the legacy of the Mono-ha movement, whose resonances with Asian philosophy are expanded by artists grappling with technological advancement and social instability. The exhibition also finds senior figures Lee Ufan and Yayoi Kusama emerging from the preceding Showa period (1926–89) into the Heisei, when they achieved new levels of international recognition, and re-examines Takashi Murakami and his ‘Superflat’ philosophy, posing timely questions on the art–commerce divide. While each APT has redefined the boundaries of the Asia Pacific, Japan has remained central. In ‘We can make another future’, the first APT is recalled in Shigeo Toya’s towering Woods III 1991–92, while Murakami’s iconic Mr DOB (in And then, and then and then and then and then 1994) harks back to APT2 in 1996. Hall of Thirty-Three Bays (nos 1–24) 1995, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s meditative photographic reconstruction of Kyoto’s revered Buddhist temple, featured in APT3, while in 2002, the work of influential artists Yayoi Kusama and Lee Ufan was presented. APT5 brought us Masami Teraoka’s contemporary take on the classical ukiyo-e woodblock print tradition, while for APT6, the Gallery commissioned a major installation by YNG (Yoshitomo Nara and graf) and a sublime video and sound work by Hiraki Sawa. Most recently in 2012, APT7 included Takahiro Iwasaki’s serene floating temple and the otherworldly paintings of Tomoko Kashiki. These works are joined by other major acquisitions from the past 25 years, including significant recent additions. Video works by Chim↑Pom and Meiro Koizumi reflect on historical events, Yoko Asakai and Tomoko Yoneda present loaded landscapes in haunting photographs, and Sachiko Kazama offers an intensely critical perspective in her monumental woodblock print Nonhuman crossing 2013. All these artists address difficult personal, social and political complexities, but the future they help us to imagine is, I think, an ultimately optimistic one. The Gallery is indebted to the many benefactors who, through the QAGOMA Foundation, have made substantial contributions to our collection of contemporary Japanese art. In particular, the support of the Myer Foundation and Michael Sidney Myer has resulted in the internationally significant Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art, the Japanese component of which is crucial to this exhibition. The Gallery remains deeply indebted to the Myer family for this focused and sustained philanthropy, which reaches back to the mid 1990s. Other works have been acquired through the generosity of artists Lee Ufan, Yayoi Kusama and Tsuguo Yanai, the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation, James C Sourris, AM , Dr Morris Low, Francesco Conz, Hidenori Ota, Scott Redford, John Potter and Roz MacAllan, and the Bequest of Grace Davies and Nell Davies. The vision to establish a collection of contemporary Japanese art would have been impossible without the commitment of the Gallery’s former Director, Doug Hall, AM , and Chair at that time, Richard Austin, AO OBE . Many others have contributed since then, notably former Deputy Director, Dr Caroline Turner, AM , and former Deputy Director, Curatorial and Collection Development, Suhanya Raffel. I warmly congratulate Reuben Keehan, the Gallery’s Curator of Contemporary Asian Art, and the curatorial team, who have conceived this beautifully considered investigation of the contemporary Japanese collection. I also thank Shihoko Iida, a visiting curator at QAGOMA from 2009 to 2011, for the invaluable perspective offered in her essay in this publication. With its vision to be the leading institution for the contemporary art of Australia, Asia and the Pacific, QAGOMA is dedicated to drawing new lines of inquiry through a rich and expansive Collection. ‘We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989’ is an example of how curatorial expertise can craft compelling stories from the building blocks already at our disposal. DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD | CHRIS SAINES DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD CHRIS SAINES CNZM