16 JUNE 2000
LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS
Voices from Japan
The international symposium, 'Voices from Japan: Contemporary art and discourse in global perspective', held at the University of Leiden, marked the launch of the large, contemporary Japanese art project, 'Voices from Japan', that featured at various locations in the city of Leiden during the summer. 'Voices from Japan' was part of the celebration of the Fourth Centenary of the relationship between the Netherlands and Japan, which was enthusiastically embraced in Leiden because of the city's centuries-long cultural and scholarly ties with Japan. While many of the celebrations were related to the historical exchanges, 'Voices from Japan' focused on the art world of Japan today, on the production of art, and the art debate of Japan within the framework of contemporary developments in a globalizing world. 'Voices from Japan' was the result of a unique collaboration between the Municipal Museum De Lakenhal, the CBK Leiden Centre for Contemporary Art, and the Department of Art History at the University of Leiden. The symposium was attended by a large and diverse audience, and papers were presented by scholars from Japan, England, and the Netherlands.
By KITTY ZIJLMANS
Positioned in between the West and Asia, contemporary art in Japan takes up a special place in the art world. Japanese art refers to both contexts, and in both cases this is neither self-evident nor unproblematic. The West regards Japan as being an Eastern country with Western characteristics. Conversely, many Asian countries view Japan as being Western but with a vague memory of something Eastern. The Japanese themselves are also ambiguous about this and that is clearly reflected in their art. Somewhere in the 19th century the arts from the East and the West got interwoven. In the late nineteenth century and in quite some decades of the twentieth century, Japan firmly embraced the modernist art styles from the West, but at the end of the twentieth century it has, once again, turned to Asia. The West is no longer the role model for art but, being a economic superpower within Asia, Japan like Korea is the odd man out and is, as such, regarded as 'the Other'. Also, today more than ever, the West is looking with a fast-growing interest at the art production of Japan. More and more Japan is considered the trend-setter that leads the West in areas such as fashion, architecture, technology, design, computer graphics, popular visual culture, photography, and the new media. The symposium challenged ways to discuss contemporary Japanese art without falling into the traps of orientalism, or Western universalism opposed to Japanese exceptionalism. Equally important was the evaluation of how Japanese art has been 'framed' in art historical, art critical, and methodological contexts.
Symposium and discussion
Fumio Nanjo, well known curator of international contemporary art exhibitions and lecturer in Art History at the Keio University, Tokyo, refuted the assumption of the Western legacy in Japanese art. In his overview of 125 years of Japanese art history, Nanjo stated that although the Western influence in Japanese art at the end of the nineteenth century was unmistakable, a Japanese Modernism originated which, since then, has known an autonomous development keeping pace with Western modernism.
Other papers also reflected this line of thinking. Marianne Brouwer, former senior curator of sculpture at the Museum Kröller-Müller (Otterlo, the Netherlands), dismissed notions of 'Japaneseness' and Westernization as being biased. Living in Tokyo in the 1960s, she expected to find 'Japaneseness' but instead encountered a radical modernity that had little in common with the standard Western appreciation of Japan. She made a clear distinction between modernism (i.e. Western art) and modernity, which refers to a particular attitude in art which we find all over the world.
Another interesting point of view was stated by Fumihiro Nonomura, art and media critic and lecturer at the Wako University in Tokyo, who discussed the problem of contemporary public art in an urban environment. Public art is art in the city, meant for everybody. For Nonomura, the city parks and gardens are the obvious places for public art, for they are the places where city dwellers can experience the flow of time coming to rest. Public art needs to create its own spaces and, for this, it can revive the old, unique Japanese tradition of gardening and landscaping. From this a new art and art experience will evolve.
Meet the Kaki Tree
An art project that could easily be seen as an example of Nonomura's public art was presented to us during the lunch break of the symposium by Tatsuo Miyajima in his 'Revive Time Kaki Tree' Project. The point of departure of this social art event is the Kaki tree, which has amazingly survived the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki. With the close co-operation of a tree doctor, Miyajima has planted cuttings from this tree, the Kaki Tree Juniors, in various places around the world. The planting ceremonies, entitled 'Meet the Kaki Tree', are meant to stimulate exchanges with local artists and the population and to organize activities with children who participate in the ceremony. Children, after all, are the future and the Junior Kaki Tree symbolizes the continuation of life. The 'Meet the Kaki Tree' planting ceremony for the Leiden Kaki Tree Junior took place in the botanical gardens of the University of Leiden, where the tree received its permanent place.
The symposium was concluded with a lively panel discussion on topics relating to earlier issues, such as: as tradition/modernity; colonialism/territory; the problem of history; the global/the local; place and space; and centre/periphery. The panel included the abovementioned speakers, as well as Deborah Cherry, professor of art history at the University of Sussex, UK, Toshio Watanabe, professor of history of art and design at the Chelsea College of Art and Design London, and Sebastian López, director of the Gate Foundation, Amsterdam. *
A special Dutch/English, full-colour issue of the magazine Decorum
(Vol. XVIII, no. 2, July 2000)
accompanies the exhibitions and symposium (HFl 15,00).
To order: CBK,
Hooglandse Kerkgracht 19-21
2312 HS Leiden, The Netherlands
Tel: +31-71-516 5369 / 5338.
Professor Kitty Zijlmans is from the Department of Contemporary Art History and Theory at the University of Leiden. Her department is developing a profile in world art studies.
E-mail: c.j.m.zijlmans@let.leidenuniv.nl