JFIC Hall “Sakura,” The Japan Foundation
(4-4-1 Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo)

The Japan Foundation

(signing up in advance necessary) / Capacity 100 seats / Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation available

The integration of non-western contemporary art into the global art scene in the past 20 or so years has been rapid and explosive. The theoretical frame of postmodernism, proposed within the western perspective of the modernist impasse, accelerated this process of integration in the name of multiculturalism and post-colonialism. With the increasing recognition of the possible complicity between this postmodernist discourse and the globalizing tendency of capitalist system and of its possible generation of (degeneration into) “cosmetic” multi-culturalism, we are now standing at a historical juncture where the necessity to reevaluate the achievements and problems of postmodernist discourse and its effect in relation to Asian contexts is impending. This symposium is planned to answer that need by looking back on what has happened in the postmodern re-structuring of the contemporary art world in order to resist while taking advantage of that continuing trend.

It consists of three sessions: the first will be devoted to the historico-theoretical investigation of how the category of “Asian art” has been formulated, used, and transformed in various regional contexts in relation to postmodernism (if necessary, the history of “modernism” will also be reviewed); the second session will be devoted to exemplary case studies to balance out the abstract theoretical nature of the first session. By focusing on the reception of the work of a particular group of artists from different regions, the session will explore the mechanism of how the postmodernist viewpoint opened up a new perspective while creating its own biases and blind spots; and the third session will be devoted to the reinvestigation of the concept of Asian or Asian-ness with special emphasis on the artistic genres such as craft and drawing and the concepts of decorativeness, which have traditionally been considered the central field where “Asian” character is believed to make its appearance.

While the postmodernist critique of the discursive essentialism bankrupted the possibility of believing in the concept like “Asian-ness,” we are left with the question whether this deconstruction does not indicate the risk of liquidating the meaningful locality of “Asian” cultures. Presented in conjunction with each other, the three sessions are expected to provide some new ways, if not answers, to continually engage in a productive consideration of the complicated, often interpenetrating, relationship between the local and the global in Asian contexts in the coming post-postmodern era.

Panelists:

Florina H. Capistrano-Baker (Director, International Exhibitions, Ayala Museum)
Fan Di’an (Director, National Art Museum of China)
Patrick D. Flores (Professor, Art Studies Department, University of the Philippines Diliman)
Hayashi Michio (Professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University)
Hirayoshi Yukihiro (Associate Professor, Museum and Archive, Kyoto Institute of Technology)
Hosaka Kenjiro (Assistant Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)
Kajiya Kenji (Associate Professor, Faculty of Art, Hiroshima City University)
Kamiya Yukie (Chief Curator, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art)
Kim Boggi (Editor of art in culture and art in ASIA)
Kuroda Raiji (Chief Curator, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum)
Kanai Tadashi (Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Shinshu University)
Maeda Kyoji (Staff Writer, Yomiuri Shimbun)
Tanaka Masayuki (Associate Professor, College of Art and Design, Musashino Art University)

Advisers:

Hayashi Michio, Maeda Kyoji

E-mail:

Fax: 03-5369-6038 (attn: Ms. Morimura)
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• First-come-first-serve basis

 

For inquiries:

Visual Arts Div., Arts Dept., The Japan Foundation
Attention: Furuichi Yasuko, Hoashi Aki, Suzuki Keiko
(4-4-1 Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0004)
Tel: 03-5369-6062 Fax: 03-5369-6038 E-mail: