Abstracts: Day 1

Day 1: September 12, 2014, Friday

ALERT
Please note that Day 1 Special Lecture is full now and advance registration is ended. 

ATTENTION!
Please note that Day 1 Workshop: venue changed, please go to Room 206, 31 Washington Place (Silver Center)

Special Lecture

Matsuzawa Yutaka in the Collection of MoMA

Reiko Tomii

The elder statesman of Japanese conceptualism, Matsuzawa Yutaka emerged in the early 1960s with his singular text-based practice whose twin principles were “vanishing of matter” and “meditative visualization” under the banner of Anti-Civilization. In 1970, he came into contact with Art & Project in Amsterdam and he went on to publish three issues of Bulletin and shows his work there. He also sent a few sets of his works, The Whole Works 1961–1971, consisting of 71 printed works that form the core of his conceptualist practice during the key decade, along with other works on paper. This special lecture will explore his radical reconfiguration of art by examining some of these rarely seen works in person. Special focus is given to his Non-Sensory Painting, which he devised in 1964 following his legendary revelation, but did not fully realize until 1967 as White Circle and other immaterial examples.

Workshop on Archival Documents

Moderated by Midori Yoshimoto

Japanese Mail Art, 1956-2014

John Held, Jr.

Japanese postwar artists have used the postal system to expand their international contacts and as a medium for creative expression. The history of Japanese mail art can be traced back to correspondence in 1956 between Gutai artist Yoshihara Jirō and Ray Johnson, the oft-acknowledged “father of mail art.” After the demise of Gutai, Shimamoto Shōzō, continued the practice, diffusing it throughout Japan through his leadership in the art association AU, short for both “Artist’s Union” and “Art Unidentified.” Correspondence between Yoshihara and Johnson, as reproduced in Gutai magazine, will be presented, as well as actual copies of AU Newsletter (1976-2014). Documentation of postal activities by On Kawara and Fluxus-associated artist Shiomi Mieko will also be provided. Mail Art by contemporary artists Ryōsuke Cohen, Nakamura Keiichi, Matsuhashi Eiichi and others, will be made available for inspection to workshop participants.

Encapsulating an Archival Impulse: Kudō Tetsumi’s Philosophy of Impotence, as Seen through His Archive

Rika Hiro

The Kudō Tetsumi Papers at the Aomori Museum of Art is very rich in content but rarely used. This paper introduces the archive and examines an object, documentation, and select materials from the archive that pertain to Kudō’s seminal sculpture/installation, Philosophy of Impotence (1961–62). The work originally consists of industrial and everyday materials, including foodstuff, over a hundred phallus-like objects, and magazine clippings. In particular, I pay close attention to the last component to highlight the functions and contributions of the archival materials to the formation of this work. They as much complicate the current understanding of Philosophy of Impotence in particular and Kudō’s practice in general as they support the past scholarship. In short, I argue that they attest that the act of archiving—collecting, selecting, and keeping—was a crucial practice for the artist, beyond the fact that the artwork is an assemblage.

Narrative Resonance: Asian American Art Archives

Alexandra Chang

Collections projects that are building the invaluable and essential primary source repositories on Asian American Art are enabling art historical resources, publications, and curricula, both in print and online. The archive has revealed transnational intersections and layered contextualizations of Asian American artistic production. This presentation will explore how multiple narratives within the history of the movement can be revealed and enabled through selections from The Yoshio Kishi and Irene Yah Ling Sun Collection and Godzilla: Asian American Art Network Papers at the New York University Fales Library and Special Collections (which holds iconic primary source materials from the artist group that was at the forefront of the Asian American arts movement in the 1990s in New York City). This talk will also explore how the Virtual Asian American Art Museum Project is harnessing collections to bring forth such complex narratives.

Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s Four Thoughts: A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma with Full Documentary Misinformation
Kevin Concannon
In late May and early June of 1968, Yoko Ono and John Lennon presented their first joint exhibition at London’s Arts Lab. Newspaper listings suggest that it began as Ono’s solo exhibition, then changed to a joint exhibition. Curiously, little critical attention seems to have been paid to the show at the time, perhaps because the May 1968 Student Riots consumed media attention. In recent years, Ono’s own telling of the event focuses on Lennon’s contribution, ignoring her own. But The Observer (London) ran a very short review: “In a show otherwise given over to the bland Oriental offerings of Yoko Ono, a Japanese lady who made the famous ‘multi bottoms’ film, Lennon’s produced a long low white plinth with two slabs of wood angled upon it…. Spectator participation is invited.” In this workshop presentation the archival evidence will be considered, suggesting that the story remains untold.

Seeing A Panorama of Sightseeing Art at Tama: Nakamura Hiroshi's Notebook at Tōbunken
Kikkawa Hideki, with translation by Nina Horisaki-Christens
Sightseeing Art Research Institute (Kankō Geijutsu Kenkyūjo) was established by Nakamura Hiroshi and Tateishi Kōichi (aka Tiger Tateishi) in March 1964. In the height of the Anti-Art movement in the early 1960s, the duo daringly explored the possibility of painting. Their first joint project was held on a dry riverbed of the Tama River. This Panorama is a drawing Nakamura created afterwards and pasted into his notebook, which is now in the collection of National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo (Tōbunken). I will examine Panorama in detail and discuss the meanings of important objects presented in the outdoor exhibition in reference to Nakamura’s documentary film Das Kapital.