Art, Anti-Art, non-Art:
ExpErimEntAtions in thE
public sphErE in postwAr
JApAn, 1950–1970
Edited by Charles Merewether & Rika Iezumi Hiro
Getty Trust Publications: Getty Research Institute, £26 / $39.95 (hardcover)
impassioned argument about art and modernity,
Books on the Japanese postwar avant-garde are coming from the politics of modernity in Japan
uncommon – this is only the third such book in when questions about Japan’s sense of identity,
English in as many decades. That this book – values and place in the world were as critical as
catalogue to a show drawing from the Getty they were strongly felt. Familiar themes of art and
Research Library’s archival collection, with essays the everyday, art’s social and political position and
by Charles Merewether and Reiko Tomii – should agency, art’s relation to the public sphere, and the
arrive now is not surprising; several art institutions values of modernity reverberate through Tomii’s
are expanding their collections in this direction, discussion of facets of anti-art as an idea and
driven by the ongoing process of revising a practice. Although Tomii doesn’t touch on how
culturally decentralised twentieth-century art Japan’s history of Marxist and liberal theorising of
history. And this dovetails with increased modernity made it an explosive and partisan
Japanese interest in this formerly neglected area, issue, this influence infuses the subject matter.
alongside continuing market interest in Japanese The book charts a dissipation of artistic radicality
art. But does Anti-Art clarify or confuse further? that mirrored the collapse of a line of leftist
There’s a cursory overview of the subject thought that was the wellspring of that art, which
by Merewether, eschewing, for instance, much of is at least in part readable through the book.
the context of the avant-garde of the late 1940s, The period starts to come to life in Tomii’s
with its ‘reportage paintings’ and communist discussion of the arguments and counterarguments
connections, and missing figures such as Yayoi of theory: we get a sense of work emerging from
Kusama (and perhaps indicating gaps in the rigorously contested values, although not strongly
Getty collection). For an essay entitled stated in the book, values relating to long-
‘Disjunctive Modernity’ Merewether does little to standing lines of thought and argument. With
explain why or how the period was disjunctive this sense of ideas at stake, the facts of the period
beyond a banal stab at rapid urbanisation. start to become usefully resonant with current
Offering less than a hypothesis, and not quite a concerns, and the book becomes more than an
narrative, Merewether primarily describes the artworld exercise in the firming up of authority
period, and it reads like a curator’s fact-checking and endorsement.
primer. A big chunk of Merewether’s essay covers As the first book in English offering a
the (already well-documented) photography simple description of the events of its subject,
scene of the period, an emphasis more in service Anti-Art is serviceable, if limited, partial and
of current critical and commercial trends than the flawed in its emphasis: as an exploration of still-
context of the subject matter; Tomii’s essay vital themes through a context that engendered
implies a different emphasis, describing the late them, this book brings meaning and value to its
1960s photographer Hiroshi Nomura as ‘one of subject. So while partly a book for those with
By Neil Boorman
the first Japanese artists to use photography in vested academic or commercial interests in
Canongate Books, £12.99 (paperback)
the context of art’. Japanese art history, it still offers much for readers
The title’s Art, Anti-Art, non-Art is with an interest in radical ideas of art’s relation to
addressed by Tomii. Anti-art – art ‘descended to the wider world now. Alasdair Duncan
the everyday’ – stemmed from nuanced and
October_books.indd 3 5/9/07 11:08:11
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