New Suns

Our current cohort at the New Suns Experimental Arts Graduate school visited the Osaka native Tadao Ando designed Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art as part of our time as @airk.kobe Artists in Residence in Kobe and then we were bummed to find that the whole permanent collection was temporarily closed. BUT, don’t despair dear reader because what we got instead was dope and more than we bargained for. A show called Anti-Action:
Artist-Women’s Challenges and Responses in Postwar Japan an exhibition on Japanese female artists working in the 1950s–60s avant-garde period.
Following World War II, abstract art movements such as “Informel” (non-formal abstraction) gained influence in Japan through international exchange (like what we were doing there in Kobe). During this period, many women artists were active and visible within the avant-garde.🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵
However, with the later rise of masculinity associated “action painting” and its critical framing around concepts such as physicality, bold gesture, and expressiveness many of these women artists we saw and their practices received reduced historical attention to this present day. 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
The temporary exhibition presents approximately 120 works by 14 artists. It’s a powerful show made more so by the fact that is only women but that their work intentionally doesn’t stay in “feminized lanes” strong quotes! you KNOW what I MEAN, like the carework of childbearing, mothering etc. It expresses the complete person inclusive both of their femalehood and inclusive of their subjects as members of a society dealing with atomic trauma, historical rupture, rapid modernization/consumerisation. We saw work by Akana Keiko, Akutagawa (Madokoro) Saori, Enomoto Kazuko, Emi Kinuko, Kusama Yayoi, Tada Minami, Tanaka Atsuko, Tanaka Tazuko, Tabe Mitsuko, Fukushima Hideko, Miyawaki Aiko, Mōri Mami, and Yamazaki Tsuruko.