Repurposing the Past: Historicism in Contemporary Japanese Art

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

In recent years, the contemporary Japanese art world has witnessed a burgeoning of interest in the quotation, appropriation, and revival of historical Japanese art formats, styles, methods and motifs. This “visual historicism” is a process by which certain aesthetic values, formal styles or artistic strategies from Japan’s pre-20th century art history are prioritized and repurposed in order to generate new contemporary meaning, often ironic. The presenters in the panel consider this issue from various viewpoints, but share an interest in the following questions: What motivates artists in Japan today to engage in historicist practice? Is this trend best understood as an articulation of global identity politics? In what ways does it function as a form of domestic cultural critique? How do the resulting artworks affect our understandings of the historical models on which they draw? Matthew Larking offers historical context by discussing the internationalization of Nihonga (Japanese neo-traditional painting) in the post-WWII decades, followed by its subsequent “re-Japanization” in more recent years. Paul Berry considers sensōga (“war paintings”) by the controversial artist Aida Makoto, and discusses their visual relation to propagandistic battle paintings created during the Pacific War. John Szostak considers how Rimpa, an art-and-design movement of the Edo period (1600-1868), functions as a sort of “visual text” for creative hermeneutical exposition by 21st century Japanese artists. Finally, Erika Enomoto takes up the Kyoto-city sponsored celebration of Rimpa’s 400th anniversary, and the ramifications of this official effort to re-inscribe Rimpa onto Kyoto’s contemporary cultural landscape.

Area of Study

• Japan

Session Organizer

• John Szostak, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Chair

• John Szostak, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Individual Presentations

• The "Re-Japanization" of Nihonga in the Post-War Era - Matthew Larking, Doshisha University

• Sensoga Returns: Reengaging War Imagery, from Fujita Tsuguji to Aida Makoto - Paul Berry, Kansai Gaidai University

• Visual Historicism as Creative Hermeneutics: The Case of Neo-Rimpa - John Szostak, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

• “Rimpa 400": Re-Inscribing Rimpa on Japan's 21st-Century Cultural Landscape - Erika Enomoto, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Discussant

• John Carpenter, Metropolitan Museum of Art