Japanese Season

ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM IN JAPAN SINCE 1945 09.09.17 > 08.01.18

A NEW VISION ON ART ART SINCE 1970 20.10.17 > 05.03.18

EXTRA-SENSORY ODISSEY 20.01 > 14.05.18

PERFORMANCES, CONCERTS,WORKSHOPS…

Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2010 © Shigeru Ban Architects Europe et Jean de Gastines Architectes, avec Philip Gumuchdjian pour la conception du projet lauréat du concours / Metz Métropole / Centre Pompidou-Metz / Photo Philippe Gisselbrecht

PRESS KIT EXHIBITIONS

JAPAN-NESS 1. PRESS RELEASE 2. GENERAL PRESENTATION 3. EXHIBITION LAYOUT 4. EXHIBITION DESIGN BY SOU FUJIMOTO 5. LIST OF ARCHITECTS AND ARTISTS

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JAPANORAMA 1. PRESS RELEASE 2. EXHIBITION PRESENTATION

BY CURATOR YUKO HASEGAWA 3. EXHIBITION LAYOUT 4. EXHIBITION DESIGN BY SANAA 5. KISHIO SUGA, LAW OF PERIPHERAL UNITS, 1997/2017 6. LIST OF ARTISTS

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DUMB TYPE 1. PRESS RELEASE 2. EXHIBITED WORKS

34 35 37

10 EVENINGS

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GLOSSARY CATALOGUES PARTNERS VISUALS AVAILABLE TO THE PRESS PRESS OFFICE

50 57 58 68 86

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FOREWORD THREE NEW EXHIBITIONS IN THE JAPANESE SEASON AT CENTRE POMPIDOU-METZ While the globalization of the arts and ideas has smoothed geographical and cultural borders, the Japanese archipelago has retained a very distinctive style, certain facets of which are little known.

Through the concept of Japan-ness the architect Arata Isozaki attempted to capture the distinctly Japanese characteristics that connect the creations of the architects and artists of this country. It is this changing singularity, sometimes open and porous to external influences, sometimes withdrawn into itself, often struck by history and nature (conflicts, crises, earthquakes, nuclear disasters...) and thus always forced to redefine itself, which the Centre PompidouMetz is highlighting in its Japanese Season.

Dedicated to the Japanese visual arts since Expo '70 in 1970, a second exhibition, with a layout designed

by SANAA, takes over from the last cross-cutting exhibition devoted to Japan by Centre Pompidou in 1986: Le Japon des avant-gardes, 1910-1970 (Avantgarde Arts of Japan, 1910-1970). Japanorama takes a look inside four decades of contemporary art and the affirmation of a visual culture. Designed like an archipelago, this exploration reveals a multifaceted Japan, not limiting itself to the cliché of the binary opposition of Zen minimalism (Mono-ha) and surging Kawaii Pop. Contemporary art in Japan is also about the poetics of resistance, militant commitment, a common reflection, shared with fashion, on relationships with the body and post-humanism, or on the place of the individual in society, the notion of community, the relationship to an island tradition and dialogue with subcultures. Together with major figures such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Rei Kawakubo, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Daido Moriyama, Takashi Murakami, Lee Ufan, Tadanori Yokoo..., the exhibition invites visitors to discover artists rarely seen outside Japan.

From September 2017 to May 2018, three exhibitions and a dozen gatherings, concerts, and performances provide new insights into Japan, from the modern history of its architecture to its most recent artistic expressions.

The first exhibition explores seven decades of Japanese architectural culture, from 1945 to the present day, with a layout design by Sou Fujimoto in the heart of the Shigeru Ban-designed building. It questions how the Japanese city, and its sprawling urbanism since the postwar reconstruction, defined new ways of living. With which models and in what social, political and cultural context did its most important architects emerge – Kenzo Tange, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma ?

This diversity is also expressed in Ten Evenings, a programme of performances and concerts that will bring together some of the most important figures from the Japanese arts scene, such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Saburo Teshigawara, Yasumasa Morimura and Ryoji Ikeda, and in a third exhibition, at the start of next year, devoted to the collective Dumb Type, pioneers of new technologies used in furtherance of art.

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EXHIBITION 09.09.17 > 08.01.18

centrepompidou-metz.fr | #Japanness

With special support of the Ishibashi Foundation

Takeshi Hosaka, Hoto Fudo, Yamanashi, Japon © Nacasa&Pertners Inc. / Koji Fujii © TAKESHI HOSAKA ARCHITECTS © photo: Seiji Toyonaga / Graphisme L&D, Kanta Desroches

ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM IN JAPAN SINCE 1945

1. PRESS RELEASE According to the architect Arata Isozaki, Japanese architecture sets itself apart by the immutability of certain values and by an identity that architects have constantly reinterpreted over the centuries. He characterises this distinctiveness, the common theme of the exhibition, with the expression “Japan-ness”.

Visitors are immersed in an organic city designed

by Sou Fujimoto and move through the cyclical history of Japanese architecture, from the destruction of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, to its most recent expressions.

Following a chronological path, from 1945 to the present day, the exhibition is divided into six periods: - Destruction and rebirth (1945); - Cities and land (1945-1955); - The emergence of Japanese architecture (19551965); - Metabolism, Osaka 1970 and the « new vision » (1965-1975); - The disappearance of architecture (1975 -1995); - Overexposed architecture, images and narratives (1995 to the present day).

From the 1950s, a new vision of the city and land took shape influenced by Le Corbusier’s international modernist architecture in particular.

With Arata Isozaki and Kenzo Tange, a new Japanese architecture marked by the use of concrete emerged between 1955 and 1965. The Osaka universal exposition in 1970 signalled a decisive turning point with the emergence of trends such as “Metabolism” and “New Vision”, represented by Kisho Kurokawa, Yutaka Murata and Kazumasa Yamashita, who used innovative materials, forms and technologies

Kengo KUMA & Associates, Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, 2012 © Kengo KUMA © Takeshi Yamagishi

For some years now, a new generation of architects, recognised with the most prestigious awards, has been working towards an architecture of transparency and a narrative architecture. Shigeru Ban, Kengo Kuma, SANAA and even Sou Fujimoto now embody this drive.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a generation of influential architects appeared on the international scene.

Toyo Ito, Tadao Ando, Shin Takamatsu, Itsuko Hasegawa and Kazuo Shinohara developed “disappearing architecture”, marked by the simplification of forms, the use of metal and experimentation with the indivdual home.

The disaster of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 prompted reflection on emergency architecture.

The exhibition is based on Centre Pompidou collection, enriched with works and models from architects’ studios, designers, Japanese museums and private collections. This body of works, exhibited for the first time on this scale in Europe, provides a better understanding of the profusion and richness of Japanese architecture and urban design.

Curators: Frédéric Migayrou, Deputy Director of Centre Pompidou – National Museum of Modern Art, Paris, and Head Curator of the Architecture Department Yuki Yoshikawa, Research and Exhibition Officer, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Associate Curator

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2. GENERAL PRESENTATION reflection on the home and the private space, which led to new types of construction, out of a desire for minimalism, an innovative use of materials and an economy of space.

To exhibit Japanese architecture is to offer a broader perspective that clearly shows the diversity of this scene and the defining place in Japanese culture of architects’ works, often ignored by the Western world. The challenge is also to contextualise the movements and schools which, inspired by reflection, controversy and debate, have formed the pluralism of Japanese architecture.

Toyo ITO, Tower of winds, Yokohama, 1986. Scale model Metal, plastic and glass, 43 × 55 × 40 cm Completed project Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Toyo ITO Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Bertrand Prévost

Merely the mention of a few architects’ names, both from the past such as Kenzo Tange, Kisho Kurokawa, Arata Isozaki or Tadao Ando, and contemporary such as Toyo Ito, SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa), Kengo Kuma, or Shigeru Ban, is enough to illustrate the strength with which the Japanese architectural scene resonates in the world.

a comprehensive picture of Japanese architecture, either in Japan or international museums. The fascination with the cultural uniqueness of Japanese architecture is due to the extraordinary impact of the metabolism movement which culminated with the creation of the futuristic pavilions of Osaka Expo in 1970.

Until the Japan Architects 19452010 exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2014, there had been no exhibitions offering

Japanese cities, associated with urban sprawl, have also devised new ways of living, connected to the density of the population.

Indeed, these constraints forced

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The exhibition, made up of important pieces from the collection of Centre Pompidou – National Museum of Modern Art, has been enriched with numerous loans from the private archives of architects and museum or university collections. With nearly 70 original models, more than 200 drawings, films and documents presenting more than 300 iconic projects, the exhibition traces the history of urban and economic changes in Japan since 1945, a history marked by profound social and cultural developments.

The exhibition is punctuated by photographs and experimental film presentations, allowing to better understand the lifestyles defined by contemporary urban models.

Access to certain iconic works and defining projects throws new perspectives on the richness of a cultural scene animated by a permanent search for new aesthetic and critical models.

With its position as an island, Japanese architecture stood out because of its capacity for openness, its permeability to innovation and the prospective richness of its trends, in relation to the international scene.

Itsuko HASEGAWA, Garden and Fruit museum, Yamanashi, 1996 Photo © Itsuko HASEGAWA

The layout of the exhibition follows the evolution of architecture in Japan, which accompanied all the international debates and movements such as brutalism, informalism, minimalism, and conceptualism, while strongly asserting its singularity and originality, gaining a high profile at the international level. From modernism to pop architecture, from high-tech to low cost architecture, from postmodernism to structuralist studies on typologies, Japanese architecture has been embodied in all architectural schools. Beyond the recognized movements, the exhibition also shows the permanent dialogue with tradition, in connection with the countries of the Asian continent, how the tensions of a relationship with Western modernism have given way to more unusual architectural schools, paving the way for other research paths more oriented towards a specific culture, taken up by architects such as Makoto Masuzawa, Togo Murano, Seiichi Shirai or Kiyoshi Seike.

To retrace this long history, which covers the reconstruction and affirmation of Japan since the post-war period, is to evoke the history of contemporary international architecture and the vagaries of the expression of a Japanese singularity that is not rooted in any particular characterisation. One of the fundamental characteristics of Japanese culture is not to make space and time two concepts that are necessarily distinct, as the West does. The term “Ma” which means interval, space, duration, distance (not which separates, but which unites) is an essential concept in Japanese architecture.

This notion of space-time which connects things and gives them meaning is rooted in Asian culture.

Arata Isozaki used it as the title of a major exhibition in Paris at the Museum of Decorative Arts in 1978.

The question of the singularity of Japanese cultural identity can also be glimpsed in the light of the concept of “Japan-ness”,

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a term coined by Arata Isozaki, who published the book Japanness in Architecture. Japan-ness is a neologism that the architect invented to define the constitutive principle for characterising Japanese culture. How is this singularity created, developed and affirmed? A singularity which, after all, is constantly developing and open to multiple influences.

It is this that constitutes the principle for this identity in motion, a “Japanity” which is arranged as a perpetual renewal of its possible identification. It is in this permanent movement, in this refusal to settle, to be placed in a historical context through the understanding and description of styles or epochs, that Japanese architecture affirms its singularity, thus escaping all external wishes to identify it.

Arranged around these six main platforms, the aim is to give a feel to the atmosphere and ambiance of Japanese urban life. The scenography entrusted to Sou Fujimoto ensures a link between the different sections of the exhibition and the most contemporary period.

Curators: Frédéric Migayrou, Deputy Director of Centre Pompidou – National Museum of Modern Art, Paris and Head Curator of the Architecture Department Yûki Yoshikawa, Research and Exhibition Officer, Centre PompidouMetz, Associate Curator

3. EXHIBITION LAYOUT Following a chronological path from 1945 to the present day, the exhibition is divided into six periods, colour coded, starting from black and ending with white. Each period consists of a display of urban environments and architectural projects, to offer a better understanding of the creative challenges in the social, political and economic contexts of the period.

Arata ISOZAKI, Re-ruined Hiroshima, 1968 New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).Ink and gouache with cut-and-pasted gelatin silver print on gelatin silver print, 35,2 × 93,7 cm Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation. Acc. n.: 1205.2000 © 2017. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

DESTRUCTION AND REBIRTH (1945) In 1945, the Showa emperor (Hirohito), faced with the magnitude of devastation caused by the atomic bombs, spoke for the first time on the radio, and then appeared in public in 1947 dressed in a business suit. The “Son of Heaven”, by showing himself to be human, marked a profound rupture in civilisation. This secularization, synonymous with both the end of a world and a new beginning, pushed Japan to become involved in the culture of the Western world.

How can one define the identity of Japanese architecture?

t took the terrible rupture of the Second World War and nuclear destruction for Japan to question the specificity of its architecture and its relation to the city. If the architecture of traditional shrines (like those in Ise), which are constantly destroyed and rebuilt, offers a certain idea of permanence and history, the concept of the “traditional house” and the consciousness of a distinct architectural identity did not emerge until the 1930s,

through the writings of the German architect Bruno Taut, one of the fathers of modern architecture.

The concept of architecture in Japan was thus developed in close connection with the emergence of Western modernism. After a strong movement dominated by eclecticism, the very idea of architecture and a form of expression emerged with the Bunriha kenchikukai movement (1920), inspired by the writings of Sutemi Horiguchi and then by Ryuichi Hamaguchi. The Second World War represented the extreme affirmation of technology and of an industrialisation driven by the militarisation of society. A forced modernism which was completed in the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Construction and destruction form a cycle that has shaped Japanese culture since the fires of the Edo period (1603-1868) and the Kanto earthquake (1923).

This first room of the exhibition, marked by the colour black, illustrates this cycle of time, from destruction to rebirth, but also a tradition of concealing, of shadow and of darkness.

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Two films are presented in this section: Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) by Alain Resnais and Navel and A-Bomb (1960) by Eiko Hosoe, in collaboration with the Butoh dancers Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno. Also included are photographs of Ise shrine by Yoshio Watanabe and Katsura Imperial Villa by Yasuhiro Ishimoto.

Works by Bruno Taut, who was the first to look for the origins of modern rationalism in traditional Japanese architecture, accompany this collection of works.

CITIES AND LAND, A WORK IN PROGRESS (1945-1955) War gives rise to the idea of extreme destruction, a possible eradication of man by nuclear weapons, and in return brings an awareness of a new form of humanism. Examining man’s place in a rapidly developing industrial society is illustrated by Seiichi Shirai’s Temple of Atomic Catastrophes (1955) project and Kenzo Tange’s Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (1952-1955).

Kenzo TANGE, Peace Center Complex, Hiroshima, 1952 © Kenzo TANGE Photo © Kochi Prefecture, Ishimoto Yasuhiro Photo Center Kenzo TANGE, National Gymnasiums for the Tokyo Olympics, 1964 © Kenzo TANGE

A number of Japanese architects who had taken their model for architectural innovation from the 1930s and Le Corbusier, were inspired after the war by his humanist vision of the city. In the same way, Kunio Mayekawa, Junzo Sakakura and Takamasa Yosizaka imposed themselves as masters of a brutalist architecture, with a systematic use of concrete, a flexible form of expression, and lending a human dimension to collective projects (town halls, cultural centres, universities). Far from simply using the Corbusian form of expression, these architects, followed by a new generation, found through Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé the principle of construction for a more economic and social architecture that played a part in the reconstruction of the country (projects by Junzo Sakakura and Makoto Masuzawa amongst others).

Photo © Makoto Ueda

Their development reflected their hopes for a new modernity.

Indeed, in reaction to a modernism considered too formal, other architects, including the iconic figure of Seiichi Shirai, opted for a more narrative architecture, on a human scale and enriched by the use of a variety of materials. International recognition emerged through publications on Japanese architecture.

Numerous projects were published for their exemplary nature, such as Kiyonori Kikutake’s Sky House (1958), Kenzo Tange’s St Mary’s cathedral (1964) and Arata Isozaki’s Oita Medical Hall (1960).

Thus, through numerous achievements, the bases of an authentic contemporary Japanese architecture, with increasing experimentation, was established. New magazines and publications emerged that debated the emergence of a true architectural culture in Japan and helped to impose the country’s architecture on the international scene.

EMERGENCE OF MODERN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE (1955-1965) Antonin RAYMOND, Gunma Music Center, Takasaki, 1961

Japan’s burgeoning economic and industrial growth was accompanied by many architectural achievements.

The expansion of Japanese cities was orchestrated by large construction companies (such as Kajima, Obayashi, Shimizu, Taisei and Takanaka). The work of architects became essential, either through companies like Nikken Sekkei who recruited large teams, or thanks to the growing importance of some agencies. Through the affirmation of an international style, prominant figures established themselves, such as Antonin Raymond, Kunio Mayekawa, Junzo Sakakura... Kenzo Tange became the most iconic architect of this period with his design in 1964 of the Yayogi National Stadium built for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, a true icon of the new Japanese architecture.

© Collection of Raymond Architectural Design Office

METABOLISM, OSAKA 1970 AND THE “NEW VISION” (1965-1975) Beyond the upheaval begun by the organic Metabolism movement which proposed megastructures built on the sea, Osaka 1970 gave these futuristic designs an image and international exposure.

Osaka 1970 revealed a hyper-technological architecture whose aesthetics were linked to the Pop art movements. This positivism and technological optimism, coupled with a blind confidence in the consumer society, would soon be shaken by the actions of artists such as Tadanori Yokoo or the critical performances of the Gutai artistic movement.

Well-known architectural firms such as Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Otaka and the young Arata Isozaki became showcases for architectural creativity in Japan.

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Osaka 1970 recognised the megastructures of Kenzo Tange, Kisho Kurokawa and Kiyonori Kikutake, as well as the inflatables of Yutaka Murata. These creations influenced young architects all over the world. The visionary architecture offered new ways of looking at large-scale urban design, as prefigured by the mega-structures of Arata Isozaki, the marine cities of Kenzo Tange, Kiyonori Kikutake, and even the Okinawa International Ocean exposition in 1975, where Kikutake presented a floating city.

Image or Pop temptation Osaka 1970 also attracted criticism from architects.

Arata Isozaki distanced himself from metabolism and criticised the severe forms of modernism. Alongside a mediatised architecture, pop architecture emerged.

Kijo Rokkaku projected the appearance of colour across the city. The buildings Ichi Ban Kan (1969) and Ni Ban Kan (1970) by Minoru Takeyama and Ryoichi Shigeta’s Chimneys (1969) testify to a joyful architecture that can also be seen in the drawings of Kiko Mozuna (Kushiro City Museum, 1984). Architects then found great freedom of expression using architecture as images in the city, such as Kazumasa Yamashita with his Face House (1974) or Tatsuhiko Kuramoto with his Bachan-chi or grandmother’s house (1972).

Arata ISOZAKI, Cities in the air, uncompleted projects, Tokyo, 1960-1963 Collection of Arata ISOZAKI & Associates Co. Ltd.

Metabolism The 1960s, accompanied by intense industrial development, saw the emergence of research into new materials and technological innovations. Now famous architects such as Kisho Kurokawa, Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Otaka, Fumihiko Maki and Arata Isozaki asserted the modular and flexible character of their architecture, made up of an agglomeration of cellular units. They proposed open architecture and developed new strategies for urban expansion.

The reputation of the Metabolism movement was established at Osaka 1970. Its experimental pavilions became a global manifesto for a new technological architecture.

Kazumasa YAMASHITA, Face House (Maison Visage), Kyoto, 1974 © Kazumasa YAMASHITA © Courtesy of Kazumasa YAMASHITA, Architect & Associates / Ryuji Miyamoto Kiyonori KIKUTAKE, Marine City, uncompleted project, 11 February 1959

Films accompanying this section include documentaries from Osaka 1970, a documentary film of the Gutai Performance at Osaka 1970 entitled Gutai Art Festival: Drama of Man and Matter. Katsuhiro Yamaguchi’s film OOI & Environs (1977) presents Japanese cities through solarised images restoring the atmosphere of the period.

Graphite and collage of three photos of modules cropped on tracing paper, 50,5 × 56,5 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Jean-Claude Planchet/Dist. RMN-GP © Kiyonori KIKUTAKE

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A return to simple typologies, towards a reinterpretation of the living space constitutes the basis of Kazuo Shinohara’s explorations. He introduced a new vocabulary for the single house built using simplified forms and construction methods. Japanese architecture established itself at that time as a reflection on space, materials and light. The return to simple geometric shapes enshrined a minimalist architecture influenced by structuralism, immediately recognized across the world. Tadao Ando, with his dwellings of raw concrete interacting with the light, asserted this structure as a language. Other architects developed a more philosophical view of architectural forms, such as Takefumi Aida or Hiromi Fujii, the main exponents of structuralist architecture. Conversely, others were inspired by a more technological mode of expression, in which architecture is transformed into an autonomous machine, such as Shin Takamatsu and Hiroshi Hara who continued his visionary exploration of High Tech architecture. Itsuko Hasegawa was best able to synthesise investigations into the living space and new materials. She invented the concept of “light architecture”, made of metallic meshes that make the structure disappear. This erasing of architecture was brought to fruition in the work of Toyo Ito, whose “PAO II” (1989) structure has been reconstructed for the exhibition.

Kazumasa YAMASHITA, Face House, Kyoto: eastern and southern final elevations, completed project, 1973-1974 Scale 1/50 Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Kazumasa YAMASHITA Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ARCHITECTURE (1975-1995).

CONCEPTUAL ARCHITECTURE AND LIGHT ARCHITECTURE The 1980s-1990s are associated with intellectualism and a consolidation of ties with occidental countries.

After the political movements of 1968, a new generation of architects broke away from a technological architecture too closely linked to the industrial environment and the idealistic optimism of the 1970s.

Tadao ANDO, Light Church, Osaka, Japan (1987-1989): model Completed project, 1987-1989 Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Tadao ANDO Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian

Photographs of the urban landscape, large collages and pages taken from the avant-garde magazine Toshi Jutaku show the typology of cities, habitats and plans.

This avant-garde magazine, edited by Makoto Ueda, with covers by Arata Isozaki and Kohei Sugiura, reflects a certain critical vision of architectural practices, as well as a sociological analysis of new urban phenomena.

The large model of the Tower House (1966), the first

Shin TAKAMATSU, ”Ark”, Dental clinic, Fushimi, Kyoto, Japan Completed project, 1982-1983 Elevation Graphite on paper, 79 × 109,5 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Philippe Migeat/Dist. RMN-GP © All rights reserved

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building built on a very small plot, has served as a model for many architects until today. Photos by Shuji Yamada show a Japanese city that has become extremely crowded and lively coexisting with districts still functioning as villages and preserving a cultural vernacular. Two films by Takashi Ito, Devil’s Circuit (1988) and The Mummy’s Dream (1989), portray the city as an abstraction in motion, a formal universe forging new landscapes.

After Makoto Sei Watanabe’s experiments, the younger generation sought to transform minimalist architectural forms into more complex geometries, such as the shifting forms of Sota Ichikawa (doubleNegatives Architecture), Akihisa Hirata and Sou Fujimoto. The most contemporary architecture appeared in the Japanese city almost accidentally, with houses and shops built on small plots that punctuate the landscape in surprising ways. Nearly sixty projects are showcased on panels inviting the viewer to discover these creations through the scenography of Sou Fujimoto, conceived as a sort of architectural promenade.

TRANSITION With reference to the first section of the exhibition and to the permanent risk of destruction in the collective consciousness of Japan, large photographic prints of the 1995 Kobe earthquakes by Ryuji Miyamoto are highlighted in the last section.

OVEREXPOSED ARCHITECTURE, IMAGES AND NARRATIVES (1995 TO THE PRESENT DAY) The last section of the exhibition highlights the generation of Japanese architects who emerged in the early 2000s, widely recognized internationally through SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa), Kengo Kuma and Shigeru Ban Studios, followed nowadays by Junya Ishigami and Sou Fujimoto. More broadly, the exhibition endeavours, through more than a hundred projects, to recreate the richness of creativity driven by many architects across the regions and cities of the country.

Terunobu FUJIMORI, Takasugi-An (Teahouse), Chino, 2004 © Terunobu Fujimori

From the 1990s, Japanese architecture was no longer only recognized through a few big names, but became one of the most important stages for architectural creation in the world. It was, of course, very evident in Japan thanks to numerous projects, but also abroad, with many Japanese architects pursuing an international career. Even if the aesthetics of a “disappearing architecture” using glass and transparent materials remained dominant, other forms of exploration with materials emerged in the work of Kengo Kuma and Shigeru Ban. With architects from the emerging generation such as Tezuka Architects, contemporary Japanese architecture reinvented the city by redefining new programmes: small dwellings built in the gaps between existing constructions, social projects, designed as new meeting places, reactivating the organic role of town planning. More recent projects seem to reconnect with the idea of narrative architecture, referring to a certain archaic style, such as with Terunobu Fujimori, or by investing a more symbolist vision of architecture, such as with Jun Aoki, Kumiko Inui and Junya Ishigami, who invented new narratives and stories describing a different relationship with nature and with the world of trade and industry.

Photo © Makoto Ueda

Sou FUJIMOTO, Tokyo Apartment, Tokyo, 2012 © Sou FUJIMOTO © Photo: Iwan Baan

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Kengo KUMA, CG Prostho Museum Reasearch Center, Kasugai-shi, Japan :

model, 2008-2010 Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Kengo KUMA & Associates Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian

The Blue Scatter video by Kazuma Harada, illustrates this fragmentary vision and the characteristic experiments of Japanese cities through myriad continuously reconstructing images. The photographs of Naoya Hatakeyama also extend the experience of constantly evolving urban life.

TAU, no. 1, 1972

ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN, NEW VISUAL IDENTITIES

Photo © Suzanne Nagy

This room, conceived by Yuki Yoshikawa, Research and Exhibitions Officer at Centre Pompidou-Metz, Associate Curator of the exhibition and specialist in Japanese graphic arts, reflects the richness of the publications that drove the architecture of the post-war period to the present day. In the 1960s and 1970s, the number of publications designed by architects increased in Japan. Confronting the crisis of representation by devising a means of presenting their creations, architects sought to establish a conceptual architecture through their publications. Books and magazines, thus, became both a means of communication and also of creation, defining a new area of expression for architectural culture.

Numerous magazines, books and posters show the extent of these explorations by relating them to Western publications of the same type (radical architecture, conceptual architecture and art). This collection, assembled for the first time, makes it possible to gain a better understanding of the laboratory aspect, the spirit of investigation which has guided Japanese architecture and which has established it as a broad field of design.

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4. EXHIBITION DESIGN BY SOU FUJIMOTO

Sou Fujimoto Architects

The layout of the exhibition was entrusted to Sou Fujimoto who devised an immense organic cloud that captures and diffracts light. It reveals the multiplicity of Japanese contemporary architecture, its rhythm and its process of evolution.

Made up of a collection of modular panels based on various shapes and units of measurement in Japan, such as the dimensions of a tatami mat or clostra from ancient architecture, this expanding structure, designed by Sou Fujimoto, is suspended in the Grande Nef and rises to a height of 8.50m.

From this variation of forms and calculations, computer-generated methods create a proliferation of these panels, exploring the relationship between architecture and nature and inviting the visitor to stroll through this metaphor of the Japanese city.

“Primitive Future” is an essential concept and at the heart of all Sou Fujimoto’s projects. Envisaging an innovative architecture for the future consists, paradoxically, in reflecting on primitive architecture. This concept takes the form of a genesis which, transcending architecture, traces the origins of human habitat back to an embryonic state. From the beginnings of the project and with

his intuition, Sou Fujimoto develops an infinite number of trajectories instead of a single path and tries to imagine the diversity of places where people can live, the possibilities of what architecture can reproduce.

“Primitive Future is a melting pot of promising projections that traces the human habitat back to its origins” (Sou Fujimoto). Sou Fujimoto Architects has had offices in Tokyo since 2000 and in Paris since 2015, it comprises more than 50 architects, designers, artists and theorists.

Managing projects involves a constant reflection on the question of architecture, making the agency a real platform for research and experimentation.

The agency has won numerous competitions and prestigious international awards, including the Grand Prix AR Award, the 2008 Japanese Institute of Architecture Grand Prize for the Children’s Psychiatric Rehabilitation Centre, First Prize at the 2008 International Festival of Architecture in Barcelona, the Rice Design Alliance Award in 2010 and more recently the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 13th Venice Biennale in 2012 for the Japanese Pavilion, the 2013 Marcusprixe and the New London

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Award in 2013 for the Serpentine Gallery / Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.

In addition, in France, Sou Fujimoto is currently working on the ambitious Thousand Trees (Mille Arbres) project, an exceptional creation in Paris that reconciles urban areas in their least attractive external forms (the Paris ring road) with an utopian vision of the city with nature all around. At a time when man wants to build 1,000-metre towers, the Compagnie de Phalsbourg suggested to Sou Fujimoto and Manal Rachdi-OXO to plant 1000 trees above the ring road to symbolize a different development model and to get involved in a determined initiative towards sustainable development in Paris, which aims to make the city even more united, attentive and respectful of its environment.

Mille Arbres seeks to reconnect man with nature and to offer him the amenities of a healthy and qualitative living environment. To this end, the new station to be built there will serve as an example. The project is part of a biophilic approach and responds to Parisians’ need for nature by surrounding them with natural ecosystems to view and understand.

Project 1000 Treas Paris Sou FUJIMOTO Architects + OXO Architects Cie de Phalsbourg and OGIC

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5. LIST OF ARCHITECTS AND ARTISTS •

ABE Hitoshi

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AIDA Takefumi

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AIDA Tomoro

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ANDO Tadao

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AOKI Jun

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HARADA Masahiro et HARADA Mao

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ITO Takashi

MIKAN

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HASEGAWA Itsuko

HATAKEYAMA Naoya

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JINNO Taiyo

MIYAMOTO Katsuhiro

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HAYAKAWA Kunihiko

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HOSAKA Takeshi

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HOSOE Eikoh

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EBIHARA Ichiro

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ENDO Shuhei

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FUJII Hiromi

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FUJIMORI Terunobu

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KARASAWA Yuusuke

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KIKUTAKE Kiyonori

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KITAGAWARA Atsushi

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KOJIMA Kazuhiro (C+A Coelacanth and Associates)

ICHIKAWA Sota / double-Negatives Architecture

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KUBOTA Katsufumi

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KUMA Kengo

IGARASHI Jun

IKEDA Masahiro et ENDOH Masaki

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KURAMOTO Tatsuhiko

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INUI Kumiko

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ISHIGAMI Junya

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ISHIMOTO Yasuhiro

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ISHIYAMA Osamu

MAKI Fumihiko

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FUJIMOTO Sou

FUJINO Takashi

HARA Hiroshi

HARADA Kazuma

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ITO Toyo

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CHIBA Manabu

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MAYEKAWA Kunio

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HIRATA Akihisa

BAN Shigeru

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ITO Mari

HAYASHI (YAMADA) Masako

AZUMA Takamitsu

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MATSUKAWA Shohei

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ARIMA Hiroyuki

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ITO Hiroyuki

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ISOZAKI Arata

KUROKAWA Kisho

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KUROSAKI Satoshi

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MAEDA Norisada

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MASUZAWA Makoto

MILLIGRAM Studio

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MIYAMOTO Ryuji

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NAYA Manabu et NAYA Arata

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SATO Mitsuhiko

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SATO Oki (NENDO)

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SEJIMA Kazuyo

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SHIGETA Ryoichi

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SHINOHARA Kazuo

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SHINOZAKI Hiroyuki

NIKKEN SEKKEI LTD

NISHIZAWA Ryue

NISHIZAWA Taira

OHE Hiroshi

ONADA Yasuaki

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MIZUTANI Eisuke et TAKATSUKI Akiko

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SHIRAI Seiichi

OTAKA Masato

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SUMA Issei

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Suppose Design Office

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SUZUKI Makoto

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SUZUKI Ryoji

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TAKAMATSU Shin

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TAKASAKI Masaharu

Mount Fuji Architects studio

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MOZUNA Kiko

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MURANO Togo

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MURATA Jun

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MURATA Yutaka

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NAGATA Keita

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NAGAYAMA Yuko

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NAITO Hiroshi

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NAKAMURA Anna et JINNO Taiyo

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NAKAMURA Hiroshi

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OTANI Sachio

RAYMOND Antonin

RESNAIS Alain

ROKKAKU Kijo

SAKAKURA Junzo

SAKANO Yoshinori

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TORAFU ARCHITECTS

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UNO Susumu

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UTSUMI Tomoyuki

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WATANABE Makoto Sei

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WATANABE Yoji

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WATANABE Yoshio

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YAMADA Shuji

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YAMAGUCHI Katsuhiro

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YAMAMOTO Riken

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YAMASHITA Kazumasa

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YAMASHITA Yasuhiro

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YOH Shoei

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YOKOMIZO Makoto

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SAKAUSHI Taku

TAKEI Makoto + NABESHIMA Chie

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YOSHIMURA Junzo

SAMBUICHI Hiroshi

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TAKEYAMA Kiyoshi Sey

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YOSIZAKA Takamasa

SAMPEI Junichi

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SANAA

TANGE Kenzo

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TEZUKA ARCHITECTS

YOKOO Tadanori

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SHIGERU BAN

Centre Pompidou-Metz © Shigeru Ban Architects Europe and Jean de Gastines Architectes, along with Philip Gumuchdjian for the conception of the winning competition project / Metz Métropole / Centre Pompidou-Metz / © Photo Philippe Gisselbrecht

While Shigeru Ban’s new Seine musicale concert venue, has just been inaugurated, the Japanese architect presents Centre Pompidou-Metz with a new design to welcome visitors, in keeping with the guiding architectural principles which have seen the building from becoming an iconic landmark in Metz and Shigeru Ban from winning the Pritzker prize in 2014. By improving the public reception spaces in “the Forum” entrance hall with a movable transparent partition, redesigning the courses and information points with tubular modules, and by reorganising the multipurpose areas in the Forum, he has created a new architectural and visual link between the different spaces within the building, made use of the movable borders between the different sized areas, while preserving the fluidity of the spaces dear to the original concept. This new layout can be enjoyed from the opening of the Japanese season.

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EXHIBITION 20.10.17 > 05.03.18 centrepompidou-metz.fr | #Japanorama With special support of the Ishibashi Foundation

L'exposition bénéficie de prêts exceptionnels du MOT, musée d'art contemporain de Tokyo

Kenji Yanobe, Atom Suit Project – Desert C-prints, 49,8 x 49,8 cm Collection particulière © Kenji Yanobe / Graphisme L&D, Kanta Desroches

A NEW VISION ON ART ART SINCE 1970

1. PRESS RELEASE Torn between a powerful cultural heritage and a national discourse on modernization, alternating between phases of openness and withdrawal, the cultural evolution of Japan in the early 1970s was marked by major social, political and natural events.

Exhibition curator Yuko Hasegawa looks back on these turbulent decades during which Japan oscillated between globalisation and affirmation of its identity.

In 1970, Expo '70 in Osaka and the 10th Tokyo Biennale marked the beginning of a transitional period during which Japanese visual arts freed themselves from Western influence present since the post-war period.

Japanese artists adopted an economy of means embodied by two movements, one concerned with materials (Mono-ha), the other conceptual (NipponGainen-ha).

In the 1980s, Japanese cultural identity evolved into an embodiment of postmodern futurism which became famous in the megalopolis of Tokyo and established itself on the international scene. The hyperconsumerism associated with the speculative economy of this decade brought together the mainstream, pop culture and academicism. This abolition of distinctions, this remix, was at the heart of the approaches of YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) and Rei Kawakubo, creator of the brand Comme des Garçons. The Western countries took a fresh look at Japanese design. They questioned the post-war vision of an art linked only to values of materiality and emotion.

Kenji YANOBE, Atom Suit Project – Desert C-prints, 49,8 × 49,8 cm Particular collection © Kenji YANOBE

In the 2000s, society witnessed the gradually erosion of the boundary between public and private spheres. Artists took ownership of this transformation and played their part. The tsunami and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima on 11 March 2011 opened a new chapter in Japan’s history. These events gave rise to a commitment to society by artists and the values of solidarity took on a new dimension.

Japanese culture of the 1980s placed subjectivity at the heart of debate on the nature of society. The 1990s then saw the emergence of the so-called “superflat” culture that combined the aesthetics of pop art with the kitsch of kawaii culture inspired by cartoons and mangas. A young generation went in search of realism, rejecting all things symbolic. Neo-pop artists, such as Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara, reflected the anxiety that followed the end of the economic bubble of the 1980s, through imagery linked to pop culture, manga and show business. They presented a discourse that, beyond the seemingly clear message of their works, challenged the socio-political and ecological model of Japan. The major earthquake in 1995, followed in the same year by the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by a cult, destroyed the balance established after 1945 and the promise of a stable social and political order. Japanese society seemed once again to be inward-looking and communication technologies led to new patterns for relationships built on trust. Artistic expression in the 1990s was also characterised by worlds concerned with the comfort of the vernacular and the domestic space. Japanese culture became aware of the notions of amateurism and improvisation.

The exhibition explores this cultural odyssey using an archipelago motif, created through the exhibition design by SANAA (Pritzker Prize 2010). Each island embodies a key concept in the history of contemporary Japanese art, such as “post-humanism”, “collectives”, “subjectivity”.

Most of the works lent by Japanese institutions are being displayed for the first time in Europe.

Parallel to the exhibition, regular live events with Japanese contemporary artists will be organized by Emmanuelle de Montgazon, an expert in the Japanese arts scene. This season at Centre Pompidou-Metz will be an opportunity to discover current key figures in dance, music, theatre, such as Saburo Teshigawara and Yasumasa Morimura.

Curatorship: Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Emmanuelle de Montgazon, independent curator for the live performances programme

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2. PRESENTATION OF THE EXHIBITION

BY THE CURATOR YUKO HASEGAWA In certain ways, Japan is a highly unusual country. It is an island nation state, marked by a cultural tradition of over 2000 years. Japan was among the first countries in Asia to modernise at the end of the nineteenth century, writing its own history by escaping the cultural colonisation of the West, even retaining its language. A country of contrasts in which tradition and cutting-edge technology coexist, in which the relationship between man and nature is considered paramount, Japan has been able to balance individual and collective demands.

As globalization is in full swing and growing ever more, these are just some of the reasons that should lead us to explore this country. Better still, let us examine how Japanese culture, already regarded as a source of Western modernism, can represent a “cultural stimulus”, or even a model for Europe today, plagued by discontinuity and uncertainty.

Owing to its nature and its kaleidoscopic character, Japanese contemporary art – the visual arts as a whole whole – has rarely been the subject of retrospective exhibitions in France or in Europe.

There is, however, at least one major precedent: the exhibition Le Japon des avant-gardes 19101970 (Avant-Garde Arts of Japan 1910-1970), organized at Centre Pompidou in 1986. This important exhibition examined the expression of Japanese modernity, influenced

by Western avant-garde artists.

However, one could argue that putting on this exhibition owed much to the ease of establishing a connection between the context of Japanese avant-garde art in the first half of the twentieth century and the modernist logic of the West, to which it belonged to a certain extent. One of the reasons why most exhibitions in recent years, which took an interest in the Japanese art scene, focused on the post-war

period up to the 1970s is probably because, until that time, Japanese art was rather easy to apprehend as an extension or development of the Western artistic context.

The exhibition Japanorama – New vision on art since 1970 is concerned with what came next, the period from 1970 to the present day, taking over from the Avant-Garde Arts of Japan 1910-1970 exhibition, so to speak.

Choosing the title “Japanorama” expresses the desire to embrace as a whole the visual culture and the backdrop as well as the artistic creations themselves. The expression “New vision” indicates the turning point, from the 1970s, when the country began to assert its own cultural identity as a nation. In a way, the exhibition seeks to set the tone for what could be a future vision of contemporary Japan.

1970 was the year of the Osaka World Exposition, Expo’70, the height of Japanese modernism.

It was also the year of the tenth Biennale in Tokyo, Tokyo Biennale 70 - Between Man and Matter, which welcomed many international conceptual artists. This was the beginning of a period of transition during which Japan tried to free itself from the “post-war order”, in other words, from Western cultural influence. This moment of liberation from formalism went through an affirmation of the real, passionate expressionism and anti-art actions.

When it came to an end, the tendency to deny or to relativise reality had become internalised, giving rise to the reductionism of the 1970s. In the field of art, this phenomenon was represented by Mono-ha, literally the school of things, which focused on matter, and

by Japanese conceptual artists, who focused on ideas. Japanese artists sought to cut themselves off from Western influences and create their own culture.

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The 1980s saw the appearance of a futuristic and post-modern Japanese culture on the international scene, with its nerve centre in Tokyo. Subcultures and academic art merged, given equal weight under the designation “culture”, closely connected with the logic of mass consumption. The prosperity of the Japanese bubble economy led to the emergence of a superficial, symbolic interplay and a “cultural fluidity”. The formation of the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in 1978, the birth of technopop, the shock of the black Parisian collection unveiled by Rei Kawakubo in 1981 were among the markers of this new decade. YMO and Kawakubo made a name for themselves by asserting strong individuality, while at the same time using techniques of deconstruction and remix, evolving their dialectic dialogues. They shared a divergence from the usual criteria of beauty, differentiating between Asia and the West, and between nonhuman bodies, in the sense of the “post-human”, and digital dematerialisation. Their methods enabled a “reset”, by getting rid of the remnants of physicality and emotion that clung to the post-war aesthetic and giving it a true novelty.

The culture of the 1980s could be seen as a reflection of an era of excessive consciousness manifested by the exacerbation of the differences between the individual and others.

The collapse of the speculative bubble and the recession created an ambiguous and unstable atmosphere in which the immediate future was not clearly mapped out, and young people began to seek an “unequivocal” reality that would not tolerate the cosmetic. In the early 1990s, Takashi Homma’s suburban photographs and the architecture of Kazuyo Sejima (cofounder of SANAA and in charge

of the design of this exhibition), which deconstructed the current architectural language, left the meaning of an image or the agenda for a building completely open to interpretation. The appropriation of images by the so-called “neopop” culture, represented by Takashi Murakami among others, was spectacular and marked by a strong discursivity, while reflecting the psychological anxiety of a generation, rooted in the awareness of environmental problems and the disorder in the economic and socio-political backdrop affecting individuals.

In the late 1990s, following the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake and the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by a cult, the population was sceptical of major political and economic intentions and placed greater importance on interpersonal communication and mutual support. There was a “trigger” allowing now for personal expression, without pretension or artifice, in every-day life.

Artists tried to restore the means for human communication and to express individual emotions through improvisation and amateur practices. This approach, which does not work by instigating lightning change or revolution, but through the patient exploration of various possibilities thanks to total freedom between the subject and the object, still characterises Japanese artists today. It could be seen in all the arts and forms of expression based on images, including personal photography, documentary, architecture and fashion. After the Tohoku earthquake and the tsunami of 2011, the same burst of social engagement was again seen in Japanese culture.

Contrary to architecture and design, which were able to form a national culture within the framework of modernism, Japanese contemporary art developed in a chaotic fashion,

without any underlying general theory or discourse, but rather in relation to various cultures and subcultures, events and contexts.

At the heart of this process, however, there were two aspects unifying the approaches: firstly, self-consciousness, followed by the creation of a “physicality”, which responded intimately to the environment and which linked intelligence and perception. But this lack of ability to form a global theory of coherent art allowed for the emergence of many unique and individual forms of expression.

The format of the exhibition has been designed so that art, architecture, fashion, manga and other subcultures are linked, to highlight the relationship to history and the relationship of the particular characteristics of each of these forms of expression to their realities, while underlining the interaction of the two aforementioned parameters. The idea is to organize this exhibition not chronologically, but according to six key words or subjects, covering aspects characteristic of Japanese visual arts. Each keyword forms its own thematic island, the six being naturally connected to each other in the form of an archipelago. The design of the galleries has been realized by SANAA, Pritzker Prize winner and known for allowing the architectural form to flourish, by subtly connecting private and public spaces.

This exhibition aims to be more than an introduction to the contemporary art of a country in the Far East. It goes beyond the clichés and symbols often reducing the Japanese visual culture to two aesthetic concepts: “Zen” and “kawaii”. It contributes to the understanding and appreciation of contemporary Japanese art as a model for a comprehensive, structural and instructive approach to a deep and diverse sensitivity within a single culture. We hope that this “new vision” presented at

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Centre Pompidou-Metz will provide the opportunity and the place for a dialogue between Japan and the West, to continue widely and with a view to the future, because it is now indispensable for our cultural ecology, as we coexist in a period of crisis, to encourage creativity through the spreading and exchange of cultures.

Yuko Hasegawa, April 2017

3. EXHIBITION LAYOUT GENERAL OVERVIEW

of Japanese pop art, engendered by a very rich pop culture, going from commercial advertising in the 1980s to underground culture, to the “neopop” 1990s that made clever use of the language of manga, animation and other elements of Japanese subcultures.

The exhibition Japanorama – New vision on art since 1970 brings together visual arts, architecture, design, fashion and a flood of subcultures including illustration, manga and animation. Rather than organizing the exhibition chronologically, it has been organised into different thematic sections, modelled on an archipelago. Each of the “islands” making up this archipelago represents a key word in the exhibition: “Strange object / post-human body”, “Pop”, “Collaboration / Participation / Sharing”, “Politics and poetics of resistance”, “Subjectivity”, “Materiality and Minimalism”, six themes to characterize contemporary Japanese visual culture. The layout design for the space was entrusted to SANAA (see below, under Exhibition design).

Section C: Collaboration / Participation / Sharing This section focuses on relationships within society. It focuses on projects that explore relationships with others through participatory and collaborative approaches, characterized by maintaining the individualised self, but one whose contours must be flexible in order to emphasize harmony and interpersonal relations. Particular attention is paid to the unusual renewal of solidarity following the disaster of the Tohoku earthquake on 11 March 2011.

These key concepts stem from the most iconic creations in Japanese art from the 1970s to the present day, and are to be understood in the relationship between aesthetic sensibility and materiality, politics, economics, societal facts or even information. The political and philosophical aspect of these artistic expressions should also be considered. Rather than producing a chronological fresco or trying to encompass everything, the works presented were selected for their ability to show clearly these underlying concepts. To provide a deeper understanding of each theme, a number of works dating from before the 1970s have been included as a reference. While Expo '70 serves as a starting point, several works in the exhibition date back to 1968, which, as a year of protest and calls for reform around the world, was, alongside the social movements, a time of great artistic exploration, the influence of which would be considerable. Thus, in section A, “Strange Object Posthuman Body”, for example, works from the late 1960s by the Gutai group and the actions of Hi Red Center are presented.

Section D: Policies and Poetics of Resistance This island looks at the idiosyncratic part that ideas of resistance and criticism play in art in Japan.

One example of these policies of resistance can be found in the poetic form of expression “kawaii”, which may seem innocent and naïve, but which has an underlying message of resistance. Rather than producing direct references to political or social problems, “kawaii” art creates allegory through the imagination and fantasy.

Section E: Subjectivity This island deals with subjectivity, from a personal point of view using a documentary approach.

Observing and judging the world from a personal point of view is a practice widely used by artists, producing highly expressive art. This section focuses on an approach often documentary in nature, in which the narrative occupies a special place.

Photographs, films and videos, in particular, are presented.

Section F: Materiality and Minimalism The relationship to matter and minimalism are deeply linked to the idea of space developed in Japan, especially in architecture, in line with ways of thinking such as Zen. This section attempts to show the direct relationship that some Japanese artists have in their perception of things; it brings together non-anthropocentric approaches, which eliminate the emotional contact of the artist so as to leave the object or the matter responsible for the narrative, a reductionism expressed by the concept of “less is more”, nothingness filled with meaning.

Section A: Strange Object - Post-human Body The main island serves as an introduction and is focused on the body: the question of sensibility and the relationship between the body and the external world. How is the body perceived in Japan? Posthuman artworks, in connection with technology, also appear in this section which opens the exhibition and brings together some of the most spectacular and unusual art forms.

Section B: Pop The notion of pop art and pop culture in Japan highlights the relationship between art, consumption and subcultures This large section shows the diversity and complexity, beyond appearances,

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The exhibition beginson the top floor of the artscenter in Gallery 3 which includes sections A and B. It then goes down to Gallery 2 where sections C, D, E, and F can be found.

SANAA's design helps to create the idea of the archipielago, with each theme being at the same time separated and connected to the other physically and visually.

DETAILED ITINERARY GALLERY 3 Gallery 3 contains the sections on the Body (Section A) and Pop (Section B). At the entrance to the exhibition, the first thing that visitors see on the landing is an iconic image of Expo '70, which marks the starting point of Japanorama.

SECTION A: STRANGE OBJECT/POST-HUMAN BODY In this movement which involved searching for their own cultural identity after the Second World War, Japanese artists made the relationship with the body a central element, and explored this in a unique fashion, as evidenced by the actions, performances and works of Gutai, the Neo-Dada movement and Butoh. All these trends showed a leaning towards animism, the quest for an organic connection with non-human elements. In physical performances, objects seemed to be indigenous, surreal or grotesque. These actions, which opened the language of art to radically new forms of expression, can be considered as the premises for posthumanist performances. In the 1980s, the digital world became part of the debate and new relationships between the physical and the digital were established, notably with techno music, fashion and the media, opening the path to futuristic forms of expression.

Atsuko TANAKA, Denkifuku (Electric Dress), 1956/1999 Seen in elles@centrepompidou exhibition, 4th floor, 2009 86 coloured bulbs, 97 striplights varnished with 8 shades, felt, electric cable, adhesive tape, metal, painted wood, switchbox, circuit breaker, dimmer switch, 165 × 90 × 90 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP © All rights reserved

Also on display in this section are allegorical descriptions by Tetsumi Kudo of physical transformations due to radiation.

On entering the gallery, the visitor is confronted first with a group of anthropomorphic bodies and objects, including the Electric Dress by Atsuko Tanaka, a member of Gutai. When she created this dress in the late 1950s, she opened a new page in the history of Japanese art: never had a work so closely linked body, technique and art. The flashes and ethereal flickering produced by the electricity and light that wrapped her body become more than a skin, another metaphoric body, intertwined with the biological rhythm of the artist. This seminal work anticipated a body of the future.

The performances of Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of Butoh, a dance he described as “a corpse standing up”, and the avantgarde works of Natsuyuki Nakanishi and his colleagues (Hi Red Center) who used strangely grotesque transformations of the body in their performances, addressed social issues and ushered in the postmodernism of the 1980s.

Alongside this Electric Dress is one of the famous “lumps and bumps” dresses designed by Rei Kawakubo in the 1990s (Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body (S/S1997)) as well as other creations by Comme des Garçons, resulting from a deconstruction of the western approach to fashion, to reinforce the concept of the body. The body becomes a manifesto for a new approach to beauty, in opposition to conventional fashion, centred on balance and the concept of an ideal silhouette. Photographs of black outfits with holes in them from Rei Kawakubo’s first Parisian collection, disparaged as “outfits for street-walkers”, are associated with the paintings of Shozo Shimamoto, a member of Gutai who punctured his canvases. The disconcerting asymmetry, the tears and the distortions, give shape to the idea of a new corporeity.

Mariko MORI, Link of the Moon (Miko no Inori), 1996 Video installation, 5 min The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo © Mariko MORI

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During this period, hybrid, ambivalent sculptures by Kodai Nakahara, for example, are created. This is also the moment of the emergence of techno music of YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) which gave equal weight to musicians and computers, which Dumb Type would also do, and then later Rhizomatiks, in works characterised by the fusion of the human and the digital.

In the end, the human figure disappears, leaving only mechanisms in place and the result of the actions of intertwined objects, as in the new work by Yuko Mohri that closes this section.

Comme des Garçons Autumn/Winter 1982-83 Photographer credit: ©Peter Lindbergh

YMO, Solid State Survivor, 1979 Collection Wataru SHOJI / © Photo: Masayochi Sukita

SECTION B : POP Pop art, which takes everyday objects, images and information and reworks them, was particularly dynamic in Japan, where it fed off a rich and diverse subculture. Its beginnings were influenced by American Pop Art in the 1960s and its critique of consumerism, but in Japan it immediately involved a rereading of popular imagery, and expanded its framework to include underground culture as well as a political message. In the 1980s, computers began to have an impact on society, new players became culturally influential, such as the PARCO conglomerate, while traditional forms of expression such as manga and illustration matured and diversified, fusing into a broader definition of pop art.

A climate of materialism was soon established and dominated Japanese society, linked to the explosion of information and communication technologies which, associated with the “Otaku” culture (see glossary), were a breeding ground for the “neo-pop” movement of the 1990s.

Tetsumi KUDO, Votre portrait-chrysalide dans le cocon, 1967 Installation with light Laminated cotton, polyester and black light, 161 × 87 × 78 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Adagp, Paris, 2017 © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP

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Miwa YANAGI, Yuka, 2000 C-print, Plexiglas, dibon, 160 × 160 cm Edition of 7 Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech Gallery Courtesy of the artist and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo © Miwa YANAGI

Tsunehisa KIMURA, Howling at the Pig, 1980 Photomontage, 40,8 × 28,6 cm Collection of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum Photo © Fumiko Kimura

Section B begins with a room dedicated to the works of Tadanori Yokoo. Yokoo began work as a graphic artist in the 1960s, and his success was based on the manner in which he created surreal imagery, connected with the vernacular and kitsch, while adhering to a sophisticated and recognizable visual style. A central figure in Japanese pop culture, Yokoo is known for his collaboration with Japanese artists and cultural figures such as underground theatre artist Juro Kara in the 1970s, Shuji Terayama, Tatsumi Hijikata, Ryoji Ikeda and the Dumb Type collective, and electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in the 1980s. By combining eroticism with ironic humour, his graphic design work reflects the visual characteristics that are essential in Japanese subculture.

Yokoo and several other artists and designers were involved in Expo’70 in Osaka, and their innovative imagery strongly influenced the younger generation of Japanese artists, including Kenji Yanobe. In the 1990s, after the Chernobyl disaster and the Kobe earthquake in 1995, Yanobe’s works, inspired by science fiction characters such as Godzilla and other robots, sought to produce a utopian vision of innovation and the future.

The artist was photographed near Tower of the Sun built for Expo’70, in a suit that detected radioactivity and also exhibited sculptures of nuclear radiation suits, connecting the utopia represented by the Expo’70 to the dystopia embodied by radioactive contamination which followed the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Fukushima.

Tadanori YOKOO, Fancy Dance, 1989 FNAC 93767 Centre national des arts plastiques © All rights reserved / Cnap

This section also presents allegorical works expressing the political messages of the 1970s, such as the collages of Tsunehisa Kimura and the work of Katsuhiko Hibino – a major figure in the world of illustration, establishing a connection between contemporary art and consumer culture, or “PARCO

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culture” (see glossary), organised by the Seibu department store in the 1980s.

In the dystopian animation films of the 1980s, Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira, and Kyoko Okazaki produced a vivid tale of youth bound by an uncertain future. In the same decade, Takashi Murakami and Makoto Aida exhibited a raw talent for Neo-Pop forms, combining the clever use of traditional pictorial techniques with imagery associated with Japanese subcultures to produce an ambivalent message with respect to politics and the consumer society. This energetic and complex debate between society and pop art is one of the hallmarks of contemporary art in Japan and underscores the importance of the crucial commitment of pop culture.

Takashi MURAKAMI, Cosmos, 1998 Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 3000 × 4500 mm (3 panels) / 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Courtesy Tomio Koyama Gallery / ©︎1998 Takashi MURAKAMI /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. / Courtesy: Tomio Koyama Gallery / Image courtesy: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

GALERIE 2 Gallery 2 opens with a series of works produced after the Great Tohoku earthquake of March 11, 2011.

This triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disaster) that overwhelmed Japan not only caused material damage, but also an invisible fear and a deep and lasting trauma in people due to the nuclear contamination. Calling for a sharing of expertise, autonomous networks such as NGOs and social support groups directed contemporary art towards a more communicative juncture.

Shinro OHTAKE, Scrapbook #68, 2014 - 2016 Mixed media artist book 20 kg, 704 pages, 41 × 39 × 50 cm

Naoya Hatakeyama’s post-apocalyptic and yet intimate photographs capture the breeze from the sea and the forest in his devastated hometown.

Lieko Shiga, a “village photographer”, suggests the possibility of evoking the emotions of people and events in the imagination of the viewer.

© Shinro Ohtake, courtesy of Take Ninagawa, Tokyo Photo by Kei Okano

Keiichi TANAAMI, Untitled (Collagebook 3_06), circa 1973

Chim>Pom, SUPER RAT (diorama), 2008

Marker pen, ink, magazine scrap collage on drawing paper, 45 × 54 cm

5 rats (stuffed after being caught in Shibuya), diorama of town of Shibuya,

© Keiichi TANAAMI

video monitor, etc., 136 × 87 × 87 cm

Courtesy of the artist and NANZUKA

Osamu KITADA / Photo : Yoshimitsu Umekawa © Chim>Pom Courtesy of MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo

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The performance of the ChimPom collective of artists in the high security zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is a vehicle for communicating the discontent with nuclear power. These works question the position and commitment of artistic practices in the aftermath of an unprecedented crisis. The works exhibited in this gallery thus reflect a critical attitude towards reality, in three sections: Policies and Poetics of Resistance (Section D), Subjectivity (Section E) and Collaboration / Participation / Sharing (Section C).

by a convergence of ideas around the notions of impermanence and temporality, exemplified by John Cage. Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit requires the involvement of the public, to whom instructions are given in order to complete the work. Mieko Shiomi’s spatial poems can be seen as an early anticipation of electronic correspondence, even before the advent of the internet.

Quite similarly, Koki Tanaka’s works of the 2000s explore the meaning of shared experiences with others, by observing the collaborative processes of several producers such as poets, potters or musicians.

SECTION C: COLLABORATION / PARTICIPATION / SHARING

SHIMABUKU, Then, I decided to give a tour of Tokyo to the octopus from Akashi, 2000 Performance + Video Installation: mini DV transferred to Digital Data (6 min. 50 sec. / color / sound / 4:3) Yoko ONO, Eyeblink (Fluxfilm n° 9)

Courtesy: the Artist + Air de Paris, Paris

Paris, Centre Pompidou - Musée national d’art moderne © Yoko Ono / Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais

SECTION D: POLITICIES AND POLITICS OF RESISTANCE

/ image Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI

In Japan, the poetic images referred to as “kawaii” are a recurrent element of art. Behind an apparent innocence or naivety hides a meaning. Rather than direct political assertions, such images are allegorical, serving as surrealist worlds that convey their messages through poetry.

Harmony in relationships traditionally has an important place in Japanese culture. In this tradition, collaborative works and works involving the viewer can be considered as an integral part of contemporary Japanese art. The Japanese Fluxus movement of the 1960s was partly based on the Buddhist teachings of D.T. Suzuki, and found its expression mainly through works that involved participation or instruction for the viewer-participant. This approach enjoyed a revival as part of the international concept of relational aesthetics of the late 1990s.

This strategy is not new approach. A connection can, indeed, be made between Mavo and Harue Koga, influenced by European Dadaism in the 1920s, and the poetic practices of artists such as Yoshitomo Nara, who from the 1990s took up subjects such as youth, Immaturity and purity. The fact that the pure, the innocent and the poetic can carry a political message is a conceptualism particular to Japan. From where does the anger and the suspicious look of the girls painted

by Nara come? The depictions of children or animals, while creating icon images, hides a critique of current times and the adult world. In a similar way, the gentle, utopian, surrealist style of Koga in the 1920s dealt with the tensions of the inter-war period.

Collaborative works, however, were mainly seen in “projects” which arose after the earthquakes in Kobe in 1995 and in Tohoku in 2011, a time of debate on the role of artists in society. Artists, architects and film makers joined forces - in a context where the creator’s position undeniably followed the principles of Western modernism, based on the concept of originality in the work of art, establishing the collaboration and participation of the audience as an essential condition of artistic work was an innovative move.

In the middle of this section is a work using Bingata – the traditional dyed fabric of Okinawa – by Yuken Teruya, an artist who grew up near an American military base.

The colourful patterns of flowers and trees are gradually replaced by military fighter planes and parachutes.

This section opens with a selection of Fluxus projects from the 1960s. Fluxus was one of the most broadly international movements in the history of contemporary art, to which many artists participated, partly motivated

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In a black box, the sound installation by Fuyuki Yamakawa – juxtaposing recordings of the voice of his deceased father with that of a journalist covering the war zones of the1970s to 1980s, and the naive voice of the artist – produces a powerful lyrical crescendo.

Yuken TERUYA, You-I, You-I, 2002 Linen, 180 × 140 cm Harue KOGA, Sea, 1929

Collection of The Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited

Oil on canvas, 130 × 162,5 cm

© Yuken TERUYA

Collection of The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Yoshimoto NARA, Ocean Child (in the floating world), 1999

Junya ISHIGAMI & Associates, Balloon, 2007

Reworked woodcut, Fuji xerox copy, 41,5 × 29,5 cm

Aluminium structure, 73 × 12,8 × 14 cm

Takahashi Collection

© Junya Ishigami+associates / Photo © Yasushi Ichikawa

© Yoshimoto NARA, 1999

Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi

Courtesy of the artist

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the world with the individual was replaced by that of the monotony and homogeneity of existence. Takashi Homma explores this “New World” through a series of photographs of the ahistoric landscapes of the suburbs of Tokyo and portraits showing the distant and impersonal look of children. The images of Rinko Kawauchi pursue the flow of inner energy, highlighting the details of everyday life and the cosmology of life. This personal documentation is, in essence, a subjective process to present oneself to the world as a real but transparent being.

Lieko SHIGA, Rasen Kaigan 31, 2010 c-type print, 1200 × 1800mm © Lieko SHIGA

SECTION E : SUBJECTIVITY Removed from the tradition of autobiographical novels, in Japan remarks and observations from a personal point of view are often masked or transformed to produce a general vision. In this context, contrary to Western culture which guarantees the autonomy of the subject above all, Japanese culture tends to redefine the concept of subject.

Its contours are flexible and allow fluidity between the subject and the people close to it or external entities.

Eikoh HOSOE, Simon: A Private Landscape, 1971/2012 Silver gelatine print, 35,4 × 45,4 cm Courtesy the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film, Tokyo

Takashi HOMMA, TOKYO SUBURBIA, Urayasu Marina East 21, Chiba, 1995 © Takashi HOMMA

This process is highlighted through a selection of photographs, including the images of the “subjectivist” Ikko Narahara produced around 1968, but also the work of Takashi Homma in the 1990s and Rinko Kawauchi in the 2000s, and brings these works closer to the methods of personal documentary, which enjoyed a resurgence after the catastrophe of 2011. The huge impact of subjectivist photography – represented by the visual style of the magazine Provoke founded in 1968 – is deeply rooted in the doubts of a generation evolving in a world of uncertainty. The exhibition brings together the works of many photographers who contributed to Provoke, such as Ikko Narahara, Daido Moriyama and Takuma Nakahira.

The intimate photographs that Nobuyoshi Araki took of his wife, and the unconventional approach of the images of Eikoh Hosoe in his pictures of the comedian Simmon, in particular, firmly demonstrate the ontological tendencies of these photographers. After the collapse of the economic bubble in the 1990s, the ontological problem of reconciling

Ikko NARAHARA, Domains, Garden of Scilence, 1958/2017 Courtesy of the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film, Tokyo © Ikko Narahara / Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film, Tokyo

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This particular space of the exhibition confronts us with a reflection on the presence and absence of the object. From Zen gardens to the Mono-ha works of the 1970s, artists developed processes that reveal the interdependence of existing things, taking up Buddhist ideas that each thing exists only in relation to others.

In what could be seen as the beginnings of a minimalism playing on repetition and difference, Hitoshi Nomura obsessively recorded the movements of the moon, using fixed observation points on film marked with the five-line musical stave. Hiroshi Sugimoto composed a series of almost abstract marine landscapes with the horizon line precisely cutting each photograph. Ryoji Ikeda’s works use digital data as the source for minimal sound signals. These works also reflect questions of scale: macro-, nano-, micro-...

The exhibition ends with the spectacular installation

by Kohei Nawa, Force: a black rain made of falling oil, a symbol of policies on fossil fuels, a metaphor for the rain of radioactive fallout, but also a digital bar code, and a sublime painting, in a manner in which Barnett Newman might have employed. This work represents the key to understanding Japanorama, an exhibition which offers an alternative vision and way of thinking to that of the West or the globalised world. The simplest visual language can carry a series of complex layers of meaning, linked to its environment and to information, the memory of the past as well as predictions for the future, providing an epilogue to the two exhibition galleries.

Rinko KAWAUCHI, Untitled (I54), 2007 Illuminance C-print, 50 × 50 cm Edition of 1/6

SECTION F: MATERIALITY AND MINIMALISM Some Japanese artists set themselves apart by the extreme simplicity in their relationship to things, through approaches that eliminate the artist’s emotional contribution in order to allow the object autonomy, a narrative, as well of the nascent creativity established from the relationship between the objects themselves. This trend in contemporary Japanese aesthetics is associated with the notion of “Ma” (interval, space-time, see glossary). This last section presents a diverse selection of works belonging to the Zen movement, to minimalism, to Mono-ha (the school of things) or even to modernist architecture.

Kohei NAWA, Force, 2015 Hiroshi SUGIMOTO, Sea of Okhotsk, Hokkaido, 1989

ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

Series Ten Seascapes

© Kohei NAWA

© Courtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York

Photo: © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

Photo credit: Blaise Adilon

Photo: Tobias Wooton and Jonas Zilius

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4. EXHIBITION DESIGN BY SANAA SANAA (Kazuyo SEJIMA + Ryue NISHIZAWA), Musée d’Art contemporain du 21e siècle, Kanazawa, 2004 Frac Centre / Les Turbulences © SANAA © FRAC Centre-Val de Loire, François Lauginie

Yuko Hasegawa : “SANAA is currently one of the most prestigious architect in Japan and also on the international stage. As exhibition curator, I had the opportunity to collaborate regularly with the studio, experiencing how it conceived spaces perfectly adapted to the architectural and scenographic programmes. Winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2010, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have become famous for their work with major museums, including the Louvre Lens and the New Museum. As director of the institution, I designed the 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa, Japan, with them, taking as a starting point the porosity between public and private spaces.

In the design of the Japanorama exhibition, one can see the main charecteristics of SANAA architecture: transparency, the decompartmentalization of space and the fluidity of the layout, which allows the visitor to wander around the works. In the first gallery, the visitor can take in the entire exhibition space at once. Small rooms, similar to cells, have been carefully designed to vary the perception of scale in the gallery, accentuating the contrast between spaces of reduced size and the strong feeling of openness and freedom. The itinerary then takes a more organic form, accommodating circular partitions, in the manner of an ecosystem similar to a floating archipelago, grouping the works according to different themes and creating a harmonious interplay of perspectives between them.”

Louvre-Lens © SANAA, IMPREY CULBERT, C. Mosbach

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5. KISHIO SUGA, LAW OF PERIPHERAL UNITS, 1997/2017 INSTALLATION IN THE FORUM 09.09.17  05.03.18

View of the installation by Kishio Suga at the Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, Japan © Kishio SUGA, photo de Kenji Takahashi

For Kishio Suga, a major Japanese artist of the Mono-Ha movement (literally, the school of things), man can reach a heightened awareness of his environment through simple gestures that transform the space into a place conducive to meditation. From this perspective, Suga has installed a “stone garden” in the centre of the Centre Pompidou-Metz Forum, a radical version of a mineral garden, in the tradition of the zen gardens of Japanese temples. The intention of the artist is to return our relationship with nature to the centre of our focus. He describes his method as follows: “I used metal tubes, rocks and stones, the stones being the only natural elements of this work. Man is dominant and has control over the artificial materials, but not over the natural elements. So, to decide whether a natural element will be chosen or not, I must concentrate on my consciousness”.

The visitor is invited to look carefully at these stones, to appreciate their power and complementarity. They keep the strings taut and thus guarantee the balance of the whole. Each string follows a different trajectory, creating a kind of live magnetic field, which Suga calls “inner density”.

With the support of the Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo.

This work was undertaken as part of the “NOE-NOAH” project with funding from the European Union in the framework of the INTERREG V A programme (2014-2020)

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LIST OF ARTISTS A

AIDA Makoto AKASEGAWA Genpei ANREALAGE ARAKI Nobuyoshi ASAI Yusuke Atelier Bow-wow

C

ChimPom Comme des Garçons

D

DEKI Yayoi Dumb type Archive

E

ENOKURA Koji

F

Finger Pointing Worker Fluxus FUJII Hikaru FUJIMOTO Sou FUKUSHIMA Hideko

H

HATAKEYAMA Naoya hatra HIBINO Katsuhiko HIJIKATA Tatsumi HIRATA Minoru Home-For-All HOMMA Takashi HOSOE Eikoh

I

IKEDA Ryoji ISHIGAMI Junya ISHIHARA Tomoaki ITO Zon IZUMI Taro

K

KANEUJI Teppei KASHIKI Tomoko

KATO Izumi KAWAKUBO Rei KAWAMATA Tadashi KAWARA On KAWAUCHI Rinko KIMURA Tsunehisa KOGA Harue KOJIN Haruka KONISHI Kenzo KOSHIMIZU Susumu KUDO Tetsumi KUSAMA Yayoi

L

LEE Ufan

M

MACHIDA Kumi mame MATSUE Tetsuaki MIYAJIMA Tatsuo MOHRI Yuko MORI Mariko MORIMURA Yasumasa MORIYAMA Daido MURAKAMI Takashi MURAKAMI Tomoharu

N

NAKAGAWA Yukio NAKAHARA Kodai NAKAHIRA Takuma NAKAMURA Hiroshi NAKANISHI Natsuyuki NAKAZONO Koji NARA Yoshitomo NARAHARA Ikko NAWA Kohei NOMURA Hitoshi

O

ODANI Motohiko OHNO Kazuo OHTAKE Shinro OKAZAKI Kyoko ONO Yoko Osaka Archive OTOMO Katsuhiro OZAWA Tsuyoshi

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R

Rhizomatiks

S SANAA SAWA Hiraki SHIGA Lieko SHIMABUKU SHIMAMOTO Shozo SHIOMI Mieko SHIRAGA Kazuo Sputniko!

SUGA Kishio SUGIMOTO Hiroshi SUKITA Masayoshi

T

TABAIMO TAKANO Aya TAKAYAMA Noboru TANAAMI Keiichi TANAKA Atsuko TANAKA Koki TATEISHI Tiger TERUYA Yuken The Play TSUMURA Kosuke

W

wah document

Y

YAMAGUCHI Harumi YAMAKAWA Fuyuki YAMAMOTO Yohji YANAGI Miwa YANOBE Kenji Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) YOKOO Tadanori YOKOYAMA Yuichi YOSHIOKA Tokujin

EXTRA-SENSORY ODISSEY centrepompidou-metz.fr | #dumbtype With the special support by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan

DumbType, S/N Performance photo: Yoko Takatani / Graphisme L&D, Kanta Desroches

EXHIBITION 20.01.18 > 14.05.18

1. PRESS RELEASE

Dumb Type, S/N, 1992 © Photo Yoko Takatani

The Dumb Type exhibition is the first monographic exhibition in France of this magnitude dedicated to this art collective. Formed in 1984, Dumb Type, in its early stages, was made up of about fifteen Kyoto City Art College students from different fields: visual artists, video artists, choreographers and performers, as well as architects, graphic designers, sound engineers and computer scientists who combined to invent a new, fundamentally pluridisciplinary type of performing art.

In English, dumb can mean “mute” or “stupid”. Teiji Furuhashi (19601995), the central figure of the group, explained in an interview the critical approach suggested by the name “Dumb Type”: openness to the West and the economic bubble that culminated in the 1980s made Japan an increasingly superficial society, devoted to the media, consumerism and

technology, in which every individual is “overwhelmed with information, without being aware of anything”, and where desires stand side by side with despair.

In reaction to this era and to the multiplication of theatricality and gimmicks, Dumb Type has created an experimental theatre in which the performers’ bodies serve to support the images, sounds, sets. Sanitised and unrelenting, the technology that proliferates in Dumb Type pieces formats the bodies and challenges the mind.

The first political gesture of Dumb Type lies in choosing to work as a collective; the desire for several people to work together was aiming for a total interdisciplinary approach, abandoning categories and academic hierarchies. This system is clearly visible in the hybrid nature of the group’s projects, where live performance

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and multimedia installations are interwoven. A new form of theatricality is taking shape, haunted by immersive technology, controlled by omnipresent data.

Very active until the early 2000s, the company has regularly performed in museums and theatres in Japan, Europe and the United States, where some of its members have lived at times. Active on the international scene, Dumb Type examines the mutation of identities and communication in a globalised world.

The collective removed all dialogue from its early works, but the silent performers were surrounded by quotes from articles or lyrics of pop songs. New media and the digital revolution have transformed our intimate confession or direct addresses to the audience. behaviour, our subjectivity, and more broadly our humanity. Yet, at the heart of these

data flows, the strobe lights and electronic music, a lively sensitivity was clear. This existential dimension can be seen in Dumb Type with the inclusion of more popular and fragile forms, such as karaoke, talk show, cabaret, drag performance, intimate confession or direct addresses to the audience.

In 1990, for one of its first projects, Dumb Type transformed the theatre stage into an immaculate pit, where the performers’ bodies are regularly swept by a machine with a giant scanner. PH borrows its title from the ”potential of hydrogen” used in chemistry to measure the acidity of a solution; the texts that punctuate the piece, however, also evoke the “potential Heaven/ Hell” of a Japanese society locked in a middle state, a harmful juste milieu, which Furuhashi compares to limbo. The following pieces will send shock waves through this cold neutrality. In S/N (1994), Furuhashi announced that he was HIV positive, displaying labels

with the words “male”, “Japanese”, “homosexual”, “HIV +”. Phrases projected on stage counter this brutal categorization: “I dream of losing my gender”, “I dream of losing my nationality”, “I dream of losing my blood”. Videos of nude torsos filmed through targets complete this clinical treatment of the body. As with pH, the title S/N refers to a measure used in science: in acoustics, the signal/noise ratio measures the interaction between signal and noise, which influences the quality of transmission of information.

The arrival of the compact disc in 1982 marked the transition from analogue recording to digital, where there is no longer any background noise. For Furuhashi, this elimination of ambient noise is symptomatic of a society that ignores all that it does not want to see or hear.

As part of its Japanese Season, the Centre Pompidou-Metz is presenting five major Dumb Type installations, including a new

Dumb Type, Memorandum or Voyage Installation Photo: Shizune Shiigi

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installation produced for the occasion. Some of these works are the respective productions of three of the very first members of the collective – Teiji Furuhashi, Ryoji Ikeda and Shiro Takatani – who, alongside their work in the collective, continued to produce solo projects. Archives and testimonies are also presented in the exhibition and retrace the genealogy of the group, before and after the death of Teiji Furuhashi in 1995. This understanding, both physical and documentary, of a selection of works from Dumb Type allows these striking creations to be considered in a new context, while placing them in perspective within the current context of a society still dominated by an excess of information and consumption.

Curator: Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT), Tokyo Hélène Meisel, Research and Exhibition Officer

2. WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION A new installation designed for the exhibition and presented for the first time brings together the recreations of three Dumb Type performances produced before the death of Teiji Furuhashi: PleasureLife (1988), pH (1990) and S/N (1994).

from a combination of pure mathematics and the vast ocean of data present in the world”.

Matching piece to the calming S/N show, Lovers (1994) is an interactive installation by Teiji Furuhashi, tackling the theme of love in a ghostly and romantic fashion. On the walls of a square room are projected the naked bodies, life-size, of nine performers, men and women, who meet. The silhouette of the artist also comes to meet the visitor, before disappearing at the moment of embrace.

Toposcan (2013 and 2016) is an audiovisual installation by Shiro Takatani (born 1963), responsible for the visual and technical aspects of Dumb Type projects. Composed of eight 16/9 monitors in a line, the work offers a panoramic view of a landscape, on which is revealed the digital structure of the medium chosen by the artist: high definition video Nature, filmed at 360°, which is gradually swept away by a filter, the video decomposing gradually into the multitude of lines of pixels that make up the image.

Data.tron (2007) is an immersive audiovisual installation by Ryoji Ikeda (born 1966), from the datamatics series he began in 2006. A member of the Dumb Type collective, Ikeda is also a key figure in music and Electronic art. The artist explains that “for Data.tron, each pixel of the image is strictly calculated according to mathematical principles, composed

Lastly, MOV (2004) is a “choral” installation, which brings together, on a sixteen-metre long screen, the images and sounds of three previous shows, all made after the death of Teiji Furuhashi – Memorandum (1999), [OR] (1997) and Voyage (2002) – summarising in a new work the memory of the collective Dumb Type.

DumbType, pH, 1990

Dumb Type, Lovers

Performance

Installation

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Haruhiro Ishitani

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Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013 Photo Courtesy: NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] Photo: KIOKU Keizo

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014 Installation Photo: Shizune Shiigi

DumbType, Voyage, 2002

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

Performance

Installation

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

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08.09.17 > 14.05.18

centrepompidou-metz.fr | #10evenings

10 Evenings #8 Saburo Teshigawara, Broken Lights photo: Jochen Schindowski / Graphisme L&D, Kanta Desroches

DANSE, MUSIC, PERFORMANCES

PERFORMANCE ART AND THE PERFORMING ARTS IN JAPAN: BACKGROUND CONTEXT

Since the 1950s, the participation of Japanese artists in the major international avant-garde movements has taken place in the context of important intellectual and cultural exchanges with the West.

During the 1960s, the Sogestu Art Centre (SAC) became the epicentre of avant-garde artistic propositions. Between 1958 and 1971, the most experimental approaches were pursued in this venue where artists, musicians, designers, critics, writers and performers, came together around common ideals. It was notably the forum for the Japanese Fluxus movement, the venue for the emergence of experimental cinema led by Takahiro Limura, and the legendary performances and experimental concerts of Toshi Ichiyanagi, John Cage, David Tudor and Merce Cunningham. This dynamic, to which the Cross Talk Intermedia events played a part, was fundamental to the development of a large number of artistic propositions which emerged at Osaka 1970.

The 1970s opened with the first worldfair in Japan – Expo’70, whose huge cultural impact is known and which was visited by some 64 million people. This “whirlwind of celebration” that saw the birth of “the kids of the show”, to use Yoko Hayashi’s expression in her 1999 essay written for the exhibition Donai Yanen, contemporary creation in Japan, was accompanied by a real buzz in artistic circles. It was then that the Seibu Theatre (later Parco Theatre) was opened by the large conglomerate Saison, a cornerstone of consumer culture and also the owner of the J-wave radio station, an essential channel for music. From 1973, this place played a major role in the emergence of a Japanese pop culture, combining mass marketing, fashion and experimental artistic exploration. The Parco Theatre, a small, 500-seat venue, quickly became the symbol of a unique relationship between counter-culture and burgeoning commercial culture, both feeding off each other. It was also a prominent launch pad for artists such as Shuji Terayama and the venue for the Music Today festival (1974-1988) promoted by Toru Takemitsu. This place, a temple of consumption, could be viewed as the model for a phenomenon transforming Japanese cities: the combining of a generation of “counter-consumers” and the emergence of sophisticated products designed by artists, musicians and designers.

Saburo TESHIGAWARA, Fragments of Time Photo credit: Bengt Wanselius

The programme 10 Evenings has been designed as a series of monthly events from October 2017 to March 2018, providing the opportunity to encounter key figures from the world of contemporary Japanese performing arts. Each of these events offers an insight into the relationship of an artist to his heritage and artistic and cultural context.

Coming from performance art, theatre and dance, these projects have been especially developed or adapted for the Centre Pompidou-Metz. Audiences will experience artistic projects, some never shown in France before, designed to complement the artistic themes developed in the Japanorama exhibition.

The title of these events – 10 Evenings – echoes the famous avant-garde series of performances 9 evenings: Theater and Engineering organised by Billy Klüver in New York from 13 to 23 October 1966. The dynamics of American-Japanese exchanges at that time led to a similar event at the Yoyogi gymnasium in Tokyo, called Cross Talk Intermedia; it brought together a very large network of industrialists, sound engineers and artists, and involved structures and equipment that were a taste of the innovative artistic concepts which would make Osaka 1970 a success.

The bespoke 10 Evenings programme is intended as a hommage to this period of great creative richness from across the generations.

This emerging Japanese scene was prolific and resonated abroad; it spread across public and private places and helped followed an aesthetic which drew inspiration from both underground movements and mass culture. Throughout the period of the Japanese economic bubble, other major conglomerates followed Parco’s initiative: Spiral Hall opened in the trendy Aoyama district in 1985 and the Bunkamura venue opened in the Shibuya district in 1989, transforming the heart of Tokyo into a place of artistic effervescence with a now important influence

Curatorship: Emmanuelle de Montgazon, independent curator

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internationally. This period gave rise to more diverse and freer theatrical forms – from the Shigaigeki “city theatres” led by Shuji Terayama to the appearance of Shogekijo “small theatres”. Suzuki Tadashi used this momentum to create the first Japanese international theatre festival in Toga in 1981.

The 2011 tsunami and the Fukushima disaster found an echo in these asserted, politically committed, artistic practices which attracted a lot attention in the rest of the world. The changing nature of literature, theatre, fashion and music was transformed into exchanges with the community, between personal testimonies and highly developed social networks.

New artistic forms emerged, such as the actions of the ChimPom collective, generating a resurgence of political consciousness.

The 1990s witnessed the arrival of new theatres, foundations and programs to support artists, thanks to a state cultural policy inspired by the French model.

Leading figures in Japanese theatre were now at the head of public institutions, with substantial resources at their disposal, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, opened in 1990, the Setagaya Public Theatre, the Saitama Art Theatre, the New National Theatre, Tokyo and the Shizuoka SPAC, opened in 1997. Built with funding from the economic bubble, but opened in the middle of a recession, they hosted large-scale productions and major international groups, far from the experimental emulation of an avant-garde that no longer had a place of reference. Large-scale facilities coexisted in this climate of disenchantment, while the gap between the commercial sphere and the underground widened irreparably, with counterculture artists forging parallel networks combining micro-scenes in Japan and international networks.

GUEST ARTISTS “[In Japan] all speech is an irrevocably inadequate substitute for reality.”

(Claude Levi-Strauss, The Other Face of the Moon, 2011) “It is by allowing a wide variety of artists from different generations to express themselves that it is possible to experience the diversity of artistic approaches in Japan today. What unites these approaches probably has two central threads: navigating and reacting to the violent and intense whirlwinds of a period in constant flux, whilst retaining clear memories of the avant-garde movements. All the artists invited to take part in the 10 Evenings, have established a profoundly radical and singular approach, but in keeping with the avantgarde movements.

The period between 1991 and 2006 coincided with the economic post-bubble recession, also known as the “lost decade” or “fin de siècle” period. The 1995 Kobe earthquake, whose social and political consequences shook the whole country, gave the cultural world a shot in the arm and artists reassessed the notion of collective and individual. One of the most striking examples was the radical and politically committed performances of the collective Dumb Type and the activism of the communities which formed around this group; a group that gained legendary status when its leader, Teiji Furuhashi, died of AIDS in 1995.

These singularities reflect the idyosyncratic dimension particular to Japanese culture and which remains symbolic of how each individual may face a society fossilising over the years into a socio-political model (the collective), whilst urban and technological development is at a peak. A body of testimonies, impressions of time and place: Gozo Yoshimasu and Min Tanaka since the 60s and 70s, Yasumasa Murimura, Norimuzu Ameya, Saburo Teshigawara and Ryuichi Sakamoto, key performers at the time of the economic bubble, Dumb Type, Ryoko Sekiguchi and Fuyuki Yamakawa, in the disenchantment of the 90s, and Mariko Asabuki and Kukangendai, young artists from a post-Fukushima era.

Against a backdrop of social unrest, a breakdown of values and a deep crisis of identity, economic activity picked up in 2006, intensified by the place of technology used in everyday life. Young people found themselves at that time in a world of “dividualism”, a concept developed by Keiichiro Hirano, who considered that an individual could have several faces when confronted with multiple virtual worlds.

These artists make up an archipelago of singular emotions linked to one another, going beyond any generational divide, elements of a continuous cultural whole facing a world in flux.”

The improving economic health, however, led to cultural initiatives that showed Japan’s desire to engage in dialogue with the rest of the world. The creation of the Tokyo Performing Art Market (TPAM), the Tokyo Art Fair, numerous biennials and festivals (Tokyo/Festival (T/P), Kyoto Experiment (KEX)...) enabled many foreign artists to come to Japan. The cultural fabric strengthened and artists renewed their relationships with the community, reassessing the cultural roots of their ancestors, such as animism.

They expressed a need to re-invent a social reality.

A strong policy of cultural cooperation with the countries of Asia and the continuity of exchanges with the West accompanied this debate.

Emmanuelle de Montgazon

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Fuyuki Yamakawa Photo: Yusuke Tsuchida

● Evening #1 :

● Evening #3 :

Meeting between Sou Fujimoto, architect and designer of the Japan-ness exhibition's layout and Frédéric Migayrou, curator of the exhibition Friday, 8 September 2017 at 6 pm

Fuyuki Yamakawa / Norimizu Ameya, performances (first shows in France) Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 8pm Norimizu Ameya is a radical and unique figure in theatre and underground performance art in Japan, on the fringe of all trends and who has influenced a large number of artists from all disciplines. He first worked with Juro Kara’s theatre company, before founding Tokyo Grand Guignol in 1984, which gave birth to a famous underground Manga, Lichi Hikari Club, in which he is the main character. In 1987, he created the company [M.M.M.], rich with cyberpunk references, before moving in the 1990s, to work on radical performance art projects, involving the human body and its limits.

Although he took part in the Venice Biennale in 1995 with the work Public Semen, he then took a break for several years, during which time he opened a pet shop and published a book on the relationship between man and animals. He returned to visual art in 2005 and to the theatre in 2007.

In 2013, he won the 58th Kishida Kunio Drama Award for Blue Tarp, performed in a school in Fukushima in 2013. In the same year, he took part in the Osaka International Art Festival with Classroom, a play for children created and performed with his own family.

● Evening #2 : Meeting between Kazuyo Sejima, (SANAA), architect and designer of the Japanorama exhibition's layout and Yuko Hasegawa, curator of the exhibition Sunday, 22 October 2017 at 2:30 pm Followed by Fuyuki Yamakawa, musical performance Sunday, 22 October 2017 at 4pm Fuyuki Yamakawa, artist, performer and musician, he is known for the extreme intensity of his happenings based on the peculiar technique of “Khoomei” throat music, a popular brooding form of singing from Tuva (Central Asia) and characterized by diplophonia (the simultaneous emission of two sounds, requiring total control of breathing.) From this method of singing, in which he is recognized internationally, he has developed happenings based on amplified sounds and notably the heartbeat using an electronic stethoscope. With all his artistic endeavours, he aims to push the limits of art, through his own bodily space. At the same time, he creates visual and sound installations, as well as performances in collaboration with artists from very different disciplines (dance, fashion, cinema, radio). Since the Fukushima disaster, his work has been marked by strong social criticism.

In 2014, he formed a new group, Grand Guignol Future and, with the art critic Noi Sawaragi, produced a play based on an actual aviation accident. In his wide-ranging work, he has also performed with Takahiro Fujita (mum & gypsy), Fuyuki Yamakawa and Otomo Yoshihide.

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Norimizu Ameya, Blue Sheet, Fukushima, 2013 © Norimizu Ameya / Photo © Kei Okuaki

Min Tanaka solo dance Yamanashi Pr./Dance Hakushu Festival, 2009 ©Madada Inc.

Photo: Yves Verbièse

● Evening #4 :

the multiple spaces he invests, a rare opportunity to see this outstanding artist. Min Tanaka is an experimental and avantgarde dancer, deeply inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of Ankoku Butoh, Dance of Darkness.

Yukiko Nakamura, Don't wake me up, dance Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 7pm

In 1974, Tanaka began to evolve towards “hyperdance”, focusing on the psycho-physical unity of the body.

His forms of artistic expression have led to numerous collaborations with intellectuals and visual artists from around the world, from Gilles Deleuze to Anna Halprin. He presented his work abroad for the first time in 1978, guest of the pluridisciplinary event conceived by Arata Isozaki and the Autumn Festival Ma: Space-Time in Japan.

Followed by Norimizu Ameya, Classroom, theatre (first show in France) Friday, 10 November 2017 at 8pm

● Evening #5 : Min Tanaka, Locus Focus, outdoor performance Saturday, 11November 2017 at 11 am & 4pm

● Evening #6 :

“One does not dance in a place, one dances the place.”

This adage of Min Tanaka, as brief as a haiku, sums up the entire process of the Japanese choreographer. What he calls “Body Weather” is a dance in which the body is in perpetual transformation, like the weather, in an intense exchange with its environment. The choreographer concentrates his dance on the place that he “inhabits” with his body and from which he harnesses his energy. “When I dance, I leave nothing behind. Nothing has changed but everything has changed”, explains Min Tanaka. His dance is an art of passage, of the ephemeral. With Locus Focus, he captures the meteorology of a place to embody all the atmospheric variations, like a barometer or a seismograph. Locus Focus is the name of a series of performances that Min Tanaka started in 2004. The project is deeply connected to the space that the dancer invests, in various places in our everyday environment around the world. The movement, forged by the place where it occurs, is different each time. For this new instalment of Locus Focus, Min Tanaka will improvise in

Gōzō Yoshimasu and Kukangendai, Embroidery of fire, performance-concert (creation, first show in France) Friday, 8 December 2017 at 8pm Poet and film-maker, Gozo Yoshimasu is considered to be one of the most important contemporary poets in Japan and acknowledged throughout the world for his performances. At the same time a calligrapher and photographer, he has set himself free from the traditional distinctions between poetic genres, combining poems and images, objects and videos with other artists, and reviving the practice of declamation through the power of his public recitals in which all the resources of the voice and the breathing come into play. Yoshimasu’s poetry can be explored as a web of interconnected images, objects and words that reflect a contradictory feeling of nostalgia and distance, reinforced by improvised music. He regularly collaborates with visual artists and free jazz and

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Gozo YOSHIMASU performing a reading Photo credit: Sayuri Okamoto

Portrait Mariko ASABUKI Photo: Shinchosha

improvisation musicians such as Otomo Yoshihide.

He published his first collection of poetry in 1964 and has received numerous awards in Japan and abroad. His latest opus, Kaibutsu-kun (Dear Monster), is a long poem written between 2012 and 2016 in the aftermath of the Tsunami. It was published in 2016.

in the magazine Shinshosha. She designs readings with “noise” musicians and collaborates with artists from other disciplines such as Norimizu Ameya.

Followed by Tomoko Sauvage, Water Bowls, performance-concert (creation)

Kukangendai, a group formed in 2006, creates its music through a process of editing, repetition and deliberate errors, creating a feeling of distortion.

In recent years, the group has tried to develop and implement a form of live concert in which they simultaneously play several songs that turn into a single rhythmic flow. Based in Kyoto, they also run a venue called SOTO.

Tomoko Sauvage, a sound artist based in Paris, has been working for several years with waterbowls, comprising hydrophones immersed in porcelain bowls of various sizes, filled with water. The drops, waves and bubbles with which she plays resonate in the bowls forming natural harmonics according to the resonance of the place. This electro-aquatic framework is a delicate balance between control and chance, order and disorder, fleeting and repeating.

The first performance of a rare collaboration between Gozo Yoshimasu and this young rock band was commissioned for the retrospective devoted to the poet at the MOMAT in Tokyo in 2016. It was based on the theme of the Monster Kaibutsu, dear to Yoshimasu since the Fukushima disaster.

Ryoko Sekiguchi in collaboration with Chef Sugio Yamaguchi and designer Felipe Ribon, When humidity changes, the world changes, performance (creation) Sunday, 10 December 2017 at 4pm

Mariko Asabuki along with Tomoko Sauvage, Timeless (creation, first show in France) Saturday, 9 December 2017 at 3pm

Ryōko Sekiguchi is a Japanese author and translator living in Paris. She studied History of Art at the Sorbonne and received a doctorate in comparative literature and cultural studies from the University of Tokyo. Under the principle of “double writing”, she crosses several disciplines and territories. She writes in French and Japanese, translates in both directions, working in literature and gastronomy, and on several collaborative projects...

The novelist Mariko Asabuki has had an extraordinary career. Her first book, Ryuseki (Traces of Flow), won the Bunkamura Deux Magots Literary Prize in 2010. Her second book, Kikotowa, won the Akutagawa Prize. The richness of her vocabulary and her reflections on time and memory, have led some critics to compare her to Proust. Since then, she has published Timeless, a novel published in several parts

She has written a dozen or so books in French, mainly published by P.O.L., among which Ce n’est pas un hasard

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Portrait of Ryoko Sekiguchi and Felipe Ribon

Ryoji Ikeda, supercodex [live set], 2013

(It is not a coincidence) in 2011, Le Club des Gourmets (The Gourmet Club) in 2013 and Dîner Fantasma (Dining with Ghosts) with Felipe Ribon in 2016. She has written about ten books in Japanese, published mainly by Shoshi-Yamada. She has translated novels by Stéphane Foenkinos, Emmanuel Carrère and Jean Echenoz into Japanese. Regarding her performance When humidity changes, the world changes, she wrote:

qualities of sound, particularly ultrasonics and frequencies. Since 1995, Ryoji Ikeda, also a member of the artist collective Dumb Type, has had a strong presence on the international art scene, with concerts, installations and recordings that integrate sound, acoustics and images. His explorations have led to collaborations with the visual artist and musician Carsten Nicolai, the choreographer William Forsythe, the photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, the architect Toyo Ito.

“Just as we are made up of 70% water, everything in our world contains water. Just like the notion of “terroir”, which ultimately depends on many climatic conditions, moisture, the proportion of water contained can determine the way things are in this world: eventually, a tomato will rot, but removing the water can make it an appetising dried tomato. A corpse decomposes, but, thanks to a subtle process of adding water, it can acquire different textures. The skin of mummies can become paper-thin, but it can also be like leather, tree bark or paraffin. When we put dry food on our palate, the food absorbs moisture from our mouth so it can then be assimilated into the body. There is a constant exchange of water between this world and ourselves, between you and us, until our body is no more. The only thing left that does not contain water is thought. And even then.”

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Norico Sunayama, A sultry world Saturday, 20 and Sunday, 21 January 2018 continuously (to be confirmed) Norico Sunayama is a dancer and performer from Dumb Type who creates her own performances and many other collaborations with, amongst others, the Japanese band Kyupikyupi and Kill your television from Singapore. Particularly active in the “Club-Luv +” evenings of the 1990s, during which time she founded the women’s groups OK Girls and C.Snatch Z, she presents performative works, at the crossroads of contemporary art and the subculture, cabaret and representative art. Noriko Sunayama is known for her extremely provocative performances.

Evening #7 :

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Ryoji Ikeda, Supercodex, concert Friday, 19 January 2018 at 8pm

Evening #8 :

Saburo Teshigawara and Rihoko Sato, Absolute Absence, installation-dance (creation in situ) Saturday, 27 and Sunday, 28 January 2018 at 4pm

For the opening of the Dumb Type exhibition, Centre Pompidou-Metz is putting on two exceptional performances by artists from this legendary collective that has influenced the artistic world far beyond the Japanese archipelago...These events will tackle the main dimensions of Dumb Type language: social engagement and criticism and the creation of a new language based on technologies.

Originally from Tokyo, Saburo Teshigawara began his career as a choreographer in 1981, after studying visual arts and classical dance. In 1985, he formed KARAS with the dancer Kei Miyata. Interested in all the artistic disciplines, he also staged five operas and made several installations and films. In each of his creations he considers the work as a whole, and designs the costumes, lighting and

A key figure in music and electronic art, Japanese composer / artist Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the physical

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Yasumasa Morimura, A Requiem: Unexpected Visitors/ 1945, Japan, 2010 Photo: Yasumasa Morimura

Broken Lights Photo: Jochen Schindowski

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stage sets. In 2013, he opened his own creative space Karas Apparatus in Tokyo, which puts on shows, exhibitions and workshops.

Evening #9 :

Yasumasa Morimura, Nippon Cha Cha Cha, installationperformance (creation, first show in France) Saturday, 24 February 2018 at 4pm

In conjunction with 10 Evenings and the installationperformance work at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, Saburo Teshigawara will present his latest work at the Arsenal concert hall:

In this new show combining performance and video, Yasumasa Morimura offers a vision which is a mixture of his own personal story, the history of Japan and the history of art in Japan after the Second World War. Through a choice of figures from modern history, he questions the variety of interpretations arising from the idea of the ‘self’ which he has developed in his work since the start of his career.

Saburo Teshigawara and Rihoko Sato, Tristan and Isolde, dance at Arsenal Metz en Scènes Friday, 9 February 2018 at 8pm With Saburo Teshigawara, movement always comes before breathing. “Dancing is a natural act, even more natural than living”, » he says. As such, the extraordinary fluidity and extreme precision of his dance seems to surge from within, going beyond questions of rhythm and freeing him from mathematical constraints. Teshigawara’s choreography is a reflection of nature, of an organic reality where symmetry does not exist and where feelings become raw, unexpected, intense and sometimes, inevitably, violent. This relationship with the elements and the inner spirit, therefore, provides the perfect cradle to sublimate the romanticism of Tristan and Isolde. While Wagner’s music is still an integral part of the show, it is to the essence of the narrative and its tragic dimension that the Japanese choreographer and his faithful collaborator Rihoko Sato turn: the pain of an impossible love, flamed by the thirst for a desire that cannot be satisfied, and which can only find peace in death. Embodying these ill-fated lovers, their bodies become messengers of the unspeakable, aiming straight for our hearts.

Yasumasa Morimura works as a conceptual photographer and has been making films for more than three decades. He has become one of the most important figures producing “staged photography”. Using accessories, costumes, make-up and digital manipulation, he has transformed himself into subjects from Western art as an examination of the cultural canons. By reinventing the iconic figures from the history of art, he challenges not only the traditional male viewpoints, but also commentates on the assimilation of Western culture in Japan.

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Evening #10 :

Ryuichi Sakamoto with Shiro Takatani, Dis·play, concert-performance Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 8pm and Sunday 4 March 2018 at3pm Ryuichi Sakamoto presents a production combining sound installation and musical performance. The music is taken from his new album async (2017) together with new material. Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani (Dumb Type) are currently developing unique visuals and a site-specific acoustic installation. The “cinematographic” music echoes both the visuals and sounds from the original acoustic elements, plunging the viewer into a universe of quasi-meditative discovery.

A co-production with Le Lieu Unique in Nantes and the Japan Cultural Institute in Paris (MCJP).

In partnership with the Arsenal / Metz en Scènes In February 2018, Saburo Teshigawara will also be putting on a new performance for the CCN-Ballet de Lorraine company as part of an associated artistic programme (details to follow).

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Photo by Da Ping Luo © 2017, Courtesy of Park Avenue Armory Photomontage by Shiro Takatani

Ryuichi Sakamoto made his debut in 1978 with his solo album Thousand Knives. In the same year, he co-founded the pioneering electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra – YMO (1978-1985). In 1983, Sakamoto composed the soundtrack of Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence by Nagisa Oshima. Since his debut, he has released more than a dozen solo albums, created installations exhibited in various museums throughout the world and composed music for more than thirty films including those of Bernardo Bertolucci, Pedro Almodóvar, Brian De Palma and more recently Alejandro González Iñárritu. Sakamoto was invited to act as artistic director for the exhibition Art & Music – search for a new Synesthesia at the Tokyo MOT (2012) and for the Sapporo International Art Festival (2014). His solo exhibitions include Forest symphony at the Yamaguchi Centre for Arts and Media YCAM (2013) and async at the Watari-Um Museum in Tokyo (2017). For several years, he has collaborated with artist Shiro Takatani from the collective Dumb Type, with whom, amongst other things, he produced the opera LIFE (1999) and composed the soundtrack for the installation Plankton (2016). He has also worked

with Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) for many years on numerous installations, performances and recordings.

Since the 1990s, Sakamoto has been a staunch supporter of environmental conservation efforts and world peace, and since 2005 he has been actively working to achieve denuclearisation. After the 3/11 disaster in Japan, he became a strong voice of support for the victims of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Fukushima.

Shiro Takatani has been a founding member of the collective Dumb Type since 1984. He has produced numerous performances and multimedia installations and presents his work in theatres and museums around the world. In 1998, Takatani began a solo career alongside his work with Dumb Type. He recently created La Chambre Claire (2008) and CHROMA (2012).

Camera Lucida, the first retrospective exhibition of his work, took place at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum in 2013. His latest creation, ST / LL (2015), with music

by Ryuichi Sakamoto, will be presented at the New National Tokyo Theatre in February 2018.

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GLOSSARY ARCHITECTURE, VISUAL ARTS, PERFORMING ARTS

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A Anime is the most popular Japanese form of animation created from cartoon strips (see Manga).

The term is used both for TV series and feature films. The first Japanese animated productions date from the 1920s, although “anime style” appears in the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, after the Second World War, Japan was inspired by the productions of major American media companies such as Disney. From the 1980s, with the development of technology companies, Japan exported and popularised its anime characters internationally, notably thanks to video games and related products which appealed to the West. The powerful expressiveness of the characters, long pauses and the dynamics of the drawing form the characteristic identity of Japanese animation. The anime film Akira (1988), directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, writer of the eponymous manga, is an important milestone in the history of anime, which had a major impact internationally. Set in a dystopian world, it imagines the outbreak of World War Three, a nuclear war, following an explosion in Tokyo in 1982. Today, the undisputed master of anime is Hayao Miyazaki, cofounder of Studio Ghibli, known for his highly poetic films and his mastery of animated drawing.

Butoh A form of dance which appeared in the aftermath of the Second World War, expressing distress in a way not seen before in Japanese culture, through the movement of the body in extreme situations. The dancer Tatsumi Hijikata was one of the originators of Butoh who, with Kazuo Ono, founded the Ankoku Butoh-ha movement in 1961. They sought an alternative to the Western forms of dance popular in Japan after the war, and to the traditional Japanese performing arts (see Noh), to define a new vocabulary through which the human body could, in harmony with the times, transform itself into any living or nonliving form. Also called “Dance of Darkness” or “Dance of the Dark Soul”, Butoh seeks to translate into slow, poetic and minimal movements what cannot be seen, what is buried within each person. Dance becomes a ritual in which the body is no longer simply a human body, but takes on a primeval, erotic force embodying creation itself. Kazuo Ono said: “Try to find the inner child. With many things coming from outside, it is better to seek to be empty and from there to find something within; the feeling of nostalgia is the root of Butoh”.

Their first show in 1962, accompanied by a publicity campaign featuring the word Butoh, was called Reda Santai (Three Phases of Leda). The two men’s quest continued and evolved until the 1980s and was passed on to other dancers who breathed their own vision into Butoh.

B

D

Bubble economy The Japanese bubble economy or speculative bubble was a phenomenon which occurred between 1986 and 1991. We talk of bubbles and then the bursting of bubbles when prices paid in a market (in particular the stock market or real estate market) are excessive in relation to the intrinsic value of the assets traded. The Japanese economy, having flourished since the post-war miracle, essentially resulted in extreme inflation of real estate prices in the 1980s, with banks taking risks by offering very low interest rates and encouraging excessive consumption in the pursuit of better standards of living. The speculative bubble was, in fact, an opportunity to promote the national interest. Even though Japanese media and industry were involved in the globalisation which created imbalances between those who benefitted and those who suffered from it. The Japanese speculative bubble also had an important effect on the market for art which became a place to invest. In 1985, a sharp depreciation of the American dollar signalled the start of the long collapse of the bubble, as the Japanese found themselves with vast sums of devalued dollars. The Japanese call the period after the bursting of the bubble “the lost decade” and the effect on real estate prices and unemployment was felt until the mid2000s.

Dumb Type A collective bringing together artists, videographers, musicians, architects, choreographers, graphic designers, actors and computer programmers, founded in 1984 by students from Kyoto City Art College. The first members, some of whom are still active today, were Teiji Furuhashi (1960-1995), considered to be the group’s founder, Toru Koyamada, Yukihiro Hozumi, Shiro Takatani, Takayuki Fujimoto and Hiromasa Tomari; They have been joined on some projects by other personalities such as the artist and musician Ryoji Ikeda. The collective aims to bring art out of museums and galleries through interdisciplinary performances, a cross between poetry and cynicism, featuring highly innovative installations combining audio and visual technologies.

Their ambition is to produce a new type of show, which is not only entertaining but also politicised and committed (the group actively campaigns in the fight against AIDS). They are part of the movement which could be called Media Art, which emerged with the economic bubble of the 1980s (see Bubble economy).

The performances of Dumb Type present a distant and critical image of society in which technology has become a “way of life”.

Anime

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F

H

Fluxus Tokyo Fluxus was an international movement from the 1960s which advocated total freedom, the central role of chance in creation, and the abolition of the boundary between art and everyday life (“Art is what makes life more interesting than art”, said one of its members, Robert Filliou). The movement quickly resonated with Japanese artists who, attracted by the American artistic circle of that period, lost no time in settling in New York to experience this interdisciplinary emulation. Between 1963 and 1964, Yoko Ono, Ay-O, the composer Kuniharu Akiyama, Mieko Shiomi and Shigeko Kubota joined the central figure of George Maciunas, a major organiser of Fluxus events.

The forging of ties with Japan was organized by Yoko Ono who returned to Tokyo between 1962 and 1964, with her husband at the time, the composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, and the Korean artist Nam June Paik, who came to Tokyo in 1963; they helped to create interest in performance art amongst other avant-garde artists in Tokyo, setting up to this end a Fluxus centre in Tokyo. Exchanges between Tokyo and New York took form in the magazine V TRE published in New York, which brought together Japanese and American artists. Fluxus Tokyo expressed itself notably through Fluxus Week, organised in September 1965 by Akiyama and Ichiyanagi at the Crystal Gallery in Tokyo, then by a performance/concert entitled From Space to Environment (Kukan kara kankyo e) held in 1966 at the Sogetsu Art Centre.

Hi Red Center In 1963, the artist Genpei Akasegawa, together with Jiro Takamatsu and Natsuyuki Nakanishi, taking the English transcription of the first syllables of their names, formed a highly influential collective in the history of Japanese, post-war neo-avant-garde movement, Taka Aka Naka, better known as High Red Center. Initially, they took part in the Yomiuri Independent Exhibition, an annual exhibition without jury or awards, organized by the Yomiuri newspaper company at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Tokyo; then the Naika gallery offered them a place for a year to organise regular events. Their works, mostly actions, especially street actions, were characterized by an anti-social intellectual irony disguised as something else; for example, the group found a group of guests at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo for the production of Shelter Plan in January 1964: they offered a bomb shelter for one person, compiling fact sheets about the participants’ bodies. A famous urban action was to clean Ginza Avenue in Tokyo (“movement to promote the cleaning and restoring to order of the capital and its surroundings” (1964). They worked with the choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata, who also took a novel interest in the body through a new form of dance performance, Ankaku Butoh style (see Butoh). The seeming banality of the actions of Hi Red Center aimed to provoke reactions from passers-by, to incite the spectators to question the received ideas and the political propaganda.

G

J

Gutaï Active in the post-war period,the Gutai group was one of the leading avant-garde groups in Japan and was part of a wider dynamic of short-lived associations of young artists who performed happenings and outdoor events amongst other things. What set Gutai apart was its longevity (18 years) and its “founding teacher”, the group’s theorist, Jiro Yoshinara. In his fifties, Yoshinara worked alongside younger artists such as Kazuo Shiraga, Shozo Shimamoto and Atsuko Tanaka, and with his experience and material resources, he enabled the group to gain recognition quicker and more easily. Gutai’s watchword was to reinvent artistic practices, especially painting, and “to do what nobody had done before”. Experiments marked by violence and repetition appeared in the works of some of the artists,such as Shimamoto. The artists of the Gutaï group explored possibilities using new, unconventional materials such as mud, tar, dust, coloured liquids, sound and electric light. Action remained key, with the artists using the whole of their bodies to make changes to the materials, without necessarily producing an aesthetic result. Thanks to the French art critic, Michel Tapié, who met the group in 1957, they would become widely respected outside of Japan, in particular amongst Western artists. Gutaï’s last performances, with robots on stage, took place at the Expo’70 world’s fair in Osaka.

Japan-ness Made up of an English root word and suffix, this expression was defined, notably, by the architect Arata Isozaki, in an essay on architecture in Japan, published in 2003, with the aim of identifying the characteristic features intrinsically linked to Japanese culture from the 7th to the 20th century. Isozaki pointed, in particular, to the efforts of his peers to create a specifically Japanese architecture based on modernity. Taking the great shrines as an example, he showed how the periodic and ritual reconstruction of the building on the same site could be an alternative to the modern agonising quest to find origins. The building is not seen as an object but as an event, taking into account the social and historical context.

It is a form open to re-reading and reinterpretation, and not frozen in its material quality. This “Japanness” is felt most during historic moments redefining the Japanese culture in relation to other cultures, a stylised purification borne from the need for cultural transformation, reflecting also a retrenchment peculiar to island states. The culmination of this quest may, according to Isozaki, have been reached in the 1970s, after the Expo’70 world’s fair in Osaka.

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K

Manga Manga (literally “derisory image” or “caricature”), is said to have its origins in the emakimono which appeared in the 8th century. A Japanese adaptation of Chinese and Korean painted scrolls imported by Buddhist monks, these scrolls were read from right to left and initially served to convey Buddhist ideas before becoming the horizontal support for all kinds of narratives. The term manga became common from the end of the 18th century, with Hokusai, for example, calling his collections of prints, some of which were grotesque, “Hokusai Manga”.

It is this work that gave the term its popularity in the West with the wave of Japanism in the 19th century. The word adopted the more general meaning of “comic strip” during the course of the 20th century. The first mangas to be thought of in the modern sense of the term were the caricatures of Yasuji Kitazawa published at the turn of the 20th century. The explosion of the genre took place after the Second World War, under the influence of American comic strips. Major figures of the genre emerged at that time, amongst whom Osamu Tezuka, known as Manga no Kamisama (the God of Manga), who was the first to make a series of animations for television. Manga magazines became very popular in the 1970s and different genres and categories of manga appeared, such as dramas taking place in fantasy historical settings. Female mangaka (manga artists), in particular those of the Year 24 Group (Nijuyo-nen Gumi), revolutionised manga for girls (shojo manga). The phenomenon, which has become an industry, is closely associated with the otaku generation (see Otaku). In 1985, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo devoted a retrospective to Osamu Tezuka, fully integrating manga into the national cultural history.

Kawaï Japanese adjective often translated as “cute”. In reality, the idea conveyed by this word translates innocence, infantility, purity and inexperience. The word is not new, although it only appeared in the dictionary after the war in the form kawayushi, which evolved around 1970 into kawayui, meaning shy, embarrassed, and also vulnerable. We can describe a young child, a person, an animal, a situation as being Kawaii. Kawai characters would soon surge into the entertainment industry (see Manga, see Anime). The Kawai style flooded all media, as well as the consumer goods and service sectors between 1970 and 1990, peaking in the 1980s. Besides the characters, Kawaii also defines a childish, horizontal writing with rounded characters, which breaks with the vertical writing and elongated form of the Japanese characters; It was initially adopted by teenagers, causing problems in schools. The style was then taken up by business and the media, targeting women in particular: in 1977, Sanrio, the creator of Hello Kitty, chose a marketing design aimed at attracting teenage girls; the brand rapidly claimed a monopoly on kawaii, and in the 1990s, sales of its products increased exponentially outside Japan.

M

Media Art See Dumb Type.

Ma The fundamental concept of Ma is used in Japan to define an aesthetic of the void (and its variations: silence, space, duration). In architecture, for example, Ma relates to the traditional Japanese house, open to the outside, representing the absence of a clear transition between interior and exterior. Ma combines both time and space without distinguishing between them as in the West; it can literally be defined as “the natural interval between two or more things that exist within a continuum” or “the natural pause or interval within which phenomena intervene with the passage of time”. This concept is the very foundation of the environment, artistic creation and everyday life, to the point that architecture, art, music, theatre, cooking, the art of gardens are described as “Ma” arts. Identifying space and time without differentiation can be regarded as one of the main reasons for the difference between Japanese and European artistic expression. In 1978, the architect Arata Isozaki created a travelling exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris in which he chose to illustrate this concept; it had a major impact on the understanding of differences in cultural approaches and the particularities of Japanese aesthetics.

Metabolism A trend started by young Japanese architects and urban planners in the late 1950s, when the great Japanese megacities appeared following the post-war reconstruction and economic revival. Represented by architects such as Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa, Masato Otaka and Fumihiko Maki and the architecture critic Noboru Kawazoe, metabolism considered the traditional Japanese laws of construction governing form and function to be obsolete, favouring an extendible, and modular system of architecture and urban planning, following a process of organic growth to overcome the spatial constraints. With the publication of their manifesto Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism they attempted to find solutions to population growth combined with an increase in the movement of people in a very dense urban space; they adopted flexible forms, combining biology with technology, often with spectacular results, such as the capsule buildings, megastructures and floating cities. Kisho Kurokawa conceived the Floating city in 1961, to be built on a lake near Narita airport; from an organic unit in the shape of a spiral, he laid out his city like the growth of cells. In 1960, Kenzo Tange presented his Tokyo Bay Plan, a project for the structural reorganization of Tokyo in 1960, imagining,

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century, ukiyo-e images (literally “pictures of the floating world”) were depicted by Kitagawa Utamaro, Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai, who broadened the subject matter to the entertainments of the contemporary bourgeois society of the Edo period and circulated their creations widely using prints.

Traditional Japanese painting is still taught and cited as a reference by some contemporary artists, such as Takashi Murakami.

for want of space on land, an extension using artificial islands and bridges in order to connect the bay of Tokyo to the Chiba region. Metabolism was an essential movement in the history of Japanese architecture, although few ideas were actually realised.

Mono-ha “The School of Things” appeared in the late 1960s; with the exception of Lee Ufan who was older, it was represented mainly by artists who were still students at the time of the protest movement of 1968-69, such as Nobuo Sekine or Kishio Suga. The Mono-ha trend focused on the artistic encounter between natural and industrial objects, arranged interdependently in their primitive state, in keeping with their environment. Intervention by the artist remained minimal. Understated and sophisticated, the “School of Things” presented itself as a place of learning: “We must be able to observe the world as it is and not transform it through a representation that sets it against man”, Lee Ufan wrote in 1969. In 1962, on the occasion of the Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Nobuo Sekine created his Phase-Mother Earth thought experiment; created at Suma Rikyu Park in Kobe, without official permission, it prefigures Mono-ha.

Sekine cut a cylinder of soil out of the ground the ground and temporarily placed it next to the hole before restoring the site to its original state. In 1970, Kishi Suga wrote: “Whereas being pertains to the perception of a state, existence pertains to the physical consciousness of a thing. (…) Transposing a thing “that exists” into its most extreme state of existence, passing from the state of ordinary things that we commonly recognize to a state of “existence” in which each thing acquires independence: would this not enable us to go beyond the belief that man creates objects? The visual artist must at least be someone who starts by rejecting all feelings, all latent ideas of creating something. To recognize the passage of an object from its state of “ordinary existence” to its state of “extreme existence” is to recognize the necessity of human activity as an intermediary.“

Neo-Dada and anti-art The 1960s were marked by several antiestablishment movements. A small group of artists, the Neo-Dada Organizers, emerged around Masunobu Yoshimura, whose workshop, called the White House and designed by the architect Arata Isozaki, served as a meeting place. Genpei Akasegawa and Ushio Shinohara were among the members of the group. They adopted a term already used by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in the United States (neo-dadaism) and through leaflets, manifestos and happenings, advocated radical, destructive and anarchic actions, which vehemently broke with conventions. The Neo-Dada Organizers arose against a backdrop of rejection of the Japanese-American Security Treaty, which led to violent demonstrations in which the artists actively participated. They also criticised consensual art detached from the reality of their predecessors; their second manifesto proclaimed: “Rotting in the decay of a dyed-in-the-wool aestheticism, contemporary art continues to be intoxicated by this nectar, made possible thanks to solidarity and compromise with society. In these putrid miasmas of stagnant water, our demonstrations constitute an open breach in this reality.” Journalists labelled them “Anti-art” or hangeijutsu, in reference to other disciplines such as the Anti-novel or Anti-theatre.

Neo-Pop Term first used by the art critic Noi Sawaragi in 1992. The resurgence of Pop Art borrowing the same practices: icons, readymades, images of mass culture and advertising, Neo-Pop has been adopted by a generation of artists, particularly for “Otaku youth” (See Otaku), drawing on its language (see Anime, Manga...) and on Japanese visual culture. Neo-pop is also a space to comment on political, social and ecological issues, against the backdrop of the fears of the 1990s and in reaction to the previous generation of artists linked to the speculative bubble (see Bubble Economy). Noi Sawaragi’s theory proposes that NeoPop has made it possible to give form to, and make visible, the “distortion of History” that haunts Japan by combining Japanese elements from different eras and traditions. One of the artists most typical of the term is Takashi Murakami, who grew up in the explosion of mass culture and brings together traditional and religious Japanese art with television, video games and manga, cretaing an aesthetic known as superflat (see Superflat). Yoshitomo Nara is another typical Neo-pop artist.

N Nihonga Nihonga literally means “Japanese painting”. This term refers to pictures created using the techniques, materials, and conventions of traditional Japanese painting passed down from ancestors. Appearing from the seventh century, nihonga finds its origins in watercolour painting on paper or stretched silk, using natural materials (pigments, ink, washes). The term appeared in the Meiji period (1868-1912), to distinguish it from yoga, Western-style painting. The history of nihonga was marked by several major milestones, such as the renewal of the technique in the 17th century by Tawaraya Sotatsu, who defined contours and shapes not with ink, but with colour and spots of paint on layers of still wet paint. In the nineteenth

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Noh Traditional form of Japanese theatre, developed from the fourteenth century, notably at the court of the shogun Yoshimitsu. This dramatic, lyrical genre is thought to have emerged from the fusion of religious rituals, dengaku noh, a form combining rustic music and dance, and sarugaku noh, a rather humorous and popular pantomime, into a series of structured gestures and sounds. The actors are all men who wear sumptuous costumes and distinctive masks; acting with refined and stylized gestures, they are divided into different categories of actors, most often a protagonist (shite), his companion (tsure) and a small chorus made up of seven or eight actors (jiutai).

The chorus is accompanied by drums and a bamboo flute that contribute to creating an atmosphere of intrigue, especially when supernatural events occur.

There are two types of noh: supernatural noh (mugen noh) involving demons and ghosts, and real world noh (genzai noh), depicting human emotions in tragic situations. They are generally inspired by Shinto narratives (see Shintoism) and literary works. Noh was brought to the West by Paul Claudel among others when he was the French ambassador in Japan, then by Marguerite Yourcenar, who translated and analysed the modern noh plays of Yukio Mishima.

of Parco Theatres affirmed a diversification of the brand and its transformation into a place of expression, encouraging the showing of films and the production of shows. The development of the brand accompanied the rise in the number of women working in Japanese society and the favourable economic conditions of the 1980s, with rising purchasing power and individualism instilling a habit of consumption after work. As soon as they opened, the Parco stores became part of the Tokyo cultural circuit, spurred on by the businessman, writer and poet Seiji Tsutsumi. In 1975, he opened the Seibu Museum of Art, the Libro and Art Vivant bookstores in one of its shopping centres, in order to give the centre an image of high culture, luxury, and artistic character. Hyperconsumption combined mass culture with high art, which was further illustrated by the opening of a clothes shop called Comme Des Garçons, a brand created by Rei Kawakubo in 1969. The fashion designer founded the magazine Sixth Sense in 1988, In which she showed her works and those of other artists, removing the distinctions between art, fashion, design...

Post-human A term derived from science fiction and philosophy, “post-humanism” envisions the human being beyond its strictly physical nature, addressing questions of ethics, justice, the social system and more generally, the future of humanity in the Anthropocene epoch.

Transhumanism, which expands human capacities through science and technology (improving the physical and cognitive capacities of the human species to eliminate suffering, disease, aging and even mortality) could be a transition to posthumanism.

The theory of post-humanism is conscious of the imperfectibility of man, and understands the world through heterogeneous perspectives while seeking to maintain an intellectual rigour in the observation of the environment. The post-human has the ability to change perspective; it does not therefore define individuals with their own unique characteristics, but envisions a future open to evolutions.

O Otaku Noun made up of the honorific vowel “o” and the word taku meaning house or home. Otaku refers to a person who spends most of his time on indoor activities, with the risk of being marginalised and rejected for his isolation and extreme behaviour. This type of person is characteristic of postmodernism in Japan (see Postmodernism), representing a loss of bearings caused by retreating from reality into the fictional worlds of manga (see Manga), anime (see Anime) and video games, blurring the boundaries between the original and the copy, the creator and the consumer, the real and the virtual. Businesses specifically targeting the otaku pertain to the consumer society and the homogenisation of the individual, in contrast to the isolation particular to this phenomenon, giving this type of person an important role in the economy.

Postmodernism International term first used in architecture by the art critic Charles Jencks in 1977, regarding creations that marked a break with the principles of modernism or the international style represented by Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. Acknowledging that modern utopia had failed, postmodernism abandoned the great hegemonic narratives of the modern world to return to eclectic, vernacular, popular, ironic and subversive forms. Postmodernism, although its definition was debated, soon became a concept to give a sense to an epoch (post 1980) and a global cultural and societal reaction. It was defined by the negation of pre-war values, maintaining a critical distance to correspond better to the multiple realities of the contemporary world. The favourite manifestation of postmodernism in architecture, design, fashion and the arts was pastiche, parody and adaptation.

P Parco A brand of department stores founded in 1953 in Tokyo and whose first department store opened in 1969. Parco played a part in introducing Western culture and consumption style to Japan (drawing particularly on the Paris model, with its advertising campaigns inspired by France). In 1973, the creation

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Z

Pre-Pop Electronic Music Experimental musical genre that sought to surprise and challenge the audience with a provocative style; going beyond pre-defined standards and styles, it was opposed to standardized commercial pop music. YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) could be described in such terms. Created in 1979 by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, the group combined electronic instruments with machines, working with advanced technologies developed by Japanese industries to parody traditional music or the electronic sounds of video games (8-bit). This use of technological objects, however, is not totally disconnected from the traditional Japanese spirit, as Ryuichi Sakamoto demonstated: “Japan was an animistic people before being dominated by Shintoism (see Shintoism), but we have kept a little of that spirit which can be felt in the way we use our instruments and machines. We do not regard them merely as objects. The Japanese have always been very attached to what they make, whether it be cars, televisions or computers.”

Zen See Minimalisme Zen. Zen Minimalism Inherited from the Buddhist philosophy that arrived in Japan between the 6th and 13th centuries, Zen initially consisted in extreme concentration to reach the essence of being and an inner enlightenment, liberating a person from the excesses of rationalism through meditation on the paradoxes of existence and all things. In a postmodern context (see Postmodernism), Zen minimalism affirms the idea we are not able to store information in proportion to the profusion of images in the consumer society and mass media, and advocates a model of sobriety and asceticism (wabi).

In architecture and the arts, this is reflected in a concern for purity and light; In the Japanese domestic tradition, houses were made of wooden structures, supplemented by fusuma or shoji, sliding doors or rice paper screens supported by a light wooden frame.

Minimalist architects reinvented this tradition by letting light penetrate into constructions open to nature, adapting to the climate, but also recalling the fear of natural disasters and the temporary nature of material things. “Zen minimalist” works enable a link between the body and the environment, between matter and the universe (see also Mono-ha).

S Shintoism Shinto or “Way of the Gods” is a set of beliefs that gradually became established in medieval times as a reaction to the arrival of Buddhism from China and Korea. Shintoism venerates divinities (kami) linked to forces of nature, but also to different places or professional bodies. It is practised through regular attendance at shrines, following the calendar of festivals. Shintoism is not a religion but rather a set of beliefs compatible with other religions; In fact, however, Shintoism was established as the de facto “state religion”» during the Meiji era (1868-1912), when Japan was confronted by the West; If the 1947 Constitution separated religion and state, Shintoism retained a nationalist dimension through the cult of Japanese heroes, nature and territory.

Superflat This term defines an aesthetic (“supeflat”) developed in the late 1990s and 2000s. The term was first used in an exhibition by artist Takashi Murakami at the Parco (see Parco) shopping centre in Nagoya, then at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2001; inspired by anime (see Anime), commercial graphic design and the hyper-sexualized characters of manga comics (see Manga), he merged popular culture, fine art and graphic design into a glossy, two-dimensional aesthetic, playing with the notion of kitsch. This twodimensionality can be found in his interpretation: “flattened” visual forms (2D) – Murakami argues that the fundamental difference between Japanese and Western art lies in the lack of depth of the former –, but also in the superficiality of the contemporary Japanese consumerist society. Besides Murakami, other artists in the movement include Yoshitomo Nara and Aya Takano.

See also Neo-Pop.

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CATALOGUES For its Japan Season, the Centre Pompidou-Metz has produced two publications in French, one dedicated to the Japan-ness exhibition, the other to the Japanorama exhibition, also including pieces on the 10 Evenings event and on Dumb Type..

ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING IN JAPAN SINCE 1945 This publication presents a journey through the history of Japanese architecture, from the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bomb in 1945 to its most recent expressions, and underlines the changes occurring in major Japanese cities by showing the current challenges facing urban planners.

The work presents the achievements of great architects such as Tadao Ando, Kenzo ​​ Tange, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and allows us to discover several architects less well known to Western audiences.

From modernism to pop architecture, from high-tech to low cost architecture, from postmodernism to structuralist studies on typologies, Japanese architecture has always asserted its singularity without ever becoming frozen in a particular defining image. It builds its “Japan-ness”, a concept defined by Arata Isozaki in his book Japan-ness in Architecture, its Japanese essence, by constantly reinventing itself.

NEW VISION ON ART SINCE 1970 Edited by Yuko Hasegawa, Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, this publication explores Japanese creation over the last 50 years in all its facets, from fashion to manga, to visual arts, design, performance art, theatre and music.

It highlights the diversity and extraordinary vitality of Japanese artistic trends through a selection of works by around 100 artists, including Rei Kawakubo, Yayoi Kusama, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Takashi Murakami.

It brings together several essays on Japanese visual culture, by authors such as Yuko Hasegawa, Yasuo Kobayashi and Keisuke Kitano, and provides numerous references to introduce the reader to Japanese culture (detailed chronology, thematic focus, biographical notes...).

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PARTNERS CENTRE POMPIDOU-METZ Centre Pompidou-Metz is the first example of decentralisation of a major national cultural institution, Centre Pompidou, in partnership with local and regional authorities. As an autonomous institution, Centre Pompidou-Metz benefits from the experience, know-how and international renown of Centre Pompidou. It shares with its older relation the values of innovation, generosity, a pluridisciplinary approach and an openness to all visitors.

Centre Pompidou-Metz puts on temporary exhibitions based on loans from the collection at Centre Pompidou, the National Museum of Modern Art, which, with more than 120,000 works, is the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe and the second largest in the world.

It also develops partnerships with museums around the world. As an extention to its exhibitions, Centre Pompidou-Metz offers dance performances, concerts, cinema and lectures.

It is supported by Wendel, its founding patron.

JAPANESE SEASON Media sponsorship:

Japanese Season sponsors:

With support from Vranken-Pommery Monopole.

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Japan-ness exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz from 9 September 2017 to 8 January 2018 as part of the Japanese Season Exhibition co-organised with the Japan Foundation

With the special support from the Ishibashi Foundation

JAPAN-NESS sponsors:

With the support of Society of the Japanese Friends of Centre Pompidou and the help of The Obayashi Foundation.

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Japanorama exhibition at Centre-Pompidou-Metz from 20 October 2017 to 5 March 2018 as part of the Japanese Season Exhibition co-organised with the Japan Foundation

JAPANORAMA sponsors:

With the special support by the Ishibashi Foundation

The exhibition benefits from exceptional loans by MOT, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

With the support of TAIYO KOGYO CORPORATION and UNION. With the support of Society of the Japanese Friends of Centre Pompidou.

The installation Kishio Suga, Law of Peripheral Units, by Kisio Suga, is on display in the Forum of the Centre PompidouMetz from 9 September 2017 to 5 April 2018 as part of the Japanorama exhibition.

With the support of the Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo This work was undertaken as part of the « NOE-NOAH » project with funding from the European Union in the framework of the INTERREG V A programme (2014-2020)

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Dumb Type exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz from 20 January 2018 to 14 May 2018 as part of the Japan Season With the support of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan

With the support of NEC

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The 10 Evenings programme is presented at Centre Pompidou-Metz from September 2017 to March 2018 as part of the Japan Season With the special support of the Sasakawa Foundation

With the special support of Deschanet for the performance Absolute Absence by Saburo Teshigawara and Rihoko Sato

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WENDEL, FOUNDING PATRON OF THE CENTRE POMPIDOU-METZ Wendel has been involved with Centre Pompidou-Metz since 2010. Since the opening of the Centre in 2010, Wendel has wanted to support an iconic institution whose cultural influence affects such a large number of people. For its long-standing commitment to culture, Wendel was awarded the title of Grand mécène de la culture (Grand patron of the arts) 2012.

Wendel is one of Europe’s leading listed investment companies. It operates as a long-term investor and requires a commitment from shareholder which fosters trust, constant attention to innovation, sustainable development and promising diversification opportunities. Wendel has the expertise to choose leading companies, such as those in which it currently owns a stake: Bureau Veritas, SaintGobain, IHS, Constantia Flexibles, Allied Universal, Cromology, Stahl, CSP Technologies, Tsebo, SGI Africa, Mecatherm and Saham Group.

Founded in 1704 in Lorraine, the Wendel Group expanded for 270 years in various activities, in particular in the steel industry, before becoming a long-term investor in the late 1970s.

The Group is supported by its core family shareholder group, which is composed of more than one thousand shareholders of the Wendel family, combined to form the family company Wendel-Participations, which owns more than 36% of the Wendel group’s share capital. www.wendelgroup.com PRESS OFFICE Christine Anglade-Pirzadeh +33 (0)1 42 85 63 24 c.angladepirzadeh@wendelgroup.com

Caroline Decaux +33 (0)1 42 85 91 27 c.decaux@wendelgroup.com

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The Japan Foundation was established in 1972 to promote international mutual understanding through cultural exchange. With 24 foreign offices around the world, the Foundation oversees programs in three main areas: artistic and cultural exchange, Japanese language education abroad and Japanese studies and intellectual exchange. In the field of visual arts, part of the department of arts and culture, the Foundation, independently and in cooperation with other organizations, organizes exhibitions, supports exhibitions on Japanese art abroad and facilitates exchanges between staff members and artists and art professionals. In this way, we strive to present art as a mutual exchange between Japan and other countries. One of the first major exhibitions of modern and contemporary Japanese art in France dates back to 1986. This historic exhibition was Avant-Garde Arts of Japan 1910-1970, a joint project between the Japan Foundation and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The Japan Cultural Institute in Paris (MCJP) represents the Japan Foundation in France and events taking place there are organized in partnership with the Association for the Japan Cultural Institute in Paris. Since 1997, the MCJP has been presenting Japanese culture, both traditional and contemporary, to a wide audience. Major exhibitions have been organized there, among which JOMON – Origins of Japanese Art in 1998, Yayoi KUSAMA in 2001 and COSMOS/ INTIME – The Takahashi collection in 2015-2016.

THE JAPAN FOUNDATION Japan-ness: Suzuki (Ms.), Nagata (Ms.) Japanorama: Namba (Ms.), Tokuyama (Ms.) Tel. +81(0)3-5369-6063 Fax +81(0)3-5369-6038 metz@jpf.go.jp

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Carrying over 50 million passengers each year, ANA - All Nippon Airways is the leading airline company in Japan and the eleventh largest in the world. The company has been operating daily connections between France and Japan since 1990, departing from Paris, but also from Lyon, Nice, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes on code-share flights. Since establishing itself in Paris, ANA has been actively involved in supporting all cultural forms connecting our two countries: exhibitions, music, dance, theatre, photography, cinema... ANA has sponsored exhibitions including Takashi Murakami at the château de Versailles in 2010, French Window at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2011, Marie Laurencin at the Marmottan Monet museum and Impressionism at Givernay’s Museum of impressionism in 2013. Lastly, at the beginning of 2016, an exhibition at Le BAL arts centre in Paris...

Consequently, ANA’s commitment to act as a partner for Centre Pompidou-Metz’s Japan Season is perfectly in line with its policy on sponsorship. It is particularly interesting for us to sponsor a major project outside Paris and symbolised by this magnificent building designed by Shigeru Ban. ANA is dedicated to establishing links, not only between individuals but also between cultures; an essential link for our two countries, each attracted and fascinated by the sensibility of the other. We wish you an fantastic cultural journey which we hope will make you want to go to Japan to attend the Olympic Games of 2020, amongst other things; and to enjoy the excellence of our service.

Moriyuki Tanemura Vice President and General Manager ANA France & Benelux PRESS OFFICE Pascale Le Maillot Tél. 01 53 83 52 44 lemaillot@ana.co.jp

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The Sasakawa Franco-Japanese Foundation received state approval from the Prime Minister in the decree of 23 March 1990. A private, non-profit organization with French legal status, its mission is to « develop cultural relations and ties of friendship between France and Japan ».

Since it was established in 1965, the Cité Internationale des Arts has welcomed artists in residence from all over the world.

It is an environment open to dialogue between cultures, where artists can meet the public and other professionals The Cité Internationale des Arts occupies two complementary sites, one in the Marais and the other in Montmartre. In partnership with 135 French and international organisations, it welcomes more than 300 artists from all disciplines each month for residences that can last more than 6 months.

Present in all areas, it has greatly contributed to the development of exchanges between France and Japan. Since its creation, it has supported more than 700 associations and institutions in carrying through Franco-Japanese projects. It may also design, initiate and co-ordinate projects itself.

Focusing on contemporary aspects of France and Japan, it endeavours to promote the carrying through of innovative projects, helping, in the long term, to develop and create skills networks in fields as diverse as « art and culture, science, technology and know-how, education, training and conferences, publishing, communication and media...

Through committed partnerships such as the one that exists today between the Cité Internationale des Arts and the Centre Pompidou Metz, the foundation forms part of a strong desire to support artists hosted in residence and to reveal the country’s cultural institutions.

PRESS OFFICE www.ffjs.org

Angélique Veillé Communications Officer Tél. +33 (0)1 44 78 25 70 angelique.veille@citeartsparis.fr

PRESS OFFICE Eric Mollet Deputy Director 27, rue du Cherche-Midi 75006 Paris Tél. +33 (0) 1 44 39 30 40 Fax +33 (0) 1 44 39 30 45 siegeparis@ffjs.org

Since its foundation in 1950, Warehouse TERRADA has been developing better storage techniques and investing capital proactively in order to preserve and protect objects in the best environment.

By expanding our business beyond traditional warehousing, we are currently striving to offer preservation and restoration techniques to increase the value of stored items and transfer them to future generations. By making full use of our knowledge as professionals in the creation of space, we are also developing our business to create a centre for promoting modern culture. www.terrada.co.jp

PRESS OFFICE Yasuyuki Korekawa Tel. +81 (0)70-6576-3920 korekawa.yasuyuki@terrada.co.jp

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Waves Actisud shopping centre and Compagnie de Phalsbourg, sponsors of the “Japan-Ness” exhibition at the Centre Pompidou Metz.

Eiffage se distingue en France et dans le monde par l’exceptionnelle diversité de ses compétences et de ses savoirfaire techniques.

Waves Actisud shopping centre, an important economic and commercial player in the greater Metz area, has been supporting cultural and sporting institutions since it opened in 2014. It regularly sponsors exhibitions organised by the Centre Pompidou Metz (Kawamata, Andy Warhol...) and during these partnerships, it offers visitors to the shopping centre the chance to receive admission tickets and to attend private viewings.

Built by the Compagnie de Phalsbourg, Waves is characterized by its remarkable design, a trademark of projects by Compagnie de Phalsbourg, a major operator in the real estate sector in France, which regularly uses internationally renowned architects to complete its projects.

With two large projects by Japanese architects to its credit, « Aurore » by Kongo Kuma and « Mille Arbres » by Sou Fujimoto, it was natural for Compagnie de Phalsbourg together with Waves Actisud to sponsor the « Japan-Ness » exhibition, an exhibition whose design was created by Sou Fujimoto and which will allow visitors to the Centre Pompidou Metz to discover the major influence exerted by Japan on the contemporary architectural scene.

As part of this partnership, the Centre Pompidou Metz and Waves are organising outdoor workshops for children visiting the shopping centre.

Le Groupe est présent dans la construction, l’immobilier, la route, le génie civil, la construction métallique, l’énergie, les concessions et les partenariats public-privé. Il s’appuie sur l’expertise de plus de 66 000 collaborateurs pour réaliser 100 000 chantiers par an.

Eiffage se distingue aussi par son actionnariat salarié, un modèle inégalé en Europe, avec près de 61 000 salariés et anciens salariés qui détiennent 25,3% du capital. Modèle qui contribue à son indépendance, garantie de sa stabilité.

Le Groupe a compris et mesuré les enjeux écologiques et sociétaux, allant jusqu’à se doter de son propre laboratoire de recherche en développement urbain durable, Phosphore,et s’engage, au travers de la Fondation Eiffage, à apporter sa contribution à des associations d’intérêt général.

Eiffage a souvent ouvert la voie. Sa créativité tire son imagination vers le haut pour en faire un Groupe innovant, en phase avec les enjeux de son époque.

PRESS OFFICE Sophie Mairé Direction of communications Tél. 01 71 59 10 62 direction.communication@eiffage.com

PRESS OFFICE Mathieu Boncour Head of institutional relationship and sponsorship Tél. +33 (0)1 53 96 60 31 Mobile +33 (0) 6 83 08 22 13 mboncour@compagniedephalsbourg.com

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VISUALS AVAILABLE TO THE PRESS : SELECTION Visuals of the works, amongst which the pictures below, can be downloaded at the following address: centrepompidou-metz.fr/phototeque

Username: presse Password: Pomp1d57

Kenzo TANGE, Peace CenterComplex, Hiroshima, 1952 © Kenzo TANGE Photo © Kochi Prefecture, Ishimoto Yasuhiro Photo Antonin RAYMOND, Gunma Music Center, Takasaki,

Center

1961 © Collection of Raymond Architectural Design Office Kiyonori KIKUTAKE, Marine City, uncompleted project, 11 February 1959 Graphite and collage of three photos of modules cropped on tracing paper, 50,5 × 56,5 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Jean-Claude Arata ISOZAKI, Cities in the air, uncompleted projects, Tokyo, 1960-1963

Planchet/Dist. RMN-GP © Kiyonori Kikutake

Frankfurt am Main, Deutsches Architekturmuseum Photo © Uwe Dettmar, Frankfurt am Main © Arata ISOZAKI

Shigeru BAN, Curtain wall house (Case Study House 7), Tokyo, 1965 Arata ISOZAKI, Cities in the air, uncompleted

© Shigeru BAN

projects, Tokyo, 1960-1963

Photo © Hiroyuki Hirai

Collection of Arata ISOZAKI & Associates Co. Ltd. Kiyonori KIKUTAKE, Marine City, uncompleted project, 1963 Plexiglas, plaster, glass and metal, 57,1 × 58,5 × 58,5 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP © Kiyonori KIKUTAKE

Kenzo TANGE, National Gymnasiums for the Tokyo Olympics, 1964 © Kenzo TANGE Photo © Makoto Ueda

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Dezain HIHYO (The Design Review), no.1, 2, 3 et 4, octobre 1967

Arata ISOZAKI, Re-ruined Hiroshima, 1968

Photo © Suzanne Nagy

New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).Ink and gouache with cut-and-pasted gelatin silver print on gelatin silver print, 35,2 × 93,7 cm Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation. Acc. n.: 1205.2000 © 2017. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

Sachio OTANI, Pavillon Sumitomo, Osaka, 1970

Yutaka MURATA, Pavillon of Fuji Group, Osaka, 1970

© Sachio OTANI

© Yutaka MURATA

© Osaka Prefectural Expo 1970 Commemorative

© Osaka Prefectural Expo 1970 Commemorative

Park Office

Park Office

Kisho KUROKAWA, Pavillon Toshiba IHI, Osaka, 1970

Kisho KUROKAWA, Pavillon Takara Beautilion, Osaka, 1970

Kishô KUROKAWA, Nakagin Capsule Tower, 1972

© Kisho KUROKAWA

© Kisho KUROKAWA

© Kishô KUROKAWA

© Osaka Prefectural Expo 1970 Commemorative

© Osaka Prefectural Expo 1970 Commemorative

Photo © Makoto Ueda

Park Office

Park Office

Kurokawa Kisho no Sakuhin (Work by Kisho KUROKAWA), Bijutsushuppansha, 1970 Photo © Suzanne Nagy

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Itsuko HASEGAWA, House version 1, Yaizu, 1977 © Itsuko HASEGAWA Photo © Mitsumasa Fujitsuka

TAU, no. 1, 1972 Photo © Suzanne Nagy

Kazumasa YAMASHITA, Face House, Kyoto, 1974 © Kazumasa YAMASHITA © Courtesy of Kazumasa YAMASHITA, Architect and Associates / Ryuji Miyamoto

Tadao ANDO, Light Church, Osaka, Japan (19871989): model Completed project, 1987-1989 Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Tadao ANDO Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMNGrand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian

Shin TAKAMATSU, « Ark », Dental clinic, Fushimi, Kyoto, Japan, Completed project, 1982-1983 Elevation Graphite on paper, 79 × 109,5 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle

Toyo ITO, Tower of winds, Yokohama, 1986 - Scale

© Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Philippe Migeat/

model

Dist. RMN-GP

Metal, plastic and glass, 43 × 55 × 40 cm

© All rights reserved

Completed project Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Toyo ITO Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMNGrand Palais / Bertrand Prévost

Tadao ANDO, Light Church, Ibaraki, District of Osaka, Itsuko HASEGAWA, Garden and Fruit museum,

1989

Yamanashi, 1996

© Tadao ANDO

Photo © Itsuko HASEGAWA

Photo © Mitsuo Matsuoka

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SANAA (Kazuyo SEJIMA + Ryue NISHIZAWA), Atelier multimédia, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, Oogaki, Gifu, Japan, Scale model, 1996 Plastic and polyester, 46 × 152,5 × 92,5 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges

Toyô ITO, Médiathèque de Sendaï, 2000

Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP

Provided by Miyagi Prefecture Sightseeing Section

© Kazuyo SEJIMA

© Toyô ITO Terunonu Fujimori, Takasugi-An (Teahouse), Chino : maquette Projet réalisé, 2003-2004 Paris, Centre Pompidou - Musée national d’art moderne - Centre de création industrielle © Terunonu Fujimori Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMNGrand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian

Sou Fujimoto Architects, Primitive Future House (N House), 2003 Endoh Masaki, Ikeda Masahiro, Natural Ellipse,

Model

arrondissement de Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, completed

Plexiglas, 69 × 63 × 63 cm

project, 2000-2002

Photography: François Lauginie

Study model

Collection Frac Centre-Val de Loire

Canvas and metal rods, 30,5 x 16 x 11 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP

Terunobu Fujimori Takasugi-An (Teahouse), Chino,

© Masaki Endoh, © droits réservés

2004 © Terunobu Fujimori Photo © Makoto Ueda

SANAA (Kazuyo SEJIMA + Ryue NISHIZAWA), Musée d’Art contemporain du 21e siècle, Kanazawa, 2004 Frac Centre / Les Turbulences © SANAA © FRAC Centre-Val de Loire, François Lauginie Junya ISHIGAMI, Atelier KAIT, Institut de technologie de Kanagawa, 2008

Yuusuke KARASAWA, Villa Kanousan, Kimitsu, 2009

© Junya ISHIGAMI

© Yuusuke KARASAWA

© Shokokusha Photographer

© Koichi Torimura

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Kengo KUMA, CG Prostho Museum Reasearch Center, Kasugai-shi, Japan : model, 2008-2010 Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Kengo KUMA & Associates Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMNGrand Palais / Georges Meguerditchian

Takeshi HOSAKA, Restaurant Hoto Fudo,

Takeshi HOSAKA, Restaurant Hoto Fudo,

Fujikawaguchiko, 2009

Fujikawaguchiko, 2009

© Takeshi HOSAKA Architects

© Takeshi HOSAKA Architects

© Nacasa & Partners Inc. / Koji Fujii

© Nacasa & Partners Inc. / Koji Fujii

Sou FUJIMOTO, House NA, 2011

Sou FUJIMOTO, Tokyo Apartment, Tokyo, 2012

© Sou FUJIMOTO

© Sou FUJIMOTO

Photo © Iwan Baan

© Photo: Iwan Baan

Kengo KUMA, GG Prostho Museum Reasearch Center, Kasugai-shi, Japan © Kengo KUMA Photo © Daici Ano

Anna NAKAMURA & Taiyo JINNO (EASTERN design office), On the Corner, Yôkaichi, 2011 © Anna NAKAMURA / Taiyo JINNO © Koichi Torimura

Kiwako KAMO, Masashi SOGABE, Masayoshi Akihisa HIRATA, Pavillon Bloomberg, Musée d’art

TAKEUCHI et Manuel TARDITS (Mikan), Maison à

contemporain de Tokyo, 2011-2012

Jingumae, Tokyo, 2012

Frac Centre / Les Turbulences

© Kiwako KAMO / Masashi SOGABE / Masayoshi

© Akihisa HIRATA

TAKEUCHI / Manuel TARDITS

© FRAC Centre-Val de Loire, François Lauginie

© Jérémie Souteyrat

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Kengo KUMA & Associates, Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, 2012 © Kengo KUMA © Takeshi Yamagishi

Yuusuke KARASAWA, s-house, Saitama, 2013

Projet 1000 arbres Paris

© Yuusuke KARASAWA

Sou FUJIMOTO Architects + OXO Architects

Photo © Koichi Torimura

Cie de Phalsbourg et OGIC

Project 1000 Treas Paris Sou FUJIMOTO Architects + OXO Architects Cie de Phalsbourg et OGIC

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VISUALS AVAILABLE TO THE PRESS : SELECTION Visuals of the works, amongst which the pictures below, can be downloaded at the following address: centrepompidou-metz.fr/phototeque

Username: presse Password: Pomp1d57

Harue KOGA, Sea, 1929 Oil on canvas, 130 × 162,5 cm Collection of The National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo

Atsuko TANAKA, Denkifuku (Robe électrique), 1956/1999

Minoru HIRATA, Nakanishi Natsuyuki’s Clothespins

Seen in elles@centrepompidou exhibition, 4th floor,

Assert Churning Action, for Hi Red Center’s 6th

2009

Mixer Plan event, Tokyo, 1963/2017

86 coloured bulbs, 97 striplights varnished with 8

Silver gelatin print, 33,5 × 22,2 cm

shades, felt, electric cable, adhesive tape, metal,

Courtesy the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery

painted wood, switchbox, circuit breaker, dimmer

Photography / Film, Tokyo

switch, 165 × 90 × 90 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP © All rights reserved Natsuyuki NAKANISHI, Cloths Pegs Assert Churning Action, 1963 Strings, clothespins on canvas, 116,5 × 91 cm The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo © Nobuko Nakanishi

Tetsumi KUDO, Votre portrait-chrysalide dans le cocon, 1967 Installation with light Ouate plastifiée, polyester et lumière noire, 161 × 87 × 78 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne — Centre de création industrielle Tiger TATEISHI, Sphinx of Alamo, 1966

Tadanori YOKOO, Motorcycle, 1966/2002

© Adagp, Paris, 2017

Oil on canvas, 130,3 × 162 cm

Acrylic on canvas, 53 × 45,5 cm

© Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges

Collection of The National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo

Collection of Kurokochi Shun

Meguerditchian/Dist. RMN-GP

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Eikoh HOSOE, Simon: A Private Landscape, 1971/2012

Keiichi TANAAMI, Untitled (Collagebook 3_06),

Silver gelatin print, 35,4 × 45,4 cm

circa 1973

Courtesy the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery

Marker pen, ink, magazine scrap collage on

Photography / Film, Tokyo

drawing paper, 45 × 54 cm © Keiichi TANAAMI Courtesy of the artist and NANZUKA

Tsunehisa KIMURA, Howling at the Pig, 1980 Photomontage, 40,8 x 28,6 cm Collection of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum © Fumiko Kimura

Katsuhiko HIBINO, PRESENT SOCCER, 1982 Acrylic, coloured pencils, sumi ink, cardboard, paper, 72,8 × 108 cm © Katsuhiko HIBINO

Kodai NAKAHARA, Viridian Adaptor + Kodai’s Morpho II, 1989 Wool, plywood Toyota Municipal Museum of Art © Photo by Katsunori Iwase

Nobuyoshi ARAKI, Winter Journey, 1990/2005 Silver gelatin print, 27 × 40,6 cm

Tadanori YOKOO, Fancy Dance, 1989

© Nobuyoshi Araki

FNAC 93767

Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

Centre national des arts plastiques Takashi HOMMA, TOKYO SUBURBIA, Urayasu

© Droits réservés / Cnap

Marina East 21, Chiba, 1995 © Takashi HOMMA

Takashi MURAKAMI, Cosmos, 1998 Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 3000 × 4500 mm (3 panels) / 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Kenji YANOBE, Atom Suit Project – Desert

Courtesy Tomio Koyama Gallery / ©︎1998 Takashi

C-prints, 49,8 × 49,8 cm

Takashi HOMMA, TOKYO SUBURBIA, Boy-1,Keio

MURAKAMI /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Particular collection

Tama center, Tokyo, 1998

/ Courtesy: Tomio Koyama Gallery / Image courtesy:

© Kenji YANOBE

© Takashi HOMMA

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

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Mariko MORI, Video still from Miko No Inori, 1996 © Mariko MORI

Kenji YANOBE, E.E. Pod 1, 1996 Geiger counter, metal, engine, food, water, etc., 150 × 130 × 120 cm

Yayoi DEKI, Mimichin, 1998

Photo by Vincent D. Feldman

Acrylic on board, 145,5 × 103 cm

Courtesy of PERROTIN and YAMAMOTO GENDAI

Takahashi Collection Photo by courtesy of the artist and YAMAMOTO GENDAI

Miwa YANAGI, Yuka, 2000 C-print, Plexiglas, dibon, 160 × 160 cm Edition de 7 Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech Gallery Courtesy of the artist and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo © Miwa YANAGI

Yoshimoto NARA, Ocean Child (in the floating

Yuken TERUYA, You-I, You-I, 2002

world), 1999

Linen, 180 × 140 cm

Reworked woodcut, Fuji xerox copy, 41,5 × 29,5 cm

Collection of The Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Company,

Takahashi Collection © Yoshimoto NARA, 1999 Courtesy of the artist

Limited Zon ITO, Traveling in The Shallows, 2000

© Yuken TERUYA

Embroidery on fabric, wood panel Private Collection © Zon ITO Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery

Motohiko ODANI, Rompers, 2003 Yayoi KUSAMA, Infinity Mirror Room Fireflies on the

Video, approx. 2 min. 52 sec.

Water, 2000

Music: PIRAMI 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art,

FNAC 01-253 Centre national des arts plastiques

Daido MORIYAMA, Shinjuku, 2002 / 2008

Kanazawa

© Yayoi KUSAMA / Cnap

Silver gelatin print, 55,5 × 83.8 cm

Courtesy: YAMAMOTO GENDAI

Photo © Musée des Beaux-Arts / Réunion des

© Daido Moriyama

Photo courtesy of the artist and YAMAMOTO

musées métropolitains Rouen Normandie

Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

GENDAI

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RHIZOMATIKS, live videos of performances from Perfume x Rhizomatiks Research © Photo by Chiaki Nozu Aya Takano, Milk Of Tender Love, 2005 Acrylic on canvas, 162 × 131 cm Motohiko ODANI, Rompers, 2003

© 2005 Aya Takano/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All

Video, approx. 2 min. 52 sec.

Rights Reserved.

Music: PIRAMI

Courtesy Perrotin

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Courtesy: YAMAMOTO GENDAI

Rinko KAWAUCHI, Untitled from the series of Illuminance, 2007 Rinko KAWAUCHI, Untitled (I54), 2007

© Rinko KAWAUCHI

Illuminance. C-print, 50 × 50 cm Edition of 1/6

Yoshitomo NARA, Sayon, 2006 Acrylic on canvas, 146 × 112.5 cm The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo © Yoshitomo NARA, 2006 Courtesy of the artist

Chim>Pom, SUPER RAT (diorama), 2008 5 rats (stuffed after being caught in Shibuya), diorama of town of Shibuya, monitor, etc., 136 × 89 × 89 cm Osamu KITADA Photo : Yoshimitsu Umekawa © Chim>Pom Courtesy of MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo ANREALAGE, collection LOW, Autumn-Winter 2011-2012 © ANREALAGE Izumi KATO, Untitled, 2010 Wood, oil, acrylic, stone and iron,

Naoya HATAKEYAMA, Rikuzentakata / 2011.5.1

166 × 230 × 230 cm

Yonesaki-cho, 2011/2015

Photo: Claire Dorn

C-print, 38 × 47 cm

PIV-H Collection, Austria

© Naoya HATAKEYAMA / Courtesy of Taka Ishii

©2010 Izumi Kato

Gallery, Tokyo

Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin

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Lieko SHIGA, Rasen Kaigan 31, 2010

Chim>Pom, LEVEL 7 feat. “Myth of Tomorrow”, 2011

C-type print, 1200 × 1800mm

Video © Chim>Pom

© Lieko SHIGA

Courtesy of MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo

Kohei NAWA, Force, 2015

Kohei NAWA, Force, 2015

ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

© Kohei NAWA, Photo

© Kohei NAWA

© ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Photo: Tobias Wooton and

Photo: © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

Jonas Zilius

Photo: Tobias Wooton and Jonas Zilius

Kohei NAWA, Force, 2015 ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

ANREALAGE, collection ROLL,

© Kohei NAWA

Autumn-Winter 2017-2018

Photo : © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

© ANREALAGE, in collaboration

Photo : Tobias Wooton und Jonas Zilius

with KOHEI NAWA | SANDWICH

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VISUALS AVAILABLE TO THE PRESS : SELECTION Visuals of the works, amongst which the pictures below, can be downloaded at the following address: centrepompidou-metz.fr/phototeque

DumbType, Pleasure Life, 1988

DumbType, pH, 1990

Performance

Performance

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Username: presse Password: Pomp1d57

DumbType, pH, 1990 Performance DumbType, Pleasure Life, 1988

DumbType, pH, 1990

Performance

Performance

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

DumbType, pH, 1990

DumbType, pH, 1990

Performance

Performance

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

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DumbType, Lovers, 1994

DumbType, Lovers, 1994

Installation

Installation

Photo: ARTLAB, Canon Inc.

Photo: Haruhiro Ishitani

DumbType, S/N, 1994

DumbType, S/N, 1994

Performance

Performance

Photo: Yoko Takatani

Photo: Yoko Takatani

DumbType, S/N, 1994

DumbType, S/N, 1994

Performance

Performance

Photo: Yoko Takatani

Photo: Yoko Takatani

DumbType, Lovers, 1994 Installation Photo: Haruhiro Ishitani

DumbType, S/N, 1994

DumbType, OR, 1997

DumbType, S/N, 1994

Performance

Performance

Performance

Photo: Yoko Takatani

Photo: Arno Declair

DumbType, S/N, 1994

DumbType, OR, 1997

DumbType, OR, 1997

Performance

Performance

Performance

Photo: Yoko Takatani

Photo: Arno Declair

Photo: Arno Declair

Photo: Yoko Takatani

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DumbType, memorandum, 1999 Performance Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

DumbType, memorandum, 1999 Performance Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga DumbType, memorandum, 1999 Performance Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

DumbType, Voyage, 2002 Performance

DumbType, Voyage, 2002

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Performance Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

DumbType, Voyage, 2002

DumbType, Voyage, 2002

DumbType, Voyage, 2002

Performance

Performance

Performance

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

Photo: Kazuo Fukunaga

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Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

Shiro Takatani, Toposcan / Ireland, 2013

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Photo Courtesy : NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Installation

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

Installation

Installation

Installation

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

DumbType, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, 2014

Installation

Installation

Installation

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

Photo: Shizune Shiigi

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VISUALS AVAILABLE TO THE PRESS : SELECTION Visuals of the works, amongst which the pictures below, can be downloaded at the following address: centrepompidou-metz.fr/phototeque

Username: presse Password: Pomp1d57

Evenings #3+#4 Fuyuki YAMAKAWA Photo: Yusuke Tsuchida

Evening #4

Evening #4

Evening #5

Norimizu Ameya, Blue Sheet, Fukushima, 2013

Norimizu Ameya, Gun, 2016

Min TANAKA, solo dance Yamanashi Pr./Dance

© Norimizu Ameya

© Norimizu Ameya

Hakushu Festival,2009 © Madada Inc.

Photo © Kei Okuaki

Evening #6 Performance Gozo YOSHIMASU et Kukangendai, MOMAT, 2016 Photo by Keizo Kioku Courtesy: The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Evening #6

Evening #6

Gozo YOSHIMASU performing a reading

Gozo YOSHIMASU perform poetry reading,

Photo: Sayuri Okamoto

2016 The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo Photo © Keizo Kioku Courtesy The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Evening #6 Gozo YOSHIMASU perform poetry reading, 2016 / The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo Photo © Keizo Kioku / Courtesy The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

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Evening #6

Evening #6

Portrait of Mariko ASABUKI

Portrait of Sugio YAMAGUCHI

Evening #7 Ryoji IKEDA, supercodex [live set], 2013 Concept, composition: Ryoji IKEDA Computer graphics, programming: Tomonaga TOKUYAMA Evening #6

© Ryoji IKEDA

Portrait of Ryoko SEKIGUCHI and Felipe RIBON

Photo by Ryo Mitamura

Evening #8 Saburo TESHIGAWARA, Broken Lights Photo: Jochen Schindowski

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Evening #8 Saburo TESHIGAWARA, Broken Lights Photo: Jochen Schindowski

Evening #8 Saburo TESHIGAWARA, Fragments of Time Photo: Bengt Wanselius Evening #8 Saburo TESHIGAWARA, Fragments of Time Photo: Bengt Wanselius

Evening #8

Evening #9

Evening #10

Saburo TESHIGAWARA, Fragments of Time

Yasumasa MORIMURA, portrait

Ryuichi SAKAMOTO, portrait

Photo: Bengt Wanselius

Nippon, chachacha. My Art, my story, My Art History

Photo by Zakkubalan

Photo by Kazuo Fukunaga

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PRESS OFFICE Centre Pompidou Metz Diane Junqua Head of Communications and Development +33 (0)3 87 15 39 66 diane.junqua@centrepompidou-metz.fr Regional Press Noémie Gotti Communications and Press Relations Officer +33 (0)3 87 15 39 63 noemie.gotti@centrepompidou-metz.fr CLAUDINE COLIN COMMUNICATION National and International Press Pénélope Ponchelet Press Officer +33 (1) 42 72 60 01 penelope@claudinecolin.com

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