From August 2 (Sat) to November 23 (Sun), 1997, Art Tower Mito (ATM) is holding a comprehensive exhibition on Japanese art from the 1960s. The exhibition takes a look at art of the period in the broadest sense, including visual art, music, and photography.So far, many recollective exhibitions have been held in Japan that have treated the same period. However, ATM's exhibition is characterized by two major features distinguishing it from the others.
First, each of ATM's various divisions - music, drama and art - has cooperated closely in organizing the current exhibition. The Japanese art world in the 1960s was known for its passionate spirit of deconstruction and synthesis, with artists reaching beyond traditional genre boundaries in the pursuit of new ventures. That passion was like a wildfire leaping successively from one field to the other - from art and music to dance and drama, and to photography. During the current "Japanese Art, 1960s" exhibition, each section of the ATM complex - particularly the Contemporary Art Gallery but also the ACM Theatre, Concert Hall ATM, the Plaza and Entrance Hall - is being put to work to provide an appropriate venue for such a comprehensive project.
The other main characteristic differentiating this recollection from other exhibitions is its exploration of the significance for us today of the manynew streams of artistic activity that emerged in the turbulent decade of the 1960s. Those include the Japanese avant-garde movement led by the Neo-Dadaism Organizers, John Cage's "Accidental Music," and dramas produced by the boundary-hopping artist, Shuji TERAYAMA. As many of the artistic trends initiated in those years have survived to the present, the exhibition spurs us to reflect on such questions as what has been passed down from the1960s, and whether we can build on that inheritance and go beyond it.
Japanese Art, 1960s
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