A new book from Thames & Hudson reveals how the trauma and transformation of post-war Japan gave rise to a radical wave of creativity
This month marks 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – events that left an indelible mark not only on Japan, but on the global psyche. It also marks the ignition of one of the 20th century’s most concentrated bursts of avant-garde febricity: a period in which Japanese artists, reeling from the trauma of war and occupation, tore away from tradition to invent startling new forms of expression. Casting themselves beyond the confines of a rigid, conformist society, they pioneered radical aesthetics across photography, theatre, dance, illustration and graphic design.
Japan Art Revolution, published on September 25 by Thames & Hudson, is the first comprehensive English-language account of this collaborative movement – one that its creator, designer and author Amélie Ravalec, calls inevitable. “That feeling, of having witnessed the worst of humanity at close range and needing to invent something entirely new from the wreckage, runs through all the work of that era,” she tells AnOther. “These artists were confronting the void together, using the body, language, image and gesture to do it.”
Given the militant origins of the term avant-garde – once denoting the front line of an army – it becomes easier to view these artists’ radical spirit as that of a cultural vanguard waging war against convention. Though much of their work emerged in the wake of political disillusionment and widespread protest – against the US military presence, creeping remilitarisation, and institutional hierarchies – they distanced themselves from the partisan ideologies of their Communist predecessors. Instead, they adopted a broader, existential policy of opposition: socially, morally and philosophically.
“At the heart of this shift was the urge to break free: from tradition, from realism, from the weight of received ideas,” Ravalec reflects. “Artists were no longer interested in representing the world faithfully – they wanted to express something subjective, personal and urgent.”
