We can make another future : Japanese art after 1989

27 26 WE CAN MAKE ANOTHER FUTURE: JAPANESE ART AFTER 1989 ENDNOTES 1 Hiroki Azuma, ‘For a change, proud to be Japanese’, New York Times , 17 March 2011, p.A35. 2 For an account of the political and economic context, see Jeff Kingston, Contemporary Japan: History, Politics and Social Change Since the 1980s , Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ, 2013. 3 A ‘bubble-era’ portmanteau of the loan words ‘free’ and ‘arbeiter’ (part-time employee), ‘freeter’ initially described youths who were either unwilling to join the mainstream labour force or who were otherwise engaged in some kind of creative activity. Over the course of the 1990s, it came to describe precarious labour conditions in general. ‘Parasite single’ was coined by pop sociologist Masahiro Yamada in 1997 to describe the increasing numbers of adult children who remain economically dependent on their parents. ‘Shut-ins’, or hikikomori , are people who withdraw from all social contact. In 2010, government estimates put their number at approximately 700 000, with 1.55 million borderline cases; other accounts propose a much higher figure. Japan’s internet suicide clubs were famously documented by the BBC’s Newsnight program in December 2004. Despite the program’s ominous tone, they account for a tiny percentage of Japan’s tragically high suicide figures. 4 Anne Allison details the social influence of economic restructuring in Precarious Japan , Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2013. 5 Miwako Tezuka, ‘Japanese art abroad’, in Doryun Chong, Michio Hayashi, Kenji Kajiya and Fumihiko Sumitomo, From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945–1989 , Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p.400. 6 Miyakawa Atsushi, quoted in Reiko Tomii, ‘How gendai bijutsu stole the “museum”: An institutional observation of the vanguard 1960s’, in J Thomas Rimer (ed.), Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868–2000 , University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2012, p.145. 7 The Kansai New Wave was a burst of freewheeling, do-it-yourself energy that took hold in the densely populated region around the western Japanese cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe in the 1980s. It extended Mono-ha’s indifference toward medium specificity to the level of content, embracing popular culture and everyday life as sources of inspiration as relevant as deeper philosophical questions. The New Wave was notable for the central role of women practitioners, such as Chie Matsui and Tomoko Sugiyama, and for the self-organised nature of its exhibition projects, arranged largely without commercial or institutional support. 8 Other Japanese participants in the ‘Aperto’ that year were Tomoaki Ishihara and Katsuhito Nishikawa. 9 These touring exhibitions included ‘Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties’ (United States, 1989), ‘A Primal Spirit: Ten Contemporary Japanese Sculptors’ (United States and Canada, 1990–91), ‘Japan Art Today: Elusive Perspectives, Changing Visions’ (Scandinavia, 1990), ‘Zones of Love: Contemporary Art from Japan’ (Australia and New Zealand, 1991–92) and ‘A Cabinet of Signs: Contemporary Art from Post‑Modern Japan’ (United Kingdom and Sweden, 1991–92). 10 In 2002, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported that Japan spent ¥3 trillion on art during the ‘bubble’ years. Some 5.4 million works of art were bought from overseas sources during this period, though only a fraction of these entered museum collections. An earlier report in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper suggested that 80 per cent of these purchases are now held by Japanese banks. With values around 70–90 per cent lower than their early 1990s purchase prices, the banks refused to sell. 11 For the exhibiting history of the Shokuryo Building, home to Sagacho Exhibit Space, Shugo Satani Art Room, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Taro Nasu Gallery and Rice Gallery by G2, see Emotional Site [exhibition catalogue], Emotional Site Executive Committee, Tokyo, 2002. Subsequent Tokyo ‘art complexes’ would include Shinkawa Gallery Complex (2003–05), Complex Building (2003–08), Kagurazaka Building (2004–11), Kiyosumi Shirakawa (from 2005), NADiff a/p/a/r/t (from 2008), Shirokane Art Complex (from 2008) and Piramide Building (from 2011). 12 Nakamura, Murakami and Ozawa had previously staged actions that ‘covered’ performances and interventions by Hi Red Center and the Gutai group, suggesting sympathies with these radical precursors. 13 Mainichi Shimbun , 8 October 2004. 14 By the end of the year, cashflow problems also saw the closure of Sagacho Exhibit Space. NICAF was wound up with its eighth edition in 2003, citing disappointing sales, declining attendances and a decrease in gallery participation. 15 Otaku describes a subculture of socially awkward devotees of manga and anime. The term was appropriated in 1983 by journalist Akio Nakamori from an honorific form of the word ‘you’. They became the target of moral panic in 1989 with the arrest of serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, whose enormous video collection of animated action features and underground horror films saw him dubbed the ‘otaku murderer’ in the press, but their fortunes revived with the critical and commercial success of the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–96). Given the obsessive nature of their consumption, they have become a vital market for Japanese culture industries. 16 Karen Rosenberg, ‘A turnabout from manga to zen’, New York Times , 11 October 2013, p.C22. 17 Social protest and student unrest in Japan peaked in the late 1960s in opposition to the continuation of the Japan–US Security Treaty (known as Anpo ). The movement splintered into warring factions in the early 1970s, and the violence and terrorist excesses of these internecine struggles alienated moderates and a previously sympathetic public. 18 Azuma, p.A35. 19 Sueo Mitsuma, quoted in Adrian Favell, Before and After Superflat: A Short History of Japanese Contemporary Art 1990–2011 , Timezone8, Beijing, 2011, p.106. WE CAN MAKE ANOTHER FUTURE | REUBEN KEEHAN Yoshitomo Nara / Japan b.1959 / Girl on a boat 1996 / Pencil / 29.4 x 20.9cm / Gift of Dr Morris Low through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2011. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program